An obligatory stopover (at least for a couple of days) for visitors to the Top End, Katherine is a small but rapidly growing regional centre on the southern banks of the Katherine River. It's just 30km from Katherine Gorge , the town's primary tourist attraction and itself part of the larger Nitmiluk National Park .

 

West of Katherine, the Victoria Highway leads for 500km west to the WA border, passing Timber Creek and the entrance to the 4WD tracks of the Gregory National Park on the way. South of town, a dip in Mataranka 's thermal pool and a couple of "bush pubs" are the highlights of the 670km to Tennant Creek , unless you take the former droving route via Borroloola and the Gulf of Carpentaria, to northern Queensland, still a rough track but passable to sturdy cars in the Dry. South of Tennant Creek, only the rotund boulders of the Devil's Marbles brighten the string of roadhouses along the Stuart Highway, which stretches for just over 500km to Alice Springs.