Central Region
This is best described as the area surrounding Katherine, on both sides of the Stuart Highway edging up into the western fringes of Arnhem Land. It includes both ‘old’ and ‘new’ NT styles of development.
An old style of development is represented by such places as Pine Creek, focus of a gold-rush last century and now with a much-diminished economic role, and a number of the cattle stations to the west and south.
A newer style of development can be seen in the tourism potential of natural wonders at Mataranka, in the cultural tours in the small community of Manyallaluk, and in the takeover of some pastoral stations by traditional Aboriginal landowners through a land claims process. Nowhere is the symbolism of this more obvious than at the property bearing the subregion’s name: Elsey Station, the setting for Jeannie Gunn’s novel We Of the Never Never. It is now an Aboriginal owned and managed station.
To the east, the subregion covers Jawoyn land, at Beswick and Barunga, before edging into Arnhem Land near Bulman. In June each year hundreds of people travel to the Barunga Festival to enjoy three days of sport and culture.
Just south of Katherine, Tindal RAAF base with its 2400 staff and family members contributes substantial resources to the regional economy and represents another industry in the increasingly-diverse mix.
The strategic importance of Tindal in defence planning, the increasingly important role of tourism and ways in which Aboriginal people are using land successfully claimed under the NT’s Land Rights Act reveal the modern face of development in the NT. The Elsey subregion shows this in abundance.