Spiky barricade against the outside world, a dead mangrove on a lonely beach in the Northern Territory evokes the harshness of Australia's forbidding northern coast.
Battered by tropical cyclones, washed by treacherous tides, steamed in tropical heat, and haunted by crocodiles, this ragged coast remains a wild frontier 60,000 years after the first Aborigines stepped ashore here.
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef—the largest structure on the planet built by living organisms—hosts a carnival of sea life. Read article excerpt and see photo gallery.
