Deals > Explore > Tennant Creek > Culture and heritage
Nyinkka Nyunyu
The Nyinkka Nyunyu Art and Culture Centre features an award-winning interpretive museum and art gallery that provides visitors with insights about the life and culture of the local Warumungu people. Art from the Barkly region is showcased through a program of changing exhibitions, which can be purchased through the museum's store.
Tennant Creek Telegraph Station
Built in 1872, the Tennant Creek Telegraph Station is a collection of historic stone buildings that functioned as an important part of the Overland Telegraph Line that linked Australia with the outside world. The Station has a self-guided walk with interpretative signage on the region's telegraph communications and pastoral history.
Historic Walk
Pop into the Tennant Creek Visitors Information Centre and pick up the Historic Walk guide book. Take a self-guided walk around Tennant Creek and learn about its history and founders. The walk takes around one hour and passes all the town's historical attractions.
Battery Hill Mining Centre
At the Battery Hill Mining Centre in Tennant Creek you can relive some of Tennant Creek's gold mining past. See the gold stamp battery, the only operating ten-head stamp in Australia, on a guided tour. Other attractions are a native plant walk, minerals museum and an underground mine tunnel.
Tuxworth-Fullwood Museum
Located in the centre of town, the Tuxworth-Fullwood Museum tells the story of Tennant Creek's rich mining history. Amongst the artefacts and memorabilia is a replica of a miner's camp and photographs of the town, its pioneers and the old jailhouse. Originally built as a camp hospital during the Second World War, the museum is a protected National Trust building.
The Barkly region is steeped in the ancient traditions and beliefs of its traditional custodians, and around nine Aboriginal groups call the area home, including the Warumungu, Walpiri, Kaiditch and Alyawarr people.
According to Warumungu legend, the town of Tennant Creek grew up around the home of a spiky tailed goanna called Nyinkka - a powerful ancestral being. The Nyinkka Nyunyu Art and Culture Centre showcases this Warumungu culture.
The Barkly region has sustained Aboriginal people for thousands of years, but telegraph linesmen, stockmen and gold miners have also played a key role in its more recent history.
The township of Tennant Creek had its origins in the building of the Overland Telegraph Line. The first European to explore the area was John McDouall Stuart. He named a creek in the area after his South Australian friend and sponsor, John Tennant. When the telegraph line was completed in 1872 and a permanent repeater station was built, European pioneers began settling the area in small numbers. The old station closed in 1979 but has been preserved as a historical site, 11 kilometres north of the town.
Later, in the 1930s, Tennant Creek became the site of Australia's last gold rush. The Battery Hill Mining Centre is an excellent place to learn more about the area's gold mining heritage.
The Barkly region is also renowned for the cattle industry and encompasses some of Australia's largest and most historic stations. These include Newcastle Waters, Banka Banka and Brunette Downs. The Overlander's Way tourism drive follows the paths of many droving heroes who brought vast herds of cattle through the Barkly on their way to the Queensland coast.
