This week’s travel dream: Seriously roughing it in Australia

Australia’s Northern Territory, or NT, is “one of the wildest landscapes on earth,” said Matthew Power in Outside. This harsh section of the Outback stretches from the northern coastline down into the country’s red-desert center, and various deadly creatures call it home. When my wife and I decided to take a road trip through it, our original plan was to ride a motorcycle to Ayers Rock, an “ancient 1,142-foot sandstone monolith” located in the heart of the desert. But after the bike rental fell through, we settled for a 4x4, which is probably for the better. “This is not a place where you need to manufacture action.”

There’s little traffic and we’re picking up no radio signals as we drive south from Darwin, the NT’s coastal capital. The road, known as Explorer’s Highway, “is a postapocalyptic movie scout’s dream”: In places, wildfires “have raged through unchecked, leaving an eerie tableau of charred branches.” We stop inside Kakadu National Park, whose swamps, monsoon forests, and wetlands teem with wildlife. But the heat makes for a “miserable night of camping,” and in the morning we head straight to water. Finding a guide with an aluminum boat, we’re floating on a slow-moving stream when a 12-foot saltwater crocodile swims close enough to touch—

“if you’re tired of your arm.” Suddenly, crocs are everywhere, and our guide tells us we’d last about 25 seconds if we jumped into the water. Later that day, we finally cool off at the 328-foot Gunlom Falls, whose basins are deemed safe for swimmers because only the “mellower,” freshwater crocodiles patrol their waters.

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Following a pleasurable night spent dining on emu sausage and kangaroo fillets by a campfire, we make it to Ayers Rock, known as Uluru to the land’s native Anangu people. Though climbing the rock is merely discouraged (rather than prohibited), we decide to honor the Anangu’s wishes and instead take a six-mile morning hike around its base. We’re alone until we encounter a group of Japanese tourists, who photograph themselves next to the climb closed sign before leaving in their air-conditioned bus. With the heat already rising, we head for our car too.

For information about visiting the Northern Territory, visit travelnt.com.