The area around Darwin – at the northernmost part of Australia's Northern Territory – is a vibrant place full of natural and man-made wonders, writes Verney Naylor
SITTING ON the sand at Mindil Beach, eating spicy prawn salad and chicken satay, watching the last rays of the westering sun turn the heavy clouds pink, we wallowed in the warmth of the tropical evening.
Wandering around the stalls of Mindil Beach Market on one of its last openings of the season, we were sampling the many exotic foods – largely Asian in origin. Lots of colourful crafts and jewellery, a young boy ferociously demonstrating how to crack a whip on a stock whip stall, another lad doing a passable imitation of Michael Jackson, tie-dyed sarongs and much more.
This vibrant market takes place on Thursday and Sunday evenings, May to October, and shouldn’t be missed if you are visiting Darwin. But you need to be here at the right time of year – seasons are important here.
North Australia doesn’t do winter and summer – it’s “The Dry” (May to October) and “The Wet” (November to April). We were there in October during “The Build Up” – with late afternoon thunder and lightning and occasional heavy showers.
Once The Wet proper arrives, options for tourists in the “Top End” (as this northern part of the Northern Territory is called) are limited. The monsoonal rain causes the rivers to flood and the dirt roads become impassable, making it difficult to get about.
Apart from the inconvenience, The Wet can also be dangerous. Early in the morning of Christmas Day 1974, Cyclone Tracy swept in from the Timor Sea and devastated Darwin, with the loss of 66 lives and the destruction of half the buildings. A gripping exhibit explaining this disaster can be seen at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory where you can even stand in the dark and experience the scary sound of this violent storm – recorded at the time. We relaxed over lunch on the deck of the museum cafe, watching the waves lapping the shore of the Timor Sea – so peaceful now.
A previous threat from the north had been during the second World War when Darwin was heavily bombed by the Japanese, with resultant great loss of life and damage to property. A reminder of this can be seen at the small sleepy town of Adelaide River (114 km south of Darwin on the Stuart Highway) where Australia’s largest war cemetery lies surrounded by clipped hedges and flowering trees. Simple stone slabs with the names of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and civilians who perished are lined out between the manicured grass edges in these immaculate grounds. It was all quite moving in spite of the intense heat during our visit.
GIVEN AN EARLY start, a visit due south to Litchfield National Park can be done in a day from Darwin. Our first stop was to look at termite mounds, although I was already obsessed with these extraordinary features of much of the Australian landscape. Like giant ant hills, but solid, they are made by social insects similar to ants but apparently more closely related to cockroaches. You don’t see these grubs – just their nests that they make by mixing their saliva, excreta and soil which then sets almost as hard as cement. So hard, in fact, that during the last war, air strips were made of crushed termite mounds.
Each species of termite builds its nest in a different shape. We had seen many shapes from low dumpy mounds to tall buttressed columns (appropriately built by cathedral termites). Particularly fascinating were the magnetic termite mounds whose flat sides faced east and west so that they were aligned along a north-south axis like so many headstones in a graveyard. A strange sight.
Litchfield Park includes a large part of the Table Top Range and the rivers tumbling off the edge of this plateau form spectacular waterfalls with beautiful swimming pools at their base. The short circular walks around most of these waterfalls take you through tropical forest – rock wallabies, palms, creepers, ferns, strange flowers and the cries of unknown birds. Fortunately no snakes or spiders – at least none were visible.
The three-day tour to Kakadu National Park was the highlight of our time in the Top End. It was a long drive west from Darwin to Ubirr where we went for a walk through a really impressive “gallery” of Aboriginal rock art. Most of it is thousands of years old, painted in red, white and yellow ochre, with many pictures superimposed onto each other. Then at the end was a rough clamber up a series of rocky terraces to the top. Here, we had a 360-degree view over partially flooded plains, huge rock outcrops and, to the east,the long line of the escarpment that forms the edge of Arnhemland.
Time to ponder on the ancient lineage of the Aboriginal peoples who first came to this continent from the north possibly as long as 60,000 years ago – 25,000 years before Europe was inhabited by homo sapiens. It is thought they made the crossing of the Timor Sea when sea levels were much lower, and then spread out over this vast land, painting rocks and weaving stories about their journeys as they went.
Driving south down the Kakadu Highway, Nourlangie Rock is another amazing “art gallery”. Kakadu has more ancient rock art than anywhere else in Australia, though not all of it is easily accessible to the tourist. It is because of this wonderful art that Kakadu has become a World Heritage site. It is administered by the Northern Territory but is owned by the Aboriginal people, who also own and control large swathes of land all over Australia with limited access to much of it.
For instance, you require a permit to visit the huge plateau of Arnhemland to the east which can only be reached from the west via Cahill’s Crossing – a ford over the East Alligator River. Easy enough in The Dry, impossible in The Wet and very risky in The Build Up. We watched as a four-by-four made its way back to Kakadu across the rapidly flowing, crocodile infested river. Other vehicles were not so lucky and apparently might be trapped there for several months. We took a thrilling half-hour plane ride over Arnhemland to get a feel for this huge empty space with scarcely a sign of life down below.
Leaving our hotel at Katherine, our furthest point south, at 6am the next morning , we pass wallabies eating grass in the half-light as we headed for a breakfast cruise on Katherine Gorge. Difficult to concentrate on our meal because gazing at this wonderful feature took all our attention. We had already seen a few gorges, but this was the favourite. It was a proper gorge – narrow with high rocky walls and white water rapids. Also, we were the first boat that morning and had the views to ourselves – an advantage of the early start.
When we finally left Darwin Airport early in the morning the lightning flashed, the thunder rumbled and there were some delays but we managed to escape The Wet. I wondered about those people who were trapped the other side of Cahill’s Crossing – did they get out? And yet, I felt it might not be so bad to have to spend a few months isolated at the Top End. There might be time to absorb and try to understand all those stories so graphically painted on the rocks.