Tennant Creek is affectionately known as the Northern Territory’s ‘heart of gold’, partly for its gold mining heritage but mostly for the friendliness of its people.
The township itself is 510km north of Alice Springs and services the massive cattle stations in the surrounding Barkly Tablelands. It’s a region of grassy plains, intriguing rock formations and wide blue skies that give way to millions of stars at night.
For an experience that puts your people in touch with the outback’s heartland, Tennant Creek is hard to beat.
Tennant Creek experiences
Culture and heritage
The region has sustained Aboriginal people for thousands of years. But telegraph linesmen, stockmen and gold miners have shaped its more recent history.
Tennant Creek is home to the Nyinkka Nyunyu Art and Culture Centre, showcasing the local Warumungu culture. Nearby lie the Devil’s Marbles, a rock formation steeped in Warumungu legend and a landmark some find even more extraordinary than Uluru.
The pioneering history of the place is all around, including the old telegraph station and Battery Hill Mining Centre. The 1942 military hospital, known as Tuxworth-Fulwood House, is an atmospheric taste of the Territory’s more recent history.
Adventure
There are plenty of options for Adventure lovers around Tennant Creek. Outback cattle stations, fossicking for gold and some great four-wheel-drive tracks running through places like the Davenport Range National Park are designed to challenge!
Binns Track
The 2191km Binns Track winds through many of the NT's lesser-known nature reserves and National Parks, and traverses some of the most interesting landscapes.