Darwin

A beach market held only on Thursday and Sunday evenings through the dry season. People carry folding chairs onto the sand to see the sun sink behind the sea, and many of the stalls cook Southeast Asian food.

Ninety minutes' driving southwest of Darwin. Magnetic termite mounds, built flat and aligned north to south, stand across the plain like headstones. The plunge pool at Wangi Falls is closed to swimmers when wet season floods could let crocodiles in.

Three hours or so east by road lies this World Heritage park. The rock at Ubirr carries paintings layered over a very long span, and from its top the floodplain runs to the horizon. In the wet season many sections are cut off by flooded roads.

Tanks of big saltwater crocodiles sit inside a building on Mitchell Street, right in the centre. The dive that lowers you in a clear tube into a croc enclosure has few places, so it needs booking days in advance.

In a city where box jellyfish and crocodiles keep people out of the sea, this is a saltwater lagoon walled off beside the wharf. The lagoon is free, while the wave pool next to it charges entry and makes its swell by machine.

Entry is free. The Cyclone Tracy gallery has a dark room playing sound recorded on the night the storm passed, and another room holds Sweetheart, a saltwater crocodile mounted after he spent the 1970s ramming fishing dinghies.

Tunnels cut under the cliff behind the wharf after the Japanese bombing of 1942, meant to hide fuel. They leaked and never held oil, and wartime photographs now line the walls. It stays cool inside, a good escape at midday.

Boats leave from the Adelaide River, a one-hour drive out of Darwin. Hold meat out on a pole and a saltwater crocodile thrashes its tail and rears clear of the surface. The river is murky, so a croc shows only once it is right beside the boat.

Open grassland spreads over a headland north of the city. Towards sunset agile wallabies come out of the scrub to graze, and the seaward path passes wartime gun emplacements. Crocodile warning signs stand at the water, so it is a place for walking only.

An open-air cinema that runs only in the dry season, with films watched from canvas deckchairs under the sky. A local film society runs it and the kiosk sells dinner. Mosquitoes are plentiful, so bring repellent.

A market filling a suburban Parap car park each Saturday morning. Stallholders from South-East Asia sell laksa and tropical fruit smoothies, and many locals come for breakfast. Heat builds fast as the day goes on, so arrive early.

A sprawling park around an hour's drive below Darwin, divided by habitat into Top End wetland and woodland. You walk through the aviaries, and in an underwater tunnel big freshwater fish glide overhead. Zones lie far apart; a shuttle loops between them.

Free tropical gardens just north of the centre. Baobabs with bottle-swollen trunks stand near a re-created monsoon vine forest. Cyclone Tracy flattened much of it, so many of the big trees standing today were planted afterwards.

Bathurst and Melville Islands, across the water north of Darwin, are Tiwi country. Going alone requires a permit, so most visitors join a day tour by boat or small aircraft. Village art centres show Tiwi painting in bold lines and dots, and textile printing.

A long jetty off the northern suburbs where residents gather with fishing rods at sundown. The sun sinks into the sea dead ahead of the pier's tip. Crocodiles can turn up along this shore, so never wade in.