Once Australia's northern capital, Newcastle Waters became a ghost town
In an abandoned hotel in the Northern Territory ghost town of Newcastle Waters, Wayne Kraft says he can hear the walls talk.
Walking through the building, he imagines the patrons and staff occupying what was once the only pub for hundreds of kilometres in every direction.
"It's the pub with no beer," he says from the front bar, a stubby from home in hand.
"It just reeks of that history."
Today Newcastle Waters is a humble collection of deserted buildings and tin sheds, but imagine an alternate reality where the town is not only alive, but thriving as the capital of North Australia.
A century ago, a plan was hatched to bring this idea to life.
How did this community rise to have the status of a capital city, before entering terminal decline?
Before: Newcastle Waters in 1978 after the town was abandoned. (Supplied: Library and Archives NT). . After: People gather in Newcastle Waters in 2026. (ABC News). .
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Stockmen and drovers
In 1926, the NT was still governed by the federal government in Canberra, which felt the best way to run its most far-flung jurisdiction was to split it in two.
Alice Springs would be the capital of Central Australia, and Newcastle Waters would take the crown off Darwin and become the new capital of the north.
This made sense for two reasons, according to Mr Kraft, an amateur historian from Alice Springs.
There was no road access to Darwin, and the city was generally accessed by sea.
And Newcastle Waters was already a hive of activity, due to the famous Overland Telegraph Line located nearby and the stock routes that converged on the settlement.
"I've walked in here on my own and I can hear the walls talk, go into the kitchen and just visualise people, the ladies cooking with their long gowns," says Mr Kraft, known as Krafty.
"There's big mobs of cattle moving through here. I can only visualise what it would have been like."
Stockmen at Newcastle Waters Station on Christmas Day 1931. (Supplied: Library and Archives NT)
The town was built on the edge of a cattle station of the same name, which still operates today. At its peak Newcastle Waters was a vital stop for drovers taking thousands of cattle from as far as Western Australia's Kimberley on a 1,500-kilometre journey to Queensland.
A small school remains for Aboriginal communities in the region, but there are no residents.
One of the most notorious routes was the Murranji Track, a treacherously remote 234 kilometre trip from Top Springs to Newcastle Waters. Some drovers called it the "death track", but it was the only way to move cattle before modern roads and trucks.
Jock Jones in his store at Newcastle Waters. It was a crucial supply point for drovers. (Supplied: Library and Archives NT)
Former drover Roger Steele was only a teenager when he first travelled the Murranji in 1956.
"We collected 1,350 wild bullocks. There was only six people in the camp, and we started moving them towards Queensland," he says.
"It took 16 weeks, and we had to get through the Murranji, so that's scary, all that scrub out there. And if the cattle rush [stampede], what are you going to do, for God's sake?"
Mr Steele later left the industry and was elected to the first NT parliament in 1974.
"I've been droving a heck of a lot, more than I really wanted to. I 'enjoyed' it so much, I got into parliament to get away from the cattle."
Historian Eddie Webber (left) and Roger Steele (right) with a plaque listing the names of drovers known to have travelled the Murranji. (ABC Rural: Sam Parry)
Aboriginal stockmen were also essential to the success of this industry. However, many were treated unfairly, and strike action was common across the region.
This included Newcastle Waters Station, where in 1966 dozens of Indigenous workers went on strike to demand equal pay, months before the now legendary Wave Hill walk-off.
The movement was also a call to recognise the injustices perpetrated by colonists, and the Wave Hill walk-off is widely considered to have inspired the Aboriginal Land Rights Act.
A mob of horses inside a post and rail yard, at Newcastle Waters in 1930. (Supplied: Library and Archives NT)
Mates of the Murranji
Preserving the history of Newcastle Waters is a passion for people like Wayne Kraft. He has pulled a group of friends together to form Mates of the Murranji, a club dedicated to bringing new life, and hopefully tourists, to the ghost town.
"People can slowly [walk] around the township, absorb the history," he says.
"I just think it's a fantastic story, if you're at a quiz night and it came up, we could win the competition."
Their cause has attracted interest in Darwin's corridors of power; the late Ted Egan, a renowned musician and statesman, was a mate of the Murranji. Recently a convoy of nearly 70 people travelled to Newcastle Waters to celebrate the centenary of its selection as capital.
Among them were long-time Territorians, such as Mr Steele, NT Administrator David Connolly and ministers in the NT government.
Mates of the Murranji out the front of Jock Jones's old store in Newcastle Waters. (ABC Rural: Sam Parry)
As for why the decision to make Newcastle Waters a capital city did not stick, Krafty has a simple explanation.
"Probably no money; decisions made in Canberra often don't resonate here in the Territory even to this day," he says.
"That actual act of parliament was rescinded five years later.
"Darwin always retained its position as the capital of the NT."
By the end of the 1960s, the NT's road network had improved drastically and road trains had taken over as the preferred mode of transport for cattle.
The stock routes were no longer needed and the town's fate was sealed.
But if Krafty has his way, Canberra's big dreams for Newcastle Waters could finally be realised, just a century later than planned.
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