According to Torres Strait oral tradition, Daru was founded by people from Yam Island, 150 kilometres to the south. In the Kulkalgau Ya language, they called the developing mud island Dhaaru. The Yama had long-standing trading and family contacts with the Trans-Fly Papuans, and their settlement predated the Kiwai conquests of the southwestern Fly Delta, perhaps by 700 years or more. When the Kiwai expanded their territory, most Yama chose to flee south rather than submit, eventually settling in the Muralag group at the far end of the Torres Strait. A small core stayed on Daru and were gradually absorbed into Kiwai society. The Kiwai pronounced their name Hiamo, a slight reshaping of Yama that persists in local memory.

Despite its status as a provincial capital, Daru has benefited little from the mining wealth that defines Western Province. The Ok Tedi gold and copper mine at Tabubil, hundreds of kilometres upriver, generates enormous revenue but little of it reaches this coastal town. Airlines PNG operates daily flights from Port Moresby, providing the primary connection to the outside world. Yachts sailing from Australia to Port Moresby sometimes anchor here, making Daru an accidental waypoint on a longer journey. The town offers relatively little to interest visitors beyond fishing. But for the people who live here, Daru is the administrative and commercial center of a province larger than many countries.

What Daru lacks in infrastructure, it compensates with access to some of the richest fishing grounds in the region. The Gulf of Papua teems with barramundi and black bass, and fishing trips can be arranged through the Kuki Hotel. Barramundi is the prize catch, a silver giant that thrives in the brackish waters where the Fly River meets the sea. The traditional staple food, however, is sago, a starch extracted from the pith of sago palm stems. It is cooked in various forms: rolled into balls, mixed with boiling water to form a thick paste, or flattened into pancakes. The diet here reflects the environment, river and sea providing protein while the palm forests supply carbohydrates.

Daru serves as the departure point for some of the most remote and ecologically extraordinary destinations in Papua New Guinea. PNG Air flies from here to Kiunga, a transit point for the Ok Tedi mine and a destination for serious birdwatchers drawn to the upper Fly River's avian diversity. Lake Murray, PNG's largest lake, expands fivefold during the rainy season, creating a vast seasonal wetland. Tabubil, the mining town itself, receives up to 10 metres of rainfall per year, earning an unofficial reputation as one of the wettest inhabited places on Earth. The surrounding forests harbor enormous moths, bird-eating spiders, and species of cuscus found nowhere else. North of Tabubil lies Telefomin, near the border with West Sepik province, where the Telefomin Roundleaf Bat inhabits limestone caves. All of these places are reached through Daru, the modest capital that connects Papua New Guinea's wildest province to the rest of the country.