From goldfields to tourism gold, the Grove Hill Heritage Hotel and Museum in the Northern Territory Stan Haeusler, behind the bar at his Grove Hill Hotel. Picture: Janet Fife-Yeomans Source: News Corp Australia Stan Haeusler (pictured) leans down and emerges with a rabbit trap, which he plonks down on the hardwood slab that is the bar. He triggers the trap with a piece of wood and the wicked teeth snap shut. The outback publican calls himself Stan The Man and says he drinks a bottle a day. Rum that is, not beer. Hard to tell if he is serious. He opens the trap. "Go on, put your hand in it," the 80-year-old says, a glint in his eye. Owner Stan Haeusler working the bar at the Grove Hill Heritage Hotel. Picture: Janet Fife-Yeomans Source: News Limited The Stuart Highway used to pass by the front door of the Grove Hill Hotel, halfway between Katherine and Darwin. While the new highway is 16km away and the hotel is now on a road to nowhere, Stan and his late wife, Mary, turned this place into a destination in itself. Old Grove Hill Hotel sign. An easy diversion clearly signposted along a dirt road, the hotel - with its white corrugated iron walls - is significant enough to be registered on the National Estate, where it is described as reflecting a "period of history of pioneering social life in an isolated area." It now calls itself the Grove Hill Heritage Hotel and Museum. This is all that is left of the former mining town. It stands alongside a graveyard of rusty wrecks scavenged from the paddocks and old gold mines. The hotel was built by a blacksmith and wheelwright; it is a masterpiece of recycling with material salvaged from the abandoned mining sites including a tram line. Even now, nothing is thrown away, Stan says. Vehicle graveyard at Grove Hill Hotel. Behind the walls are rooms of dusty memorabilia going back to 1934, when the hotel was built in the wake of the gold rush. There are old bedsteads, rusty tools, household goods and even the bathtub where the pub's first licensee, Margaret Lucy, used to wash. According to one of the old pub posters, it is always "Beer O'Clock." Beer O'Clock sign at the Grove Hill Hotel. Friends of Stan and Mary pull up with their caravan and drink a couple of beers. The woman tells Stan they plan to stay a few days, give him some TLC after his wife's death, and offers to do some dusting. He can handle the company - but not the housekeeping. It's the dust of all those years that is part of the appeal as much as the isolation, home- cooked meals and Stan's jokes. The Grove Hill Hotel. Her offer to dust turned down, the family friend places her hand in the trap. Snap! It is one of Stan's party tricks that the metal teeth stop just short of her skin. There is no more gold mining but there are still nuggets to be had and Stan usually has a few to sell. Tourists have replaced the pig, buffalo and crocodile hunters who in turn replaced the gold miners. When The Ghan passes on the Adelaide-Darwin railway line across the road, it still gives a toot on the horn. Stan had the hotel up for sale two years ago but his wife died not long after he put it on the market. Now he's building motel rooms out the back. On the last Saturday of each month, he puts on a band and a free barbecue. Owner Stan Haeusler has put the Grove Hill Heritage Hotel on the market and it is up for Auction on July 26th. Off the Stuart Highway halfway between Katherine and Darwin, the hotel is signposted. It is 16km along a dirt road. Campsites cost $10 a person. The new motel units are $120. Double rooms with ensuites are $80. Single rooms with ensuites are $60.