Australia

Holidays by Destination Australasia Australia Northern Territory 

Northern Territory

NT Tourist Office
1st Floor, Beaumont House, Lambton Road, London SW20 0LW
tel: 020 8944 2992

An area the size of France, Spain and Italy combined, the state is making a particular push to convince families that it's worth making the long trip to see anything from gold rush towns to reptilian native animals, Aboriginal art, and try out soft or extremely soft adventures.

For visitors the two main areas are the Red Centre (Ayers Rock, Alice Springs and others) in the red earth desert, where the dry, clean air makes for particularly atmospheric sights, including the stars at night; and the Top End, bordering Australia's north coast - broadly speaking, this second is what has been known as Crocodile Dundee country, including thousands of square miles of national parks, with waterways, gorges and valleys, endemic and introduced wildlife, plus a coast of tidal inlets and islands, and some of the most impressive Aboriginal culture in the country.

Darwin

Closer to South East Asia than Sydney (just five hours by plane from Singapore), this is Australia's only tropical capital city and home to a reputed 60 different nationalities and ethnic groups. With an average age of 28 years, it's a youthful place. The white beaches, mangroves and other tropical vegetation encourage a relaxed lifestyle, though the city is ringed by trails and bike tracks. It is also modern, having being little more than a bombed out village after WWII, and then devastated by a cyclone in 1974, after which the place was rebuilt from scratch.

Tourist Attractions
The Cyclone Tracy Gallery at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory The 'MAGNT' includes a virtual reality cyclone experience), traditional boats and contemporary Aboriginal art, an introduction to the history and styles of historic rock art, plus a gallery of indigenous animals with a few poisonous ones.
The Australian Aviation Heritage Centre covers the history of aviation across the Territory including one of only two B52 bombers shown outside the USS, a Mitchell Bomber, a Sabre jet, and the wreck of a Zero fighter shot down in 1942.
At Myilly Point are four ‘40s and ‘50s National Trust properties, featuring period, climate-conscious design, one with whole walls of shutters for ventilation.
East Point Military Museum 'EPMM' includes information on the city's past as a refuelling base for the British and American air forces in WWII, causing it to be more heavily bombed than Pearl Harbor.

Out and About
The city's outdoor markets have become well known, offering a wide range of foods, music, handmade goods, and music.
The harbour is twice the size of Sydney's, fringed by beaches, mangrove tidal areas, reefs, and pearl farms. It's home to a range of tropical fish, dolphins and turtles, with cruises to view all this. In Doctor's Gully, a short walk from the city, 100s of fish come at high tide and can be fed by hand.
The botanic gardens are home to the southern hemisphere's largest selection of tropical palms - around 400 - and there is also an orchid farm, rainforest, waterfalls, wetlands and Aboriginal Plant use Trail.
Window on the Wetlands visitor centre near Darwin includes educational, interactive displays.
The wharf offers the Indo Pacific Marine Facility . Indopacific recreating the eco system of Northern Territory coral reefs, and WWII oil storage tunnels converted to show eerie memorabilia of the war years.
At East Point wallabies can be seen feeding in the late afternoon and early morning on rock platforms jutting into the sea, and the reserve also has walking and cycle tracks and safe swimming at Lake Alexander.
The Charles Darwin National Park on the edge of Darwin Harbour consists of 1,300 hectares of mangroves, waterways and woodlands along with pathways and cycle tracks.
The sunsets are particularly admired with vantage points at Fannie or Mindil beaches with family entertainment at the second Thursdays and Sundays April/May to October, plus around 200 arts and crafts stalls, and around 50 selling food, or free gas barbecues for the evening meal.

Note that many beaches are out of bounds because of crocodiles.

Further Afield
Fogg Dam Conservation Reserve 70km from Darwin is home to flocks of corella and cockatoos, ibises, jacanas, egrets, geese and Jesus birds among others. It's particularly interesting at dawn and dusk.
Territory Wildlife Park territorywildlifepark is in 400 hectares of bushland and includes a number of rare and endangered species. Visitors can take a motorised train through the bush or explore one of the walking trails which lead through open plan habitats to an aviary, aquarium and nocturnal house.
Australia's largest crocodile farm is 40km south of Darwin with more than 7,000 fresh and saltwater crocodiles, birds and a family of buffalo. There are more crocodiles at Crocodylus Park near Darwin's northern suburbs.
The Batchelor Butterfly Farm, en route to Litchfield National Park allows visitors to see the insects mate and lay eggs on the food plants in the butterfly enclosures.
Litchfield National Park, (30km south of Darwin) is an area of rocky escarpments, waterfalls from a plateau's edge, safe swimming holes, rain forest and varied wildlife.

