Communities

During the late 1950s, small groups of people were collected from around the region and relocated to Warrabri Settlement. These included Kaytetye people from Barrow Creek, Warlpiri people from Bullocky Creek areas and Alyawarra people from Murray Downs and Hatches Creek. Over 1,200 people populated Ali Curung in its early days. Warrabri was established in 1956 under its original name of ‘Warrabri Settlement’. The community changed its name to Ali Curung in 1978.

Barkly Regional Council service centre, Warrabri Bakery, Minnirri Store, police station, safe house, Homemakers, Aged Care Service, Arlpwe Art Centre and Gallery, Baptist Church, health centre and a mechanical workshop.

Established by Mick Tsavaris in 1979 to provide fresh bread to the community daily, the bakery is still operated by the Tsarvaris family. 

The original stored opened in the late 1960s as a community store providing food, merchandise and fuel. Currently managed by Outback Stores, the store is open Monday to Friday.

Established by Arlpwe Artists Aboriginal Corporation on 30 June 2008, the centre currently employs 10 staff and sells Aboriginal artefacts such as boomerangs, nulla nulla, spears, jewellery, coolamons, and magnificent one-of-a-kind paintings by renowned artists of the area. The English translation of the Aboriginal word Arlpwe is "...this country all over, no waterhole, no rivers, only soakage and Spinifex country" (Mr Mick Waake).

Ali Curung Advanced Water Treatment Plant opening in April 2013 and launch of Council water park in March 2016.

Alpurrururlam was formed out of a discord between Lake Nash Station and the Aboriginal population living on the nearby Georgina River. At the time many of the community members worked at Lake Nash Station but in the early 1980s there were plans to move the community to Bathurst Downs. For the locals this was “poison country”, no good to live on and posed a risk during wet season. They wanted to stay at Alpurrurulam – their home where there was water in the river all year round. In 1982 the community wrote to the then Chief Minister of the Northern Territory Government requesting a parcel of land to call their own near Lake Nash Station. After many legal battles, 10 square km area was excised from the pastoral lease and given back to the community in 1983. Alpurrurulam Land Aboriginal Corporation (ALAC) was then formed to be the land owner (a board of Community Elders) for the land. This is what is now called Alpurrurulam.

Barkly Regional Council Alpurrurulam Service Centre and municipal yards, Aged Care, Night Patrol, Sport and Recreation, Centrelink, Post Office, Warte Alparayetye community owned store, Alpurrurulam Community School (until Year 9), Rainbow Gateway – new community development program.

Laundry construction - June 2014, road upgrades - June 2014, regional fencing - 2015.

Three 15kW wind turbines were installed into the community in November 2011, producing about 12kW of electricity a day. 

A hybrid solar-diesel power system was also installed in 2011-2012. It has 1500 solar panels which produce 180kW of electricity a day. The system is integrated into the existing diesel power station, so when the solar drops off the diesel kicks in. Up to 80 per cent of the power used during the day in this community is supplied by either the sun or the wind. Alpurrurulam now has one of the lowest rates of diesel consumption in the Northern Territory.

Built in 2007, the runway is 1200m long by 22m wide. There are planes to Mt Isa for health appointments once a week with a special mail plane on Fridays. 

The first European in the region was Charles Winnecke, a surveyor, who passed through in 1877. Although the Alyawarr people were shy of the Europeans, Winnecke’s expedition needed the help of the local people to find water in the desert. Freehold title leases were granted by the federal government around 1910 to establish cattle stations on Alyawarr land in an attempt to bring white settlers and development to central Australia. Traditional owners lost rights to culturally significant sites and to hunting grounds to make way for the grazing cattle.

In 1940, the land around Ampilatwatja was taken up by settler John ‘Nugget’ Morton, who is connected to the Coniston Massacre of Aboriginal people in 1928. The resultant Ammaroo Station became a gathering place for Alyawarr people in the ‘60s and ‘70s where many worked as drovers and fencers. In 1976 under the Native Titles Act Alyawarr families were granted a small plot at an area then known as Honeymoon Bore, about 10km from Ammaroo Station. This small settlement is what has now developed into the community of Ampilatwatja. In the 1990s the traditional owners gained small excisions from the local pastoral lease to continue their life on the land.

