Darwin Sunset Times by Month

Sunset in Darwin falls between 6:28 pm and 7:20 pm all year. The earliest sunsets come in late May and early June, the latest in late January, by the U.S. Naval Observatory’s figures. The time moves by less than an hour across the year because Darwin is only 12 degrees south of the equator, and the Northern Territory has no daylight saving, so the clock never jumps. The sky keeps its colour for about 22 minutes after the sun has gone.

The sunset cruises are timed around it: out at 5 or 6 pm and back at 8, so the sun goes down in the middle of every cruise in every month.

See dates for a sunset cruise

Sunset by month

Sunset and the end of civil twilight at Stokes Hill Wharf, Darwin, from the U.S. Naval Observatory, for November 2026 to October 2027; local time, UTC+9:30. “Light until” is the end of civil twilight, when the sky is still bright enough to see without lights.

Where the sun sets

From Stokes Hill Wharf you look west across Darwin Harbour to the low shore around Mandorah. In the dry season the sun sets well to the right of due west: in June at about 294 degrees, past Mandorah, and in mid-May and early August straight behind it. In March and September it sets due west, over open water, and in December at about 246 degrees, over the harbour’s southern reaches. Out on a cruise the boat turns, so you see it whichever way it goes down.

How long the colour lasts

The sun takes only a couple of minutes to drop below the horizon this close to the equator, and the twilight is short too: civil twilight, the bright part of the afterglow, ends 21 to 24 minutes after sunset in every month. So be on deck, or at the rail, by the sunset time in the table: ten minutes late and the best of it has gone. In the build-up, October to December, the storm clouds that build over the water in the afternoon can catch the last light long after the sun itself has set.

When the cruises leave

Even at the latest sunsets of the year, about 7:20 pm in late January, the last of the light has gone by about 7:42, before any cruise docks at 8. In June, on the Charles Darwin, the sun sets less than half an hour after it leaves the wharf, so be up on the sundeck early.

Watching it from land

The free places to watch are on the western side of the peninsula: Mindil Beach, where the sunset market runs on Thursday and Sunday evenings in the dry season, and the shore of Fannie Bay north of it. Stokes Hill Wharf faces the harbour too, with restaurants on the wharf. The Mindil Beach guide compares the market with a cruise, and the dry season or wet season guide has the weather by month.