A walking tour of Darwin unearths a story of war, disaster, and survival

As I stand at the end of Darwin's Smith Street Mall, a strange thing happens: a crocodile's huge head looms out of the footpath, its jaws open wide and its eyes an evil yellow. It's an illusion, of course, a trick of forced perspective via a clever piece of street art – the croc's head looks like a long smear of paint until you stand in just the right position.

This artistic sleight of hand will not be the last surprise of the day.

My wife Narrelle and I are about to join the Hidden Secrets of Darwin Walk, a two-hour tour which ducks and weaves through the city's CBD, unearthing art and history.

Our guide, John, starts the walk by pointing to the statue of explorer John McDouall Stuart which stands in nearby Raintree Park. A contemporary of Burke and Wills, McDouall Stuart successfully crossed Australia from the southern coast to the north and back again, establishing a route for our first international telegraph line.

Darwin was eventually founded as Palmerston in 1869, then renamed in 1911, and its development has been far from plain sailing. "Darwin has been destroyed four times in its history," John tells us. "Three times by cyclones, and once by wartime bombing."

Those disasters account partly for the CBD's very modern appearance, dotted with bland apartment buildings and office blocks. But they make up for their lack of distinctiveness with artistic opportunity, and many bear large commissioned murals.

In a back alley, West Lane, we pause at a huge multicoloured turtle swimming along a wall, painted by a local Larrakia man nicknamed Hafleg, who got his start as a tattoo artist. Nearby is a big colourful painting of the word "Milabirra", which is Larrakian for "womankind".

Passing a mural of a red kangaroo balancing atop a small grey van, we head to the courtyard of the historic Victoria Hotel. Opened in 1890, it was a haven for early aviators (including those who arrived on the first flights between the UK and Australia, which took 28 days), until it closed in 2014.

Back across the mall, we're led into the grounds of the open-air Star Cinema, which opened in 1933 and ran until 1974, when it was shut down by Cyclone Tracy. ("Its last screening was of a music festival movie, Celebration at Big Sur," John tells us.) What remains is now a pleasant shopping arcade, with one wall holding the battered tin star which sat on top of the building before being toppled by the high winds.