Trying to find a fancy, exotic location to spend our anniversary, we could do no better than the small gold mining community of Pine Creek. Most people may suggest Pine Creek is a small, crappy, dusty, mining town in the middle of no where. They’re just jealous of my awesome romantic anniversary ideas. Pine Creek does have some nice accommodation and pubs, in fact better than most of what we have in Katherine.

We kicked it up a notch from our usual camping and opted for luxury ensuite accommodation. We stayed at the Pine Creek Railway Resort and were impressed with the modern, good quality accommodation and the reasonable price. Most of the time you pay a similar amount for a worn out, dirty, smelly old hotel. For dinner we hit up the Lazy Lizard Tavern. This is a really nice spot. Big outdoor character pub, timber and stone structure, modern comfortable furniture, big logs for structural posts, aboriginal art on the walls and sculptures carved into some of the wooden posts. Plus it’s kept really clean and tidy, one of the highest standards we’ve seen for an outdoor style bush pub. Good spot. I wish Katherine had something equivalent. Pizza for dinner, a few ales, then returned to the hotel to take advantage of the free pay TV in our room.

We stopped off at Umbrawarra Gorge on the way back to Katherine. Went for a quick walk down the gorge. The water was a bit stagnant and shallow, being so late in the dry season. Didn’t look too inviting for swimming but I’m sure it would be good earlier in the season. There’s bush camping there too, but we decided to head home. It was too hot to stay somewhere without adequate swimming or any other facilities.