Pine Creek Miners display
Pine Creek on the Stuart Highway is a sleepy hideaway in the Northern Territory of Australia with a rich history. Recent changes have made this town and beautiful region a must-do overnight stay for travellers.
A journey to Darwin by road inevitably means the long trek up the Stuart Highway. You could come in from the Savannah Way from the east near Mataranka or along the Victoria Highway from Kununurra, WA, but there’s still that last 317km section from Katherine for most.
Roadside rest stops offer overnight campsites, but most are near the highway with the thunder of road trains and the honk of yahoos whose fun is your insomnia. Many travellers will choose the midway points at Daly Waters or Adelaide River, so it’s easy to overlook Pine Creek. If you want to complete a thorough bucket list of Big Lap destinations, I suggest that would be a mistake. After all, most Darwin-bound southerners will pass the Pine Creek turnoff twice — once on their way north, then on the way back — and with three caravan parks, there’s ample room away from highway traffic.
The area is home to the Wagiman and Jawoyn Bolmo, Matjba and Wurrkbarbar peoples, who in the past used the local rock as a source of tools in what is the largest known complex of Aboriginal quarries in the Northern Territory. In 2019, the groups were granted native title over the town, excluding private land and streets.
Like many outback towns across the country, the discovery of gold in Pine Creek heralded the beginning of European settlement. It’s said that some lucky workers hit upon the rich ore while digging post holes for the Overland Telegraph Line in 1870. Other versions tell of surveyors discovering gold, but either way, the Cypress-lined creek gave its unofficial name to the Pine Creek goldfields. The official government name was Playford, but the locals never took to that, and it wasn’t until 1973 that NT officials gazetted the Pine Creek name.
From the late 1800s to the present, the area has experienced boom and bust eras. When news of the gold discovery broke, thousands of prospectors arrived including more than 2000 Chinese, across dozens of mining claims. A police station and a telegraph repeater added to progress. More alluvial strikes and some deep pits kept the economy moving, and Pine Creek/Playford is one of the Territory’s oldest towns. But by 1886, the easy alluvial gold played out, and the first rush ended.
By the late 1800s, construction on the North Australian Railway reached south from Darwin to Pine Creek, and for a few years, the town was established as the southern railhead. But as the line pushed on to Katherine, Pine Creek lost its significance. There were hopes the rail would eventually link Darwin and Adelaide, but delays and cost blowouts meant that didn’t happen until 2004 on a new line that bypassed the town.
Train enthusiasts will find plenty to love in Pine Creek
During World War II, civilians were evacuated, and the region became a significant military camp with thousands of soldiers based nearby. Post-war progress was slow as many residents found new roots elsewhere, but with the discovery of iron ore and uranium nearby, Pine Creek grew as a central service town. Then, in 1985, the old Enterprise mine reopened as an open-cut venture, and for the next eight years, 760,00oz of Pine Creek gold made it to the world market. As if to show mining was finally finished, in 1995, diversions for Pine Creek filled the pit with water, and it remains a scenic attraction on the edge of town.
Talk to a local today, and there’s still a glimmer of hope for a new mining venture based on recent finds of gallium and rare earth graphite, but in the meantime, it’s pretty clear the future is around tourism, even if some of the attraction is the declining state of colonial and some 1960s architecture. Pine Creek is a unique mix of history, with many links to its heyday. There’s an outback authenticity that’s hard to define and a genuine community vibe to keep things real. As we found on a recent visit, there’s plenty to experience, but because of its location, travellers must make a conscious choice to linger. It’s not that access is difficult — it’s only a couple of kilometres off the highway, but being only an hour or so north of Katherine doesn’t make it a natural overnight stopping point.
Train tragic’s big shed
When the railway closed in 1976, some savvy locals acquired significant rolling stock and the station infrastructure as historical monuments. Good thinking because letting off a bit of steam is a universal attraction.
They even managed a grant to restore an 1877 Beyer Peacock steam-powered locomotive as the collection’s centrepiece. The original rail yard from 1888 is off the Main Terrace as you enter town and comprises the station, workers’ residence, goods shed, shunting tracks and a weighbridge. Interpretive signs tell the story of the Northern Australian Railway and how it became financially unviable, with a loss of $2.5m in 1975 the final straw.
Train lovers will feel at home at the Pine Creek Railway Resort, with its locomotive facade and a mix of rooms, a pool and dining facilities for travellers.
Pine Creek Railway Resort
Miners rest
Right near the Pine Creek Railway Precinct is an interesting collection of mining equipment laid out like the work of a heavy metal sculptor. Giant headframes, dewatering buckets, cages, winding gear and twin-cylinder steam engines talk a language of hard yakka and grimy, sweaty bodies. Imagine the working conditions as a steam winder lowered men and equipment in a cage deep into the darkness of the mine shaft with no guarantee of a payout. It’s sobering to remember the hard times and these men working in such harsh conditions.
