On Top, Down Under in the Northern Territory

Story and photography by
Eric Anderson 

 

These are great times for Australian tourism. It’s a safe, friendly country that welcomes people from the United States. It’s vast and you can easily find unexplored places that are especially unknown to Americans. Sydney’s frequently photographed Opera House has become as much a symbol of the country’s vast expanse as the Red Center’s Ayers Rock. However, many other great vacation bargains are opening up in the less visited parts of what writer Bill Bryson calls a “sunburned land.” 

My closest friend in high school was my best man for my wedding in 1955. I visited him some years ago at his home in Australia. Asked to tell me about Australians, he replied, “We are blue-collar and proud of it!” I’ve found Australians very likeable. They may be a bit chauvinistic and sexist but they are very upfront. They are the classic “What you see is what you get,” and they still make deals on handshakes. Their smaller towns always remind me of Texas in the 1950. It reminds me of simpler less complicated times. 

But today is still a wonderful time to visit Australia. The tourist infrastructure expnded for the 2000 Olympics has remained strong even though the crowds have gone. Bargains can be prevalent as the dollar is a lot stronger there than it is in Europe. Qantas Airways http://www.qantasvacations.com/ often offers packages that begin at $1,399 from the West Coast of the United States. This includes domestic and international airfares and 11 days’ accommodations in major Australian cities.

Australia is not the easiest destination for casual visitors. The distances are immense from home and point-to-point upon arrival. How can you possibly cover the biggest island on the globe? You can’t. You have to do your homework before leaving the United States and make your destination choices. Although most American tourists seem to favor attractions in New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland, an increasing number of visitors are heading for Australia’s “Top End,” the Northern Territory and Darwin, made famous as the location for Crocodile Dundee. 

Darwin looks more like the United States than any other place in Australia. The city, bombed by the Japanese in 1942 and demolished by cyclone Tracey in 1974, has been completely rebuilt. Like all Australians, Darwin’s 75,000 inhabitants enjoy an outdoor lifestyle. In Darwin, the Aquascene waterfront is a typical attraction. At a special area called Doctors Gully, children wade into the ocean at high tide in a daily ritual to feed hundreds of mullet, bream, and catfish by hand.

Sunsets over the sea are spectacular. A popular event is the Mindil Beach Sunset Market, which is much like a flea market with ethnic food stalls and arts and crafts exhibits. It opens for the season every April. A stroll through the downtown area takes tourists past a banyan tree, a Chinese temple, the old stone Victoria Hotel, which survived the cyclone, and the Christchurch Cathedral, which didn’t. The church was rebuilt, with the ruins of the old incorporated into the new.

Nearby are the aviation and military museums, the Northern Territory Museum and Art Gallery, and the Darwin Botanic Gardens. There also is the Fannie Bay Gaol Museum, where 14 men were hanged in its Infirmary gallows during the Gaol’s 84 years of service. Close by are the Territory Wildlife Park and the long-established Crocodile Farm, with its 7,000 “inmates.” The feeding display in the middle of each day easily may take up all of your film and take away your appetite.

Kakadu National Park, some 20,000 square kilometers in size, is on the World Heritage List; its youngest rock formations are a billion years old. Though it attracts most of its tourists during the wet season when plant life puts on its most brilliant display, the park is most accessible once the land dries out in late spring. Private tours to the park in four-wheel-drive vehicles are available and relatively inexpensive.

Drivers stop at the permanent wetlands of Fogg Dam, home to pied geese, ducks, egrets, herons, and ibis. But the real attraction is Kakadu, the land of the aborigines. The park has 275 species of birds, 75 species of reptiles, and is home to some of the world’s most fascinating primitive art. To stare at aboriginal rock art dating back thousands of years is to savor the human endeavor and its triumph over nature, to wonder at our own existence, and to discover the most personal Australian experience.

If you Go
Most airlines offer special discounts to Australia, including reduced fares for overseas visitors for domestic flights within the Australian continent. Qantas, the national carrier, has some specials, but check out Air New Zealand; the airline permits stopovers in New Zealand on flights from Los Angeles, with inexpensive continuations to Australia, and provides companion tickets at reduced rates.

Attractive Darwin hotels include the Novotel Atrium on the Esplanade, featuring 138 suites with kitchenettes and free parking. The futuristic Carlton Hotel boasts 270 rooms, all very avant-garde also with free parking. The 233-room Rydges Plaza Hotel, on Mitchell Street, is just two blocks off the Esplanade and right beside the Smith Street Mall. It’s very elegant

At Kakadu, a popular hotel is the unusual 110-room crocodile-shaped Gagudju (pictured) in Jabiru Township. If you go airplane sightseeing, make advance plans for the plane to fly over the hotel so you truly may appreciate its strange iron-made architecture. Tours may be arranged at the hotel, from 2-hour cruises on the Yellow Water Lagoon to excursions to the famous primitive art at historic Nourlangie and Obirr Rock.

For more information on hotels in Australia, visit http://www.australia.com/home_us.aust?L=en&C=US