Scenery and National Parks

To the east of the Top End is Crocodile Dundee country with the wetlands of the 20,000-square kilometre World Heritage listed Kakadu National Park kakadu , 257km east of Darwin. The size of Wales, the park offers ancient rock art, wildlife and spectacular scenery from flood plains to billabongs, woodlands, rock escarpments and waterfalls, plus at least 75 species of reptiles, 25 of frogs, 10,000-plus insects, and 275 birds. There are eight types of kangaroos and wallabies in the park, plus possums, bandicoots, and 120 reptile species. Boat rides are a good way of getting about. In the wet season the flood plains fill to become a sea of birdlife. It is also a good place to see Aboriginal art, generally with a guide. Ubirr and Nourlangie Rock are places where the Dreamtime legend and day to day living are presented side by side.

East of Kakadu, Arnhemland is Aboriginal Land and another good area to see Aboriginal art dating back 50,000 years (the oldest found in the country). This ranges from the grass and hand prints which were the earliest art, moving on to pictures of animals which have lived in the area. The harsh environment has offered protection against the impact of European settlement. Individual tourist access is all but impossible.

Katherine on the road south towards Alice, is known for its 60-metre deep, 12km-long gorge, divided into 13 sections, separated by rapids and offering river cruises, canoeing, fishing expeditions and swimming in hot springs.

Further south again is King's Canyon in Watarrka National Park with its 300-metre drop to the desert below, and the Devil's Marbles, created by millions of years of erosion, rounded boulders balanced precariously on top of each other, described by Aboriginal myth as Eggs of the Rainbow Serpent).

In the deep Red Centre as well as Uluru (Ayers Rock), southwest of Alice, rising 348 metres and 9.4km around the base, riddled with caves, rivulets, and adorned with rock paintings, there are Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) - as dramatic in their way - 36 weathered red domes above yellow spinifex grass, covering 35 sq kilometres. Like Uluru they feature in the Aboriginal belief system and lie southwest of Alice Springs in the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park.
And the red backdrop to Alice are the West MacDonnell Ranges with chasms, gorges, peaks and swimming holes, home to rare animals and plants.

History, Culture and Tourist Attractions

Around a quarter of the Territory's population is Aboriginal and the history and culture which spans 50,000 years is shown in a variety of performances in and around Darwin, as well as galleries showing Aboriginal work. In Alice Springs there is the Henk Guth Art Gallery and Museum of Aboriginal Art, considered the most significant private collection of Aboriginal artefacts . The Aboriginal Art & Culture Centre , which lets all the family learn to play the didgeridoo, and the DESART gallery which displays the work of around 4,000 traditional artists along with t-shirts, watches, prints and more, ensuring the artists get a fair return for their work. A good place to see artists working is reported the Maruku Arts & Crafts Centre at the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park Cultural Centre. The Manyalluk Aboriginal community , 100km from Katherine, has opened its doors to the outside world with visitors encouraged to get involved with the community and try ancient pastimes like bark painting, fire lighting, spear throwing and basket weaving. There is also the chance to hike with Aboriginal guides in the wilderness and learn about traditional bush medicine, cooking bush food, learning about plants, fire lighting, didgeridoo playing, spear throwing, and you don't need a permit.
Overnight Whoop Whoop Didgeridoo Tours instruct visitors how to identify and collect materials to make and play their own didgeridoo.

Alice Springs Desert Park is an educational and research facility with flora and fauna found only in the central desert region, saltwater crocodiles, pythons and large perentie goannas among others, a large nocturnal display.
Tennant Creek established in the ‘30s, is a modern outback town, founded in the country's last Gold Rush. The Gold Stamp Battery is a working industrial archaeological site and mining museum with operating machinery and sound effects to recreate the atmosphere of a working mine. The Tuxworth-Fullwood Museum houses the old jailhouse and reconstruction of a miners' camp. Just 10km north are The Pebbles (Kundjarra) a granite outcrop of balanced stones which take on a particularly rich colour at sunset.
Pine Creek was the scene of a minor gold rush in the late 1870s.
Newcastle Waters once the junction for three major stock routes, has its church, post office, repeater station, Junction Hotel and Jones' Store, registered with the national Trust.

Excursions and day trips from Alice can include a trip with the Outback mail run in a Cessna Caravan on full or half day flights, including flying through a gap in the rocky red cliffs between Paunya and Haasts Bluff and a detour around Gosse Bluff, an ancient meteorite crater.
The Royal Flying Doctor Service serves Australians in remote Outback locations and you might see one of their planes, while the School of the Air based in Alice, is considered the world's largest classroom, offering a teaching service to the same locations and a visitor centre where you can watch lessons in action.