Darwin
The territory's capital with its fusion of cultures and close proximity to Mother Nature is creeping onto an increasing number of cruise itineraries.
Best Time to Visit: High season is the dry from May to October. Average dry temperatures range from 16-32 degrees Celsius; average wet season temperatures range from 25-33 degrees Celsius
Top Dining: For first-class harbourside dining try the excellent Pee Wees Beachside Caf at Fannie Bay. Phone: (08) 8981 6868. Kakadu and Litchfield Parks: Odyssey Tours & Safaris operates small group accommodated tours to both parks. Phone: (08) 8948 0091 or freecall 1800 891 190.
Pre/Post Cruise Accommodation: The Darwin Central Hotel, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn and Novotel are all centrally located. The MGM Grand Hotel and Casino is just minutes from downtown.
Tourist information: Contact NTTC on 13 61 10 or visit www.ntholidays.com and www.tourismtopend.com.au.
Cabbies have the knack of encapsulating a city's mood. Eddie, a former Sydneysider who fled to Darwin five years ago, expressed it like this: "Mate, coming here was the best thing I ever did. I work all year in shorts, I don't get lumbered in traffic jams and I bought a great house for the price of a tacky one-bedroom Sydney apartment. Darwin's got future written all over it and I'm on board for the duration."
Things are happening in the Top End. Optimism runs as freely as the beer, spurred somewhat by the arrival of the $1.3-billion Alice Springs to Darwin railway. Although the one-kilometre-long train arrived 100 years late it carries 550 passengers each way and is injecting wads of southern dollars into town.
Cruise passenger arrival numbers have doubled to around 21,000 since 2001, largely due to the increased size of visiting vessels. This calendar year, 16 cruise ships will call at Darwin and arrivals are expected to increase in coming years. Acknowledging that the existing port facilities are inadequate, the Northern Territory government recently announced a $2.5-million upgrade to Darwin's Fort Hill passenger wharf as part of a $60-million spend on Top End tourism infrastructure.
Other factors contributing to Darwin's buoyant outlook include the imminent $600-million port redevelopment (incorporating a convention and exhibition centre), expansion of shipping links into Asia and strengthening defence, surveillance and training commitments across the Top End. The government is also heavily promoting Kakadu and Litchfield National Park, the two key tourism destinations on Darwin's doorstep.
As tourism to Kakadu peaked following the release of Paul Hogan's movie Crocodile Dundee, locals are keenly awaiting another Hogan-like boost. It's hoped wildlife expert and engaging television personality Steve Irwin (The Crocodile Hunter) will spur tourism interest in the Territory.
Genuine Territorians, however, don't really sound like Steve in his Aussie "crikey" mode. Truth is, Darwin is a town where just about everyone hails from somewhere else. They come from all over Australia, many fleeing the hassles of our big cities. There's a strong Asian heritage and UK, Irish and European accents abound. In one well-patronised pub more than half the female bar staff had foreign accents. Quipped one barfly: "I reckon they recruit them at the youth hostel. They're here today, Kakadu tomorrow."
Although Darwin is small - just 90,000 inhabitants - it has enough visitor highlights to keep most travellers contented for some time. Perched on a thumb of land protruding into Darwin Harbour, the city is a clean and compact grid of low-rise buildings and lush parkland. In the streets, elegant native palms and tall trees rival corrugated sheet awnings as sunshades. There are few cars and no traffic hassles. Dress is casual; males prefer shorts and thongs. Shoppers - even in the downtown Smith Street Mall - are so sparse on the ground you'd need a drover's dog to round them up for a store sale. But you can enjoy close encounters with humanity at Darwin's Mindil Beach Sunset Market, which offers great sunsets as well as terrific multicultural food and music. Another excellent market is the bustling Saturday Parap Market.
Most of downtown Darwin's night-time action is centred along Mitchell Street, home of backpacker venues, bars, hotels, quality restaurants and tour agency offices. Clusters of tanned young people gather in popular waterholes such as Shenannigans Irish Pub, leafy Lizard's Bar and Rorke's Drift, all celebrating winter temperatures significantly warmer than an English summer. Running parallel with Mitchell Street is The Esplanade, which fronts Bicentennial Park and expansive Darwin Harbour. The harbour looks innocent enough but yields up to 200 crocs each year, which tends to put even backpackers off impromptu skinny-dipping. Major tourist hotels front The Esplanade and Bi-Centennenial Park is popular with tourists and aborigines who gather under shady trees to swap stories and make music. Aborigines actually comprise one quarter of the NT's population of around 200,000.
