The Northern Territory, Australia

Having done all my medical education and training in Melbourne, Australia, I decided to spend my second year of neurology training in the Northern Territory. It is a very different world to medicine in Melbourne, being a unique and beautiful region of Australia, often forgotten and undiscovered by many Australians. Situated in the centre of Australia, the Northern Territory is the third largest state in Australia and is roughly the size of France, Spain and Italy combined (figures 1 and 2). It has a unique environment that ranges from arid desert down south to tropical regions on the coast in the north. The Northern Territory is often considered the quintessential Australian outback and boasts many stunning sites such as Kakadu (figure 3), Litchfield National Park, Katherine Gorge (figure 4) and the world famous Uluru (previously known as Ayers Rock). The year is divided into two seasons, wet and dry, with high temperatures, high humidity and monsoonal rain dominating the wet season. Darwin, the capital city, is the most northern Australian capital and is the main city in the territory. Figure 1 The Northern Territory (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons) https://commons.wikimedia.org/ Figure 2 Flag of the Northern Territory https://commons.wikimedia.org Figure 3 Jim Jim Falls, Kakadu National Park (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons) https://commons.wikimedia.org/ Figure 4 Katherine Gorge, Nitmiluk National Park (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons) https://commons.wikimedia.org/ The first documented arrival of Indigenous people to Australia and the Northern Territory through land bridges from south-east Asia dates back to roughly 50 000 years ago. European settlement arrived in 1770 and to the Northern Territory in the early 1800s. It is a sparsely populated region, with a population of 211 945. Most …