On Golden Rails
SETTLED back in the late 1800s when gold was found in the area, the Top End’s Pine Creek is now a town full of history with a treasure trove of heritage, mining sites and railway buildings. Pine Creek, a good two hours south of Darwin, is now just a little stopover off the main highway, but there are heaps to see and do, including driving the Northern Goldfields Loop that heads back north towards Adelaide River.
Today’s Pine Creek is just a small community where travellers stop overnight but back in the day, this place was booming. Gold was found by construction workers in 1870 when a drilling crew for the Overland Telegraph Line found alluvial gold near Yam Creek. Over the next few years it was one of the most frantic gold rushes that the north had ever seen, where in just three years, major goldfields were declared. As
