14th – 15th June



Tonight we are sitting in a road side camp at Newcastle Waters, approx 400klms south of Katherine.  Having left Alice Springs we have travelled around 750 klms in two days.  The country here continues to be mainly flat and roads are straight for so long that often the oncoming vehicles can look like a mirage.  Traffic is not heavy however and the vast majority of the vehicles we see are caravans.  Amazing so many had the same ideas as we did.

Last night we camped at the Devils Marbles.  This is a group of exposed granite boulders at the side of the Stuart Highway approx 100klms south of Tennant Creek.  The mystery of how these came to be is interesting in that apparently they were caused by erosion.  One needs to imagine that the hill was once as high as the highest rock and over thousands of years (they say) erosion washed out soil between the rocks and left them as we see them today.  And there endeth the lesson.

Our camp for the night

We arrived at about 3pm and that gave us time to see the site in the late afternoon thru to sunset.  We stayed at a camp ground immediately behind the site.  There were about 30 vans and motorhomes camped for the night and the “Full” sign went up soon after we arrived.  We have been surprised by the number of families with school age children that are travelling out here and for them the Devils Marbles are the grandest playground of all.

Aren't they grand?

Heard of splitting the atom?  Well water did this over time.

Using your imagination what do you see here?

Meet Wally who is the caretaker here.

The colour at sunset

Alice loves taking sunset photos so here is a sample of today's

And sunrise as well

The view from our van in the early morning

The dense group of rocks would cover an area of about 3 hectares while over all one would guess that they would spread over say 7 – 8 hectares.  This year after all the rain there is a large amount of grass throughout the Territory and here the grass has grown throughout the area as well.  It adds a special dimension in colour contrast.

The rocks actually change colour from sunrise to sunset so by camping overnight at the site we were able to experience some that.  We hope you enjoy just a few of the many photos we took.  Where does one stop when something so amazing surrounds you.

Today we have moved on from Devils Marbles.  We passed through Tennant Creek which was actually smaller than we had expected.  We stopped there for about an hour making some calls and refuelling.  Our phone range is very limited in NT so often we are not contactable for a couple of days where we stay overnight in a roadside camp.  In these cases we often stop in towns to upload / download emails and make calls.

Tennant Creek was again a very neat town although there are obvious race issues to be managed.  We were not there long enough to gain a real picture but many other tourists we have met advised us against staying there overnight.  This is sad for local businesses but so many have said it that it is hard to ignore.

We stopped for lunch and fuel again in Renner Springs – a cattle station operated roadhouse.  The price of distillate was $2:10 / litre compared to $1:74 in Tennant.  One thinks we are being had.

The camp tonight at Newcastle Waters is only a few metres off the highway and there are about 8 vans and several campervans.  These stops are often free and quite safe.  There are very basic facilities but distances between towns here make these stops fairly necessary and for us they are pretty easy and an early night.  Also they give us a chance to meet more people.  The people who stay in these sites are often the friendliest people we meet.
 
So it’s goodnight from me and bye bye from us.