Darwin's big decisions are shaped in the grand-scale parliament house at the other end of the park. Looming like an albino colossus from the vivid green lawns of verdant State Square, this muscular 1994 fusion of tropical and classical architecture has clearly been erected with indestructibility in mind. You can understand this sentiment: having been bombed to rubble by the Japanese in 1942/43 and totally devastated by Cyclone Tracy in 1974, Darwin is determined to remain intact.
If you stop for coffee on the patio of parliament house (there are also tours) you can later continue towards the port to visit the interesting World War Two oil storage tunnels, which plunge underground just before the Fort Hill and Stokes Hill wharves. One 170-metre-long tunnel hacked out of rock and lined with metal is open for viewing. It contains 13 interesting information points with photographs and text depicting the bombing of Darwin and the War. More war memorabilia, actual footage of the bombing of Darwin together with exhibits of guns and vehicles can be seen at the near-by East Point Military Reserve.
The most popular attraction in Darwin is Aquascene at Doctors Gully at the northern end of Bi-Centennial Park. Each day visitors congregate at the water's edge to hand-feed large schools of fish on the incoming tide - it's a hit with kids.
Minutes away is Cullen Bay Marina, an upmarket development of units, marina and restaurants. Close by at picturesque Fannie Bay is the MGM Grand Casino complex, a popular evening rendezvous. Fannie Bay also hosts the excellent Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, which features an edifying Cyclone Tracy exhibition, a great collection of sea-going boats and a stuffed monster male croc oddly called Sweetheart. Infamous for persistently attacking and crunching up noisy outboard motors, which it mistook for intruding male crocs paging female companionship, terrified fishermen petitioned for the croc's capture. Sadly, Sweetheart accidentally drowned during efforts to remove her from the Finnis River.
Imperative for the croc-curious is a visit to Crododylus Park located on the fringe of town. The Park incorporates a croc research centre, croc museum, "leaping" crocs at feeding times, tasty croc-burgers and croc-handbags. Although the young Englishman who hosts the croc tour is hugely entertaining, he notably fails to utter one fair dinkum "crikey!". He needs more training.
No visitor to Darwin should overlook Kakadu or Litchfield National Parks. But as Kakadu alone measures 20,000 square kilometres you need to cherry-pick highlights if you're pressed for time. There are day trips to the impressive waterfalls and billabongs of Litchfield (such as Tolmer and Wangi Falls). Two-day trips into Kakadu as well as highlights of both parks over three days are also available for travellers with limited time to explore pre or post cruise.
Basically, Kakadu is either wet or dry. In the wet the sky swirls with spectacular storms, waterfalls roar, rivers burst their banks and the land becomes a giant billabong. Parched plains suddenly erupt with vibrant growth and spear grasses soar higher than a man. Everything greens. Millions of magpie geese, whistling ducks and other species swoop across the park - the flocks are so thick they darken the sky. In contrast, Kakadu dries out in the dry. By October its eucalypt forests are aflame and the land is panting with thirst. Waterfalls retreat and the parks' creatures congregate at billabongs.
My Kakadu wildlife cruise on the famous Yellow Waters close to the Gagudju Lodge at Cooinda was the wonderful epiphany I was promised. In the fresh pre-dawn hush we nosed slowly across the serene billabong in a flat-bottomed barge as thousands of magpie geese sprang off the tranquil waters and spun across the lightening sky like a ragged, fluttering scarf. It was an enthralling moment, a signal for the wetlands to wake up. On the billabong's banks countless ducks stood shoulder to shoulder like an immense army, jogging foolishly on the spot. Off between the trees, stately black and white Jabirus high-stepped in hunting mode, while flamboyant darters - wings outstretched to dry - stood poised on logs. Colourful kingfishers darted amid trees and nimble jacanas as elegant as prima ballerinas danced across a floating stage of deep green lily pads. And, of course, there were crocs. I counted seven - one was a whopper. Some were sprawled on the banks; some were floating, their beady unblinking eyes protruding from the surface like bubbles of smoky glass.
Later, we drove to the well-known rock art centre of Ubir where X-ray-style aboriginal paintings glow from the walls of ancient galleries. Nearby, from a rocky outcrop, there were magnificent panoramas of the green wetlands. Afterwards, during lunch, a 1.5-metre monitor tried to muscle in on our picnic then, en route back to Darwin, we had to stop for a three-metre long reptile loitering in the middle of the road. It watched us warily as we got out to observe. When it suddenly coiled threateningly we city slickers fled.
Some claimed it was a python, others a tiger-snake. "Crikey," someone quipped, "we better call Steve."
Written by Don Townshend - Issue 17 Spring 2004