19 March 2013 - Banyan Tree Caravan Park, Batchelor, Northern Territory

We woke this morning to the noisy chorus of the park’s birds. In fact there was one particular noise that I have never heard before, or perhaps it was simply massive amplification of familiar sounds. This morning we were ready to leave Katherine, and leave we did, exiting by the northern bypass and heading on again on the Stuart Highway.

It is just ninety kilometres to Pine Creek and the road passes through terrain quite different to that south of Katherine. Here the road passes through a range no less rugged than that west of Mount Isa, and here the road takes the same gentle path through the hills. However here in the Northern Territory, the vegetation is far more lush and covers the rocky outcrops more modestly. The Australian trees that we have become so familiar with along the roads, were joined by low palms, pandannus and the unbroken swathes of spear grass. A few days ago, we learned at the Nitmiluk National Park Centre that this tall fast growing grass is a member of the sorghum family and can be harvested in the same way to make a flour like product for the making of native damper. There is certainly no scarcity of the grass here in the Northern Territory.

Pine Creek is a very small settlement of 345 people, a tidy little town boasting a couple of pubs, a caravan park, a general store, a separate post office, a café, a couple of service stations and a museum at the very least. It stands at the junction of the Stuart and Kakadu Highways and will be visited by us again when we travel beyond Darwin and around through Kakadu in a loop before heading south again to Katherine, from where we will head on west.

The town came into being as a construction point of the Overland Telegraph Line, and was named “Pine Creek” because of the numerous pines that were found on arrival. While construction was underway in 1871, a worker stumbled upon alluvial gold and started what became an on-again off-again relationship with gold mining. By 1885  there were about twenty Europeans and four thousands Chinese working the goldfields. Today there is still evidence of Chinese residence; the Ah Toy family still run the general store.

The railway from Darwin was completed in 1889 and served the town until it closed in 1976. The new Adelaide – Darwin railway line was completed in 2004, but no siding was put in at Pine Creek.

Pine Creek is touted to be an ideal spot for bird watching, with the largest number of bird species in the Northern Territory. I would dispute that and suggest the largest number of bird species in the territory live near the Low Level Nature Reserve and Big4 Katherine beside the Katherine River.

The town also has another story to tell, dating back to 1972 or thereabouts when my dear husband was a fresh young pommie tradesman working for government departments. He was sent to Pine Creek to paint a toilet block and to assist with the re-erection of the water tower structure relocated from Bamylli. We traipsed around the town today from one block of public toilets to another, from one tall structure to another and could find neither point of reference or establish which hotel Chris had stayed in all those years ago. Forty years have changed the town and it is rather an attractive one at that, albeit very very small.

I was interested to call up to the lookout however the signs clearly forbade caravans up the access road. And so we walked up to the point from where we could lookout over the Enterprise Pit, now filled with water diverted from Pine Creek. This was an open cut mine but began its life as the Enterprise Shaft in 1906 and was worked intermittently until 1985 when Pine Creek Goldfields developed the open cut mine. During the ten year life span of the Goldfields Mine, 764,000 ounces of gold were extracted.

From here we were pleased to retreat to the relative shelter of the landcruiser, shade and air-conditioning, and hit the road once more.

Midday arrived at about the time we reached Hayes Creek, but there was little level parking area apart fom the roadhouse forecourt or the caravan park below the road, so we moved on. From here the road seemed only to descend. Checking the elevations of the places passed through, Katherine 108 metres ASL,  Pine Creek 202 metres ASL,  Hayes Creek 149 metres ASL and then Adelaide River 56 metres ASL, it was only right it seemed so.

We found a lunch spot beside a bridge about thirty kilometres before Adelaide River called Bridge Creek Rest Area. Rather unimaginative, I thought until I checked the map and found that the creek is actually called Bridge Creek. We were sharing our space with an odd lot, or should I say a mad lot. A cyclist we had passed earlier pulled in to join his support crew, a couple of guys in a car pulling a trailer. Conversation revealed that the cyclist is currently undertaking the circumnavigation of the continent in thirty days. In the last ten days he has travelled 4,000 kilometres. Do the maths, experience the heat; is he mad or is he mad? It is in aid of some charity, perhaps when I have internet again I shall try to find out more about this madness.

As we approached Adelaide River, we crossed swampy lagoons and as we sped through,  I saw beautiful blue iris shaped flowers rising above the lagoon water where one normally finds water-lillies and great  flocks of Magpie Geese gathering on like lagoons. As we crossed over the bridge at the edge of town, I looked down into the river bed to see the muddy waters. The river is apparently full of salties – salt water crocodiles, the sort you mess with at your peril.

We didn’t stop here but did see it was a welcoming settlement, a place that one might visit if you were attempting to retrace history. During World War II, the relatively sheltered Adelaide River was a major military base for 30,000 Australians and US soldiers.  It, like Pine Creek, was originally established as an outpost for the Overland Telegraph Line, and being halfway between Darwin and Pine Creek, became an important place during the gold rush years.

Our destination for the day was now within reach; just twenty seven kilometres on up the Stuart Highway and then a further seventeen off to the west and we reached Batchelor, now the gateway to the Lichfield National Park.

Batchelor was originally established as a large air-force base during World War II and then in 1949, became prominent when uranium, was discovered at nearby Rum Jungle. And so it became home for the workers of Australia’s first uranium mine which prospered for about ten years closing in 1963, followed by the uranium treatment plant in 1971.  Today tourism is the life blood of Batchelor and we are doing our best to support the community by settling in for a couple of days.

I had earmarked this camp before we set off this morning, however as we passed through the centre of Batchelor, Chris was keen to check out the Big4 for which I had not been able to find tariffs on line. Our Tomtom showed that the Banyan Tree Caravan Park was still another ten kilometres on and Chris was keen to minimise our fuel use. We pulled in and spoke to the proprietor who was resting sensibly in the shade of an old shed. Yes, we could take our pick of powered sites and that would be $40 per night. Oh, and if we were Big4 members we would only pay $36. Having ascertained that the Banyan Tree was only charging $29 per night, we said, thank you but no, and left. You would think that out of season, camp proprietors would be willing to do a deal. He could have said, “Well how about we make it $35?” And we would have countered with maybe $33 and it could have been a win-win for everyone. But no, he lost and we ended up gaining after all.

We continued on toward the National Park and duly arrived here. There was a small tour bus in and the German proprietor suggested we find ourselves a spot and return in the next hour or three to sort out payment. And so we did, finding a lovely shady spot under trees in this character filled park. We were even more delighted to be charged only $50 for two nights. The shade cloth over the pool is probably undergoing repair for the season however we still enjoyed our brief dip in the sunlit pool.

Much later, after dinner and sunset, the forecasted storm came and we were entertained for about an hour  with thunder and lightening, but not before we witnessed a couple of roos sparring across the park, a couple of marsupial boxers.