Tennant Creek Essential Info
Overview
Tennant Creek is a town located in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is the fifth largest town in the Northern Territory and it is located on the Stuart Highway, just south of the intersection with the western terminus of the Barkly Highway. At the 2011 census, Tennant Creek had a population of 3,062. The postcode of Tennant Creek is 0860.
Tennant Creek is approximately 1,000 kilometres south of the territory capital, Darwin, and 500 kilometres north of Alice Springs. The town is named after a nearby watercourse of the same name. At the 2001 census, Tennant Creek had a population of 3,185, of which 1,176 identified themselves as indigenous. Tennant Creek is near well-known attractions including the Devils Marbles, Mary Ann Dam, Battery Hill Mining Centre and the Nyinkka Nyunyu Culture Centre and is the hub of the sprawling Barkly Tableland, vast elevated plains of black soil with golden Mitchell grass, that cover more than 240,000 square kilometres.
The Barkly Tableland runs east from Tennant Creek towards the Queensland border and is among the most important cattle grazing areas in the Northern Territory. Roughly the same size as the United Kingdom or New Zealand, the region consists largely of open grass plains and some of the world’s largest cattle stations. It runs as far south as Barrow Creek, north above Elliott and west into the Tanami Desert.
The region encompasses the junction of two great highways, the Barkly and the Stuart, also known as the Overlander and Explorer’s Ways. The Overlander's Way (Barkly Highway) retraces the original route of early stockmen who drove their cattle from Queensland through the grazing lands in the Northern Territory.
Basics
Best Time To Go
Jan-Apr, Oct-Nov
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