Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder, coming to you from the waterfront at Darwin, the capital of Australia's northern territory and a very tropical location.

The sun has just clambered above the sea and it is set to be another very hot day.

We're in the dry season still which is probably going to run out at the end of October and that will be followed by the tropical summer as they call it.

The wet season as some other people may describe it but I'm very

excited to be here first of all because I've been to the place a couple of times before

and I am so enthused by all the changes that have taken place feels a very different city to the one that I was in.

Well, about 15 years ago, my last visit.

Yes, I was very young.

Thank you very much indeed.

It's the nearest capital to the UK and therefore the quickest to get to, on a connecting flight.

Perth is actually slightly quicker if you get the nonstop I came in on Singapore Airlines.

Took about actually, because of the delays and so on,

little more than 18 hours door to door.

And although to give you some sense of it,

it's four and a half hours flying time from Singapore.

And a lot of Australians say, wow, is that all four and a half hours and you're in Singapore?

Well, at the end of a long old flight out to Singapore, you're just keen to get here.

And I was very keen to get here.

Let me tell you what I'm looking out at, the waterfront where Palmerston, as it was originally named, was founded.

This was a city that really came into being, I think, mainly as a communications hub, because it was where the telegraph, the overseas telegraph, went across to Java.

And that really connected Australia for the first time with Europe and allowed instant communications.

Forget about the World Wide Web.

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