Barkly Regional Council service centre and municipal workshops, Aherrenge community store, Aged Care Service, Night Patrol, Ampilatwatja Health Centre Aboriginal Corporation, Ampilatwatja Health Centre, police station.

Ampilatwatja Staff House, regional fencing, workforce development, local road improvement.

The Community Art centre began in 1999 and artworks produced maintain a strong focus on Alyawarr lore, with a particular emphasis on the natural landscape. Most of the artists paint Arreth, which translates to ‘strong bush medicine’. The paintings pay homage to the significance and use of traditional bush medicine, allowing an insight into their community. The community of Ampilatwatja made a conscious decision not to paint ‘altyerr’ dreaming stories. The artists paint their country where those stories sit. The work produced by the artists is recognisably distinct from other Aboriginal artistic communities, due to the application of fine dots and the often bright and child-like figurative depiction of the land. 

The 1200m long airstrip caters mainly for the Mail plan and Royal Flying Doctor Service. It is a day/night strip but closes during heavy rain.

Named by German settlers in the early 1920s, Utopia was a pastoral lease owned by the Chalmers family. Aboriginal people originally lived close to the main homestead area now known as Three Bores Homeland. The property was sold and became alienated Crown land held on behalf of Aboriginal people. After a lengthy land claim hearing, this land legally became known as the Angarapa Aboriginal Land Trust under the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act 1976. Aboriginal families then moved back to their more traditional areas.

Barkly Regional Council Arlparra Service Centre, Arlparra General Store, Primary School, High School, general store, Urapuntja Aboriginal Corporation and Urapuntja Health Clinic (10km north of Arlparra).

Arlparra Service Centre upgrade – May 2014, Arlparra playground upgrade - 2014, Utopia septic system upgrade – 2014, water tanks at Rocket range, Anterrengeny, Kurrajong, landfill construction, new police station construction, Utopia homelands water infrastructure for Pungalindum and Urapuntja clinic, workforce development.

During the late 1980’s the Aboriginal people of Utopia started to put acrylic paint on canvas. This followed a very successful decade of working with batik, several years after the Papunya art movement began. Utopia artists were initially quite formal in their painting techniques with fairly large dot or linear work. It didn’t take long, however, before many artists became bolder in style, colour and flair. This is what the contemporary art of Utopia is renowned for today. 

This small runway is situated close to the Urapuntja Health clinic at Urapuntja (Amengernternenh)

240 volt power is generated from Arlparra to supply all homelands, including Irrultja and Ampilatwatja.

Water is provided to most communities through bores and stored in ground and elevated tanks. Barkly Regional Council transports water to the communities without bores.

Elliott is the Barkly region’s second largest town and sits on the edge of Newcastle Waters Station. Named after Army Captain Reginald Douglas Elliott (MBE), it began life at the site of Number 8 bore as an Australian Army Camp during World War II (1942). A war memorial statue stands on the site of the camp, directly adjacent to the bore used to supply water to troops.

Its population is largely Aboriginal, who live in two outstations at either end of the town – Gurungu (North Camp) and Wilyuku (South Camp). Gurungu was formed in 1968 when workers left Newcastle Station following a dispute and Wilyuku started in the 1970s when people left the Barkly Tablelands after award wages were brought in.

Barkly Regional Council service centre and workshop yards to service the communities of Wilyuku, Gurungu and Marlinja outstation, sport and recreation centre, aged care services, safe house, police station, BP, art centre, play group, library, post office, Elliott School, caravan park and community store. 

Aged Care Vehicle, Tractor Purchase, November 2013 –landfill completion; December 2015 - Elliott Water park launched

Nearby Lake Woods was once part of a huge freshwater basin, which dried up in the last Ice Age, around 23,000 years ago. During this period, the lake reduced in size from 5000 square km to its current 420 square km. Longreach Waterhole forms part of this lake and is an important breeding ground for many inland bird species and popular with tourists.

