The story of how Katherine Outback Experience came to be is once of devastation and resilience. It was the product of the crash of the pastoral industry following the 2011 beef live export ban.

Overnight Tom Curtain’s livelihood as a horse trainer in the top end of Australia was in tatters following the government’s decision to ban the live export of cattle. As a ripple effect of the ban, stations were forced to seize operations which included the training of horses. This meant Tom was out of work.

To help make ends meet Tom started singing four times a week at the local Katherine Holiday Park.

Over the years, hundreds of tour groups from all over the world have visited our Visitor Centre!Whatever the case, wherever you are from! We want to partner with you to bring your clients a unique and engaging Northern Territory experience. 

Alice Springs School of the Air Experience is a much loved feature on the itinerary of many tours and travel experiences to Central Australia.  If you are looking to develop a tour to Alice Springs, we’d love to partner with you to ensure your clients get to experience our unique and authentic attraction, located a mere 5 minutes drive north of the CBD. 

Surf Life Saving NT is a volunteer, not-for-profit community service organisation and is the peak agency for coastal safety in the NT.

Whilst surf lifesaving activities have been embedded in the Australian way of life for more than 100 years, they have only been present in the NT since 1971 when our first club, Gove Peninsula Surf Life Saving Club opened its doors in Nhulunbuy. Surf lifesavers have a very positive contribution to make, on and off the beach and as each year passes we continue to experience strong growth in all our activities. 

Our movement is a part of the history, fabric and future of this country. It protects life, it saves life, it promotes life. We create a safe environment in and around our beaches, through patrols on, in and beyond the shore and through education and training programs.

Surf Life Saving is the largest volunteer movement of its kind in Australia. We are a not-for-profit movement that exists only through community donations, fundraising and corporate sponsorship. Our activities address many community and Government policies such as safer communities, obesity, physical activity, youth development, training and education, and family.

The 16 ha area that is now Olive Pink Botanic Garden was gazetted in 1956 as the Australian Arid Regions Flora Reserve after intense lobbying by the Garden’s founder, and first honorary curator, Miss Olive Muriel Pink.

The Garden is part of a substantial area of contiguous Crown Land that extends east from the Todd River on the southern edge of the Alice Springs Central Business District. Prior to 1956 the land was unoccupied and grazed variously by feral goat, rabbit, and cattle populations, to the extent that the vegetation on the floodplain area was fairly modified and devoid of tree and shrub cover when Miss Pink took up occupancy there in 1956.

Miss Pink and her Warlpiri assistant gardeners, including Johnny J Yannarilyi pictured below, spent the next two decades battling drought and almost non-existent operational funding to develop Miss Pink’s vision for the Reserve. Together they planted, around Home Hut, an eclectic collection of trees and shrubs native to Central Australia as well as various cacti, garden flowers, and introduced trees that could withstand the harsh summers.

After Miss Pink’s death in 1975, the NT Government assumed control of the Reserve and set about fulfilling Miss Pink’s vision of a public area for the appreciation of native flora. During the next decade networks of walking tracks were put in place, the Visitor Centre was built, extensive plantings of mulga, red gums and other trees were established, a waterhole and sand dune habitat was created, and the existing interpretive display was installed. 

The Garden opened to the public in 1985 as the Olive Pink Flora Reserve, and was renamed Olive Pink Botanic Garden in 1996. The Garden is managed by a voluntary Board of Trustees which employs a Curator to manage the plantings and visitor experience.

Olive Pink Botanic Garden was listed on the Register of the National Estate in 1995, and nominated for inclusion on the Northern Territory Heritage Register in 2007, because of its strong links to Miss Olive Pink, anthropologist, campaigner for Aboriginal social justice, artist and visionary gardener.

In early 2007, the Garden joined other properties in the Alice Springs region in being part of the Land for Wildlife voluntary conservation program.