Back Roads 3 by Heather Ewart

Author:Heather Ewart [Ewart, Heather]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ABC Books
Published: 2024-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Pine Creek

Pine Creek was built on the sweat of Chinese workers who came here when gold was discovered in the 1870s. The town has had a boom-or-bust mining history ever since.

When Back Roads arrived in 2017, the town was at a crossroads after its biggest employer, an iron-ore mine, had closed a few years before. A gold mine had also just bitten the dust. My sense was that tourism was Pine Creek’s best hope of survival, because this little town has so much history it’s willing to share with anyone who’s interested.

The first thing I learned was that the Chinese weren’t just here for gold. Some were indentured to work on construction of the North Australia Railway through remote wilderness from Darwin to Katherine. The conditions were incredibly harsh and many died. Reminders of their efforts can still be seen in Pine Creek today, along with a few relics from where they lived in Chinatown. The preserved railway station and museum in the precinct take you back in time.

There’s just one descendant left in town and that’s Eddie Ah Toy, now aged in his mid-80s. Eddie’s grandfather was a railway worker and treated poorly like the rest. ‘Imagine in those days, in the heat, when there were no cranes or forklifts, and they’d have to lift a 40-pound piece of line. They were tough,’ he told me as we wandered along the disused track.

Eddie’s family went on to run the local general store for 80 years until it closed in 2015. It should be a museum, and Eddie talked about this possibility, but it never happened. Still, you can wander past it in the main street and imagine how life once was, when the store sold everything from fireworks, horseshoes and nails to clothing, toys, beer and wine. During the 1950s, it even temporarily stored drums of uranium mined in what’s now Kakadu National Park.

The town is full of heritage bush buildings and old mining sites, and it’s a haven for local and visiting prospectors who’ve never given up the elusive search for gold.

Pine Creek has a red-hot crack at luring tourists from the highway by staging an annual Gold Rush Festival and gold panning championships in late June. I had no luck finding any gold in the creek, but you might. It’s a great family day out, with demonstrations of Chinese dancing and music and an art and photo competition showcasing local talent.

We had a top week here. I’d really encourage a look, and ideally a stay overnight at the caravan park or one of the motels. There are some true-blue, down-to-earth characters in Pine Creek, the pub is friendly as long as you don’t behave like a city slicker, and this is a side of the Top End you’d do well to learn a little more about.

Now, before we move on towards Darwin, let’s take a side trip to one of Australia’s greatest tourist wonders, Kakadu National Park, on the sealed Kakadu Highway from Pine Creek. We’re so

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