Pine Creek Railway Precinct
Mining display
Outback gems
A wander around town revives a hundred years of change and many heritage-listed original buildings. The oldest retail business in town is the 1908 corrugated iron bakery. A sign nearby describes how Jim Ah You moved his 1889 butcher shop from Mt Diamond to Pine Creek piece by piece to revive it as a bakery with his son Jimmy Ah Toy. Ovens out the back were hewn from local ant hills. The family company operated for 30 years when the army took over during the war years, and the family relocated south. When they moved back to Pine Creek, times had changed, and the bakery didn’t reopen, so it’s a testament to its strength and local appreciation that it stands some 80 years after it baked its final loaf.
The Ah Toy Bakery, Pine Creek
Ah Toy’s Store on the main street is another remnant of the Chinese influence and was the shopping heart of the town for many years. Nearby, the heritage Playford Hotel/Motel stands as an example of then-modern 60s tourism, and the Pine Creek Hotel has an authentic, edgy, bygone vibe matched with a room full of pokies. The original Playford Club Hotel was converted to a residence some time ago, but it stands as a further example of colonial building style.
Ah Toy’s Store
When we checked out Mayes’s Cafe, I half expected the Fonz to sashay through the door, escorted by babes in cotton socks. It didn’t happen, but the hamburger was real, and the service was friendly.
Fab prefab
Tucked away in Railway Terrace is the Pine Creek National Trust Museum which wins the title of the oldest prefabricated corrugated iron building in Australia. Designed and preassembled in England, it was shipped to the colonies and erected in 1889 as the mining warder’s office at Burrundie, 50km to the north, before being relocated to its present site in 1913 as staff quarters for an Aboriginal children’s home. It served as a clinic, hospital, Word War II communications centre, post office and residence. It has operated as a museum since 1977, but opening times are limited these days, so ask around for someone to show off the memorabilia displays.
Lookout
Drive to the top of Moule Street for views over the flooded Enterprise Mine with 135m of sparkling blue water, making a picaresque site that comes alive at sunset. Examples of Chinese mine shafts are nearby for an idea of the work involved in extracting the gold. The road is steep and not caravan friendly.
Flooded Enterprise Mine
Drive to the gorge
Umbrawarra Gorge is a short drive (25km) southwest, in Umbrawarra Gorge Nature Park. The road was well-made when we visited, and we saw a dingo and a water buffalo on the way. Once you get to the well-signed car park, you will find an easy path that leads about 200m down the creek to an easy-access pool. Further along the going gets more challenging but accessible for relatively fit walkers. High red sandstone cliffs rise over the water, and we found a fantastic sandy beach for a swim. A nearby campground needs NT Park’s pre-booking, but it was empty mid-week, so I’m guessing you should find a spot with little difficulty. Amenities are limited to a toilet block and fire pits.
Umbrawarra Gorge
Umbrawarra Gorge campground
Petrolhead heaven
When Lazy Lizard publican Grahame Wilcox bought the hotel and caravan park complex seven years ago, he’d already had years of experience in the hospitality industry. His passion was purchasing old cars and motorbikes and bringing them back to life. His collection grew but was scattered across four states in various sheds he had accumulated over the years.
So, with spare land adjacent to the Lazy Lizard, he envisioned a big shed where he could bring the collection under one roof and create a reason for travellers to stop in Pine Creek.
Grahame Wilcox
First, he bought an old hay shed from Ballarat, pulled it down, and loaded it onto several semi-trailers for shipping to the Northern Territory. Then, he found suitable posts and beams up to 7.5m long from a recycled timber yard in Bega, NSW, which had been salvaged for an old railway bridge in Gulgong, NSW.
The refurbished shed went up quickly, but the interior fitout has spread over the past two years. When we saw the display, it was in its final stages of finishing for an opening in late June 2024.
Lazy Lizard vehicle display
A hint of what’s inside can be seen from the hotel bar. A couple of yellow Holdens drew my attention, and we were invited to view the ambitious collection. As many as 90 cars sit on either side of the walkway on the ground level, and about the same number of motorcycles sit on a mezzanine level around the perimeter. There’s a comprehensive display of GMH models, but the displays represent most makes from the 50s to the early 80s. It rivals anything I’ve seen in Australia and won’t disappoint anyone with a memory of the waft of high-octane fuel. Entry is $5, and the lot goes to Melanoma Institute Australia research. The Lizard offers van and motel accommodation, and the pub has a welcoming country atmosphere and a good range of meals.
In the past, Pine Creek has been a sleepy reminder of outback history, and relatively few travellers would have stayed for long. But dig deeper, and it's a great place with a lot to see, and the revised Lazy Lizard puts Pine Creek back on the map.
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