User:Aliceinthealice/sandbox/Darwin Rocksitters

The Darwin Rocksitters Club was a club formed in Darwin in the Northern Territory in 1974. Rocksitting, sometimes known as rock sitting, is the practice of sitting on rocks and drinking beer for as long as they were able.

What made this unique was that the rocks they sat on would be a metre underwater at high tide in the crocodile infested waters.

History

The Darwin Rocksitters Club began in 1974 when a group of journalists gathered on the cliffs at East Point on a Sunday afternoon to drink beer, tell stories (spin a yarn) and watch the sunset. This soon became a regular event and the club began to meet every Sunday. One of the members of the club, Robin Davy, said of it:

You have to remember, in those days Darwin was smaller, nobody was watching TV, no iPhones, none of that. We had to make fun and that was the way we did it.

— Robin Davy, ABC Radio Darwin, 2018

The group grew rapidly and published a list of Official rules for a rock-sit-athon and the first rule was "there shall be no funny business on The Rock". The third and fifth rules were simply "[n]o funny business".

They soon decided to make a world record attempt and rock sat for 5 days; their success was ignored by an official record-keeping company for drinking too much beer. However, other clubs formed in Victoria and New Zealand and the new Zealand club, The Parua Bay Sitters, soon broke their record when they sat for 6 days.

Darwin won the title back with an 8 day sit in October 1978, which was run to commemorate the passing of the Northern Territory (Self-Government) Act 1978, and the new Northern Territory flag was raised. Several other marathon sits were conducted and they were often used to raise money for charity, these including a 12 day world record that was set in 1980. On the 11th day of this sit in an official complaint was made to the Northern Territory Police Commissioner concerning drinking in a public space, police then visited the sitters and took the names of all people sitting at or visiting the rock, and the remaining day of the sit in was in doubt. Despite this they were able to complete their record. Also in 1980 the rocksitters and held their first sit on the inaugural flight from Sydney to Los Angeles and also held a sit on Uluru.

Two popular stories of the rocksitters are that two people once met at the rock and went on to get married and that many other former sitter have had their ashes scattered on the rock.

Rocksitting declined with the enforcement of public drinking laws and the club was debated in Northern Territory Legislative Assembly in 1978, with concerns being raised that the club (and events like the Darwin Beer Can Regatta) where affecting the Northern Territories image in the rest of Australia, and that "down south many people think Territorians to be backward, drunken country hicks".

In the 1980s the original rocks used by the club was broken up by a lightning strike and further damage was done to the remaining rocks during heavy swells in 2012.

Their 40th Anniversary was celebrated in 2017.

Memorial plaque

A memorial plaque to the Darwin Rocksitters Club was first put in place at East Point in 1987 by foundation member Beat Erismann (photographer) in honour of their 10th anniversary. This was later damaged and replaced in 2001.