The Devil's Marbles

The Devil’s Marbles is located south of Tennant Creek and north of the Devil’s Marbles Hotel at Wauchope (for some reason pronounced “walk up” which I could never understand).

In the “old days”, my parents and I used to visit Wauchope for the annual races event, which had several horses and a few races, but was really another opportunity for adults to consume vast quantities of beer and other beverages, mostly alcoholic. Me and other kids spent our time jumping in and out of the swimming pool since Tennant Creek in those days didn’t have one.

Today, the original Wauchope Hotel building still stands, but it has been improved somewhat with nice accommodation added at the back of the main pub building. New owners have given it a paint job and it looks very nice.

Outside is a lovely grassed area with chairs and benches where you can sit and eat your cooked lunch or dinner, sip away at a cool beer, or perhaps have a cup of coffee or tea. All are available.

The Devil’s Marbles attraction is huge and visited by almost everyone who passes by. It’s off the highway a short distance and juxtaposed by a largish caravan and tent parking area for which the NT Parks and Wildlife Department charges a nominal fee. There is an honour box and a permit one has to display on one’s car. Rangers do check, so it pays to be honest rather than be embarrassed by not paying.

We only stayed long enough to have lunch and a half hour or so to walk around and then continued north. When we visited there were dozens of people and numbers of Army vehicles were in transit apparently having been on exercise in South Australia.

You can see from the photos here what the Devil’s Marbles looks like. Another example of nature at work creating beautiful vistas for us to photograph and look at - and blog about!

On, on to Kakadu National Park …

Robin

Western Australia or Bust!

As we heading north from Alice Springs my mind returned to 1957 - the first time I had traversed the Stuart Highway between The Alice and Tennant Creek.

Then, the remote Northern Territory was much more remote. The “highway” was slightly wider than a large vehicle and trees, shrubs and spinifex lined each side providing a high potential for road surprises - that instant when a kangaroo or cow walks onto the road in front of you. Many a vehicle had arrived at its destination with damage resulting from an animal strike. The worst cases were, of course, towed in or transported home on the backs of trucks. On rare occasions, there would be a fatality - no seat belts in 1957.

When two vehicles approached, both had to put their outside wheels off the bitumen so they could pass. This presented an additional hazard given that much of the road edge was badly broken and pot-holed. However, I can recall occasions when we had done the then eight hour trip from Tennant Creek to The Alice and never pass another vehicle.

Today was much different. Although there is always the potential for a road surprise, the Stuart Highway is now a real highway with wide cleared edges, defined lanes and with a general speed limit of 130 km/hr. In some places the speed limit is unrestricted - drivers can drive as fast as they wish, and many brave souls do.

With two tonnes of caravan behind my car, I chose to drive at a steady 100 km/hr along that stretch I had travelled perhaps hundreds of times. Although the scenery is very ordinary, there is a meditative aspect to sitting looking out the front window for hours on end. There are many more fellow travellers on the road today too, which provides at least some intermittent break from the tedium.

We stopped at Prowse Gap rest stop overnight as it has toilets and ample parking space for larger caravans. After a busy few weeks and under the clear, sparkling Central Australian sky, we had the best night’s sleep for weeks. As I dozed off, I thought of my long lost parents and brother and the good times we had had living here when it was like Australia’s Wild West.

Robin

Preparing to Leave for Western Australia

Our Blue Sky Caravan at Alice Springs

When we sold our house in March, we planned to remain at Alice Springs until July so we could help daughter Meredith finish some beautification projects around her house. 

The additional three months also ensures that the Top End of Australia will have a much more pleasant climate than it would have at other times of the year.

All the good advice we have is that you do Western Australia in an anti-clockwise direction. This ensures that when you travel the long, gruelling distance across the Nullabor Plain, the wind is a tail wind and not a head wind. Head winds cause a greater fuel burn than a tail wind (of course), so it’s a better way to do it. More cost effective.

If we spend six months in Western Australia, it will also mean that as we travel south, summer will be approaching and summer in the south is more gentle than summer in the north. Make sense?

By the time we travel north to Alice Springs from South Australia, we will be acclimatised to the summer heat.

Apart from getting Meredith’s retaining walls, new shed and other tasks done, we are equipping our Toyota Prado with a UHF radio (to be fitted next week) and some larger capacity spot/flood lights. The car will be serviced before we go and probably get fitted with two new batteries – nothing worse than having a battery die 20 km outside some remote township and both batteries are nearing their failure dates.

Then there’s the caravan. We need to give it an off-the-power-grid test to ensure our gas appliances (fridge, water heater and cooker) work and that the solar-powered water pump and lighting work also. We don’t expect any problems here, but prior preparation prevents poor performance.

Finally, we need to trim the loading of the caravan as much as possible to keep weight within legal parameters. 

 

In the near future we’ll develop a loosely designed travel itinerary and post it online.

Robin

PS: We are beginning to get excited about our trip as the time draws closer