Top End

As locals will tell you, the Northern Territory's Top End is a world apart. Anchored by Australia's only tropical capital city, dominated by the vast Indigenous heartland of Arnhem Land, and otherwise consisting of frontier towns dotted along the Stuart Hwy like the string of desert waterholes that they are, the Top End is indeed like nowhere else in Australia. There's something elemental about life up here, with two seasons – the Wet (November to April) and the Dry (May to October) – dictating what you can do and where you can go. Adventures abound, but so too do profound insights into Indigenous culture, throughout in Arnhem Land, and in the Aboriginal art centres and remote rock walls that are such a treasured reward for visiting here. Wildlife and wild places similarly carry great drama out here, from Litchfield National Park to world-class Kakadu.