Tennant Creek

During another caravan adventure through the Northern Territory we spent a night at Tennant Creek before heading to Alice Springs, Uluru, Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) and Kings Canyon. We stay at the Outback Caravan Park along Peko Road which is quite old but the sites were large and the service friendly. This caravan park can be found along the road leading to the Visitor Information Centre and the Battery Hill Mining Museum.

Tennant Creek Caravan Park is located on the Highway which is a very convenient place to spend a few days. The road through Tennant Creek is quite wide and you will find plenty of places to pull up with the caravan in tow.

We arrived about lunch time and quickly set up the van, ate a sandwich and headed out to take a look at some of the sites. First stop was the Visitor Information Centre to obtain local knowledge regarding places to see and gather a few maps of the area.  It costs around $9 to look through the  Battery Hill Mining Mining Museum – one section tells about life on the gold fields around Tennant creek and the other has a small display of gems and rocks in a climate controlled room. Pieces of mining equipment are displayed around the grounds.

A short distance further along Peko road is a turn off to Bill Allen Lookout which enables visitors to look over the town and surrounding area – two big water tanks hinder the view in one direction but you can see for miles in the other.

North of Tennant Creek is Lake Mary Ann – a recreational lake for the people of the town. Some lovely shaded areas beside the lake and a pontoon just off shore for swimming. This is very popular with locals during summer.

Further north along the Stuart Highway is one of the historic Telegraph Stations that were built between Adelaide and Darwin. We found this quite fascinating to wander around and read the informative signs – information sheets can also be found in the box beside the entrance gate. The buildings are surprisingly cool inside when the outside temperature was about 38-40 degrees celsius. The buildings at the Telegraph Station included a Cellar which was used to store fruit and vegetables, a smoke house for curing meat, main building with kitchen, telegraph office, blacksmiths building and another building which is labelled “Butcher”. If you want to take a look inside these buildings you can collect a key from the VIC ($20 deposit) to be returned after your visit.

Back to Tennant Creek and noticed some unusual looking cars that were taking part in the World Solar Car Challenge – stopped to take photos. This challenge is a race from Darwin to Adelaide - about 3,000 kilometres using only solar power. The cars are various shapes and sizes with some providing only enough room for a very small driver. 

Tennant Creek is just south of the Threeways Roadhouse in the Northern Territory. We called in briefly to find a chemist on our way to Renner Springs for our stopover on the way to Mataranka. The streets are very wide and we easily found a park in the main shopping area with the caravan behind the car.  

Tennant Creek has a couple of caravan parks that look quite nice with plenty of shade.