There are no direct Darwin-Bangkok flights, so the capital of Australia’s Northern Territory will undoubtedly be an extension to some other trip you have planned. But that trip doesn’t have to be to Australia: Darwin is only a 2.5-hour flight from Bali and Air Asia just opened a low-cost route between the two, so it’s relatively cheap (and fast) to swing by from the Indonesian island and leave the Asian continent behind for a taste of the outback.

Darwin is a relatively affluent city of some 120,000 souls and feels more like a town than a territorial capital. The locals remind us of American suburbanites and the city of what Singapore might look like if it had space—and a fraction of its population. Because of its warm year-round climate, there’s a certain tropical vibe but, from April/May to October, the dry season promises clear blue skies and cool evenings, particularly in June-July.

IN TOWN

Darwin will mostly serve as your base for the three major attractions around the city—Tiwi Island, Litchfield Park and Kakadu Park—which can all be done as day trips or with a sleepover. In town, you can check out the Parap Saturday Market. It’s a great place to catch the locals but the Thai and Indonesian stalls aren’t exactly exotic by our standards. We are more interested in the surrounding galleries, like 24HR Art (Vimy Lane, www.24hrart.org.au), an art center with government support, which showcases cutting edge Aussie artists—Aboriginal or otherwise. For something a bit more craftsy, but also offering some really nice prints, try out Nomad Art (1/3 Vickers St., www.nomadart.com.au). As you will discover, Aboriginal art is at the center of many things here, so you should also pay a visit to the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory to get some insight on this very graphic, symbolic and ancient art form (Conacher St., open Mon-Fri 9am-5pm, Sat-Sun 10am-5pm, free admission).

TIWI ISLANDS

Some 2,500 Tiwi Aboriginals live on Melville and Bathurst islands. A tour of Bathurst Island consists mostly in getting to know the Tiwi culture: their art, their creation myth, their dances and customs. It’s not cheap, though. By boat (a 2-hour cruise), the tour is US$335 with www.seacat.com.au (Mon, Wed, Fri only, from late Mar-Dec). By plane, it’s US$494 with Aussie Adventure (Mon-Fri, Mar-Nov, www.aussieadventure.com.au). We chose the latter and got to sip tea with charming old ladies who explained the Tiwi’s “skin groups” (a kind of clan system) and put on a little dance for us. It’s also an opportunity to meet Tiwi artists in their workshops and buy their art for less than you’ll pay in town. (And if you’re a fan of Nicole Kidman, you’ll recognize the beautiful timber church from Australia.)

LITCHFIELD NATIONAL PARK

A two-hour drive from Darwin, Litchfield Park is home to three massive waterfalls, a couple of which you can swim at—except at some points during the rainy season, when the water gets too crazy, but is also at its most beautiful. The water is spring-fed, so the waterfalls run year-round, just not always with the same intensity. On your way, you’ll also see some six-meter-high cathedral termite mounds and magnetic termite mounds, so called because their thin profiles point North-South to minimize their exposure to the sun. A day tour with Darwin Day Tours (www.darwindaytours.com.au) is US$138 with guide, lunch and transportation. (That’s who we went with.) It’s a pretty long day as it is but we saw another deal from Pinnacle Tours which adds in a jumping crocodile cruise—five-foot-long salt-water crocodiles leaping from the water to grab chunks of meats dangling from your boat—for US$127 (www.pinnacletours.com.au).

KAKADU NATIONAL PARK

A World Heritage Site, the park is 257km from Darwin. Floodplains with exotic birds, rivers infested with crocodiles, rocky escarpments with thousand-year-old Aboriginal art, Kakadu is the crown jewel of the Northern Territory’s top end. You can spend a day there with the aforementioned Darwin Day Tours (US$238) or Pinnacle (US$207). But there’s also an interesting 3-day option from www.connections.travel that allows you to sleep in permanent safari camp style tents and sleep one night in Kakadu and one night in Litchfield. It’s US$770 but that includes full-board so it should come out cheaper than staying in your hotel in Darwin. (They had us at the part where they promise wine is included with the meals).

BEYOND DARWIN

The Northern Territory extends deep into the Australian outback—its sparsely populated heartland. That’s where you’ll find the continent’s most famous natural icon, the big flat-topped Ayers Rock. Around Alice Springs, the central Australian hub, there are also plenty more dramatic deserts, canyons and picturesque rock formations to explore. Visit travelnt.com for more information (they even have a cool iPhone app, OutbackNT, that you can download for free).

GETTING THERE

It’s really a matter of getting to a city that flies to Darwin first. Air Asia (www.airasia.com) will fly you to Denpasar (Bali) and then from there to Darwin but keep in mind that this is a low-cost so these are not connecting flights.

From Singapore, Tiger Airways dropped its Darwin flight but Qantas (www.qantas.com) still flies direct.