Darwin

Technically yes, realistically no. Kakadu's main entrance is about three hours' drive from Darwin, which means six hours of driving for whatever time you have on the ground. Ship-organised tours that promise Kakadu in a day usually mean the closest viewpoints, not the celebrated Yellow Water billabong or Ubirr rock art. Litchfield National Park is closer (about ninety minutes each way) and the more honest day-trip option.

Thursday and Sunday evenings, late April through late October — the dry season only. If your cruise calls outside those months or on the wrong weekday, the market will be closed and the beach will be quiet. Parap Markets on Saturday morning is a smaller dry-season alternative if you want food stalls and crafts.

Not in the sea, most of the time. Box jellyfish are present October through May and saltwater crocodiles can turn up in any tidal water year-round, including harbour beaches. Locals swim at the Wave Lagoon and recreation lagoon at the Darwin Waterfront Precinct, which is a five-minute walk from Fort Hill Wharf and netted/chlorinated. Mindil Beach is for sunset-watching, not swimming.

It is a downtown crocodile attraction on Mitchell Street with a clear underwater viewing tunnel and an optional Cage of Death submersion in a tank with a large saltwater crocodile. It is a tourist attraction in the literal sense, but it is a five-minute walk from the wharf, the crocodiles are real, and for a passenger who wants to say they saw a salty without committing to a half-day Adelaide River jumping-croc cruise, it does the job.

More than you would expect. Darwin was bombed sixty-four times between 1942 and 1943 — more bombs were dropped on Darwin than on Pearl Harbor — and the city centre still has wartime oil tunnels under the cliff (the Darwin WWII Oil Storage Tunnels at the bottom of Kitchener Drive, a short walk from the wharf), plus the Defence of Darwin Experience and the Darwin Military Museum out at East Point. The tunnels are the easiest stop on a port day.

Wangi Falls is the iconic plunge pool and the easiest to reach, but it closes for swimming whenever rangers spot a saltwater crocodile in the wet-season runoff (most common October through April). Florence Falls and Buley Rockhole are the reliable dry-season alternatives — Buley is a series of cascading rock pools you can sit in. All three are inside Litchfield, about ninety minutes south-west of Darwin.