Australia's exotic Northern TerritoryArticle By: Anita Stewart
This is tropical Australia, the Northern Territory, the Top End, a region so exotic and on the edge that it doesn't seem to fit in the big Aussie picture. It's a land of swirling, near-phosphorescent, ochre dust, Rocky Mountain-high thunderclouds and sky-shattering storms -- a region of pawpaw (papaya) and mango farms, pearl oyster meat from the pearling industry, farm-raised alligator and Thai spices. Indigenous people still dive for lily roots and burn the forests to trap game and make passage through the undergrowth possible. To journey through this land and taste it was one of the greatest privileges of my travel-writing life.
This is a land that demands a four-wheel drive truck. Early in the dry season -- April or May -- is the best. Dragonflies dance on the wind in celebration. The climate hasn't reached its steamy saturation point, and the forests are still green. The city markets, with their tropical fruits and Asian flavours, are just opening.
Darwin is the state's capital, and a visit there helps put everything into some sort of context. The city was heavily bombed in the Second World War and later nearly totally destroyed on Christmas Day 1974 by cyclone Tracy, Australia's largest national disaster. The Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory not only chronicles these events but also showcases the earliest history, which dates back some 50,000 years.
Barramundi fishing is at its best at the end of the wet season. These freshwater fish are great fighters, and being out in the mangroves of the West Arm across Darwin Harbour intensifies the experience. Like the heat, the smells of the swamp flow: first, there's hot mud, then, the musk of flying foxes, bats with curiously fox-like heads.
The foods of the Top End are unique. Darwin is so close to Asia that it's much easier to head to Singapore than Sydney. Immigrants of every Asian culture have brought their foods and cooking traditions. At Darwin's Hanuman, Thai Nonya cuisine meets Tandoor Indian: soak up the lemon grass and basil-flavoured sauce drenching the grilled rock oysters with warm naan bread.
© June 2004 50Plus Magazine
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