European history in this area began in 1860 when explorer John McDouall Stuart passed this way on his unsuccessful first attempt to cross the continent from south to north. He named a creek to the north of town after John Tennant, a financier of the expedition and a pastoralist from Port Lincoln, South Australia.

Tennant Creek was the site of Australia’s last gold rush during the 1930s, and at that time was the third-largest gold producer in the country. The town was located 12 km south of the watercourse as the Overland Telegraph Station had been allocated on an 11 km reserve.

An important contributor to the early history of Tennant Creek was Mrs Weaber, wife of the blind owner of the Rising Sun Mine, one of the richest mines in the district before World War II. She set up the Christmas Tree event which still continues to this day. In 1940, the Weaber family sold Nobles Knob, which went on to become the largest open cut mine in Australia. It ceased production in 1985, and the last mine closed in 1999. 

Barkly Regional Council HQ and municipal depot

Purkiss Reserve Skate Park - October 2014, Purkiss Reserve Football Change Rooms – July 2015, Tennant Creek Swimming Pool – November 2015, Tennant Creek Child Care Centre Grounds upgrade, Purkiss Reserve CCTV, Regional Economic Infrastructure.

The Overland Telegraph, which once linked Melbourne to London, was constructed in the 1870s and forged a corridor through the middle of the continent, which the Explorer’s Way and Ghan train now travel. A temporary building for a telegraph repeater station was erected near the watercourse of Tennant Creek, 11km north, of the town, in 1872. 

The town’s goldmining history is on display at the mining centre. Battery Hill, which overlooks the town of Tennant Creek, is also the site of one of the last two operating 10-head stamp batteries, a government-owned ore crushing machine.

This is the region’s most spectacular landmark with thousands of huge, precariously balanced boulders, about 114km south of Tennant Creek. The traditional Aboriginal people believe that these boulders are the eggs of the Rainbow Serpent from the Dreamtime.

An outcrop of granite boulders, 11km north of Tennant Creek. They are called Kunjarra in Warumungu. Known as the smaller relatives of Karlu Karlu, the Pebbles are a sacred site.

Wutunugurra (Epenarra ) is a Community Living Area (CLA) sitting on 99ha, which was excised from Epenarra Pastoral Lease in the early 1980’s. The Clough family have held the lease since 1952 and enabled a small portion of Epenarra Station to be returned to the traditional custodians as a living area. A handful of the TOs living today still speak of the ration days in the 1960s when many of the families moved back to Hatches Creek where there was a wolfram mine. Wolfram is an ore from which miners get Tungsten, a metal used for hardening the tips of drills among other things. The Aboriginal people went to work with the other tribes. They filled up bags and sent the mineral away on the train to Alice Springs. The largest mine, the Pioneer mine, operated up until 1970.

Julalikari Council Aboriginal Corporation (JCAC) was the service provider for Wutunugurra until February 2009 when the Barkly Regional Council became the primary service provider.

Barkly Regional Council Wutunugurra service centre and municipal work yards, Epenarra School (Barkly Group School), health clinic, Aged Care Service, Night Patrol, Outback community store 

Improvement of local road infrastructure and equipping of a new production bore to secure water supply, and the upgrade and extension of the rising main (approximately 3000m).

Old Policeman’s Waterhole, around 45km past Wutunugurra, and Whistleduck Creek, just past Kurundi Station.

The women of Wutunugurra are accomplished artists whose paintings reveal their unique bond to the land with depictions of bush tucker, bush medicine, their hunting grounds and waterholes of ancestral country. They have also experienced the complete transformation of Aboriginal society, from elders who led a nomadic existence to the first meetings with white people, the mission era, the stolen generation and the younger people who now experience both traditional culture and the modern world and are creating a new dialogue with music to bridge the gap. Some of the art produced within the community has been sold right throughout Australia.

Private strip owned by Epenarra Station; day time only. Another airstrip based in the community of Owairtilla (Canteen Creek), 60km away. Access is via air charter services only.