Off to See the Wizard - Alice Springs to Devils Marbles

Finally, we have some access to half decent internet coverage, so I will try to do a big catch up.

After six nights at Alice Springs it was time to start moving again. We anticipated it would just be a day of driving to our destination with not a lot to see.  As you can guess, that was not the case.

The first place of note we came across was the marker at the Tropic of Capricorn.  Once we were in the tropics the weather really started to warm up and no more frosts, like in Alice Springs.  The beanies and puffer jackets could finally be packed away.

As we drove along we noticed a huge sculpture on the top of a hill at Aileron.

Closer to the road was another sculpture, this time of a woman and child. There were no signs to give any explanation.

When we came to Barrow Creek we had to call in to the quirky pub, as we had a mission to complete.

 In the mid 1980s Mick’s brother pinned some money to the wall with “Orson” written on it.  

Mick wanted to see if he could find it.

Some had been there are very long time, but we had no luck.  Oh well, it was a very long shot.

While there we also had a look at the old Barrow Creek Telegraph Station, something we would probably have otherwise driven straight past.  I think we actually enjoyed this one more than the main one at Alice Springs.  It was much less commercialised.

You could walk right through the buildings, which had obviously had quite a bit of work carried out on them recently. Along all the walls the floor had been cut and pebbles laid in the edges of the floors.  We wondered if they had been stabilising the walls?  Who knows.

The rain collection system into a cistern was rather clever, although they now have tanks on each corner of the building instead.

Early on, the station master and a linesman were killed by aboriginals and they are buried in a little cemetery nearby.

Our destination for the day was the Devils Marbles.  It is a national park with camping available. We had been due to arrive on the previous day but had extended our time in Alice Springs.  You have to book online, which we had done from home.  We had tried to book for this night from Alice Springs, but the website wouldn’t recognise the date of the 31st, just trying to change it to the 1st.  We gave up.  There is no internet coverage in the area, but apparently there is a wifi hotspot on site where you can book, but we couldn’t find it or any reference to it, so we just parked in an area without a campsite number with the intention that if a ranger came by we would pay.  Before long another van parked beside us, having had the same troubles, then more joined us, all willing to pay if anyone came and asked.  No one did.  We didn’t feel too guilty, as we had paid for the previous night.  From all accounts the NT National Parks system of online booking is majorly flawed.  We have spoken to people who would like to camp in the parks, but are now not going to as it is all too hard.  Such a pity.  

Anyway, as you can see, our camp site was very pretty.  The prettiest of our whole trip so far.  It was so nice sitting in the warm afternoon in the shade of the mallee tree.

I even managed to get some stitching done. A rather nice backdrop, isn’t it.

There were loads of top knot pigeons and also quite a few spinifex pigeons.  When you see them both together you can see how much smaller the spinifex pigeons are and what pretty markings they have.  

Their top knots would blend in very well with the spinifex grass.

See what I mean.  They would hide nicely in a clump of this.

Later in the afternoon we went for a walk around the marbles.  

We were surprised at what a large area they cover.

There is a section where you actually climb up onto the rocks to a lookout. 

We were there as the sun began to set.  It was so pretty.  

The late afternoon light shining on the rocks made them glow.  It would have been nice to view them all from the western side, but what we saw was beautiful.

A few of us up there were having a bit of fun with shadows.

One final look at the sunset before descending from the rocks.

Once we went back to our campsite, we enjoyed watching the colours change as the evening closed in.

 It really was a wonderful sight, and yes that is the order the photos were taken in.

Just on dark, a lady came up to us.  We couldn’t see her clearly in the light, but she said “G’day Mick, I thought I recognised you up on the rock, but wasn’t sure until I saw your ute”.  She used to co-own the little cafe in the village near where we lived when we were out of town. That’s four times now.  You really can’t hide.

The highlight of the day was our pretty campsite.