We had a better night than usual recently, because it cooled down very rapidly once the sun was down, and by 2 a.m. we were glad of our sleeping bags. It was not a long night though, we were up at 5.30 and away just after 6.30. We made a brief fuel and refreshment stop in Tennant Creek, then we were on our way to the Devil's Marbles.
These enormous boulders are intrusions of molten magma that never quite made it to the surface. They cooled and fractured underground, then the covering layer of sands was eroded off, exposing them to erosion. They fractured into rectangles, rather like a block of chocolate, and the original rectangles have eroded into these shapes, often oval or round.
The whole place is somewhat like an enormous sculpture park, perhaps by Brancusi, and we wandered about for an hour, photographing the strange shapes.
While we were awaiting the arrival of our bus, which had dropped us off at one car park so we could walk to another, we were visited by some of the local fauna, who wanted to see if we had anything to eat. First was a bower bird who whistled loudly at us and strutted about pointedly in the hope that we would understand what he wanted.
Next was a dingo, but he said nothing, only looked very sad and hungry and then went away. Last were some crested pigeons who poked round our feet cooing softly and posed nicely for the pictures.
Our next short stop was at Wycliffe Well, known as the UFO capital of Australia. Apparently strange lights are often seen by most of the people who live there, so they have set up a a sort shrine to UFO sighting. It looks like a theme park outside, and inside it is full of UFO stories from around the world which have been stuck to the walls.
Our next stop was Barrow Creek Telegraph Station, where there was an original OT station built in the 1870s. It gave you an impression of how isolated life was then in places in the outback. It was a low rectangular stone built house with a verandah, some adjacent sheds and a blacksmiths forge.
Early pictures from around 1900 on display showed no sign of any road of any kind, though now the Stuart Highway passes by a few yards away. Just a few yards further on was Barrow Creek Hotel, a small pub run by an eccentric called Mick who had memorabilia from all round the world stuck on the walls and stored in plastic bags on the bar counter. People give him all sorts of stuff - he has examples of London Oyster cards, for instance. Sadly, most of his English memorabilia is from football teams, so he must have thought we were very strange, not being at all interested in football. He had lots of stuff to show all the different nationalities on our bus.
We ate our sandwiches there, before getting back into the bus. Our next brief stop was at a place (for want of a better word) called Ti Tree, for fuel. This part of Australia seems full of places that aren't really anywhere at all, and I imagine are just to cater for users of the Stuart Highway and the few farms around. Just after that, we stopped very briefly at a mango farm for some delicious mango ice cream. Although this area is just scrubland and looks very dry, there is artesian water and that is used by a lot of local farms to grow fruit and vegetables.
The last stop was made when we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn again, going south this time.
Then it was on to Alice Springs where we said goodbye to most of the people on this part of the trip at a farewell dinner. We have one day in Alice Springs to recover, then we start all over again, with a 7 day trip to Adelaide.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad- I finally cracked the photograph problem, so Paul should get the PC all to himself!
No comments:
Post a Comment