Week 18 Devils Marbles, Banka Banka, Newcastle Waters Daly Waters.

We camped for 2 night at Devils Marbles after leaving Alice Springs and staying one night a a roadside rest area. Devils Marbles is a very popular camping spot, we arrived at about 1.30 and we were lucky to get a spot, there would have been about 20 or so caravans, campers, motorhomes, buses and fifth wheelers.   Devils Marbles are (you are going to get bored with this) an amazing formation, in particular just before sunrise they take on an ethereal red glow, beatiful.

 The only wild life sighted was a lone Dingo, he would wander through the camp at any time of the day or night, showing no fear and not really careing about much at all, other than on the second morning it took an interest in one of the campers' little dog, oh well it missed out on the feed.

THE DINGO TOOK ........

SUN RISE ON THE MARBLES

Seeing this rock formation, you ask your self how the hell do they stay there?

LOOK MUM NO CEMENT

After our couple of nights we headed off and planning to stay at Banka Banka Outstation. Banka Banka was in years past a cattle station which had an area for visiting caravanners. The station has been purchase by the Aboriginal Land Corporation, their plan is to turn it back into a cattle station and use it as a training facitity to train young Aboriginals in the workings of a cattle station. They plan to keep the caravan park as well and I assume that they will also be trained in that. Bank Banka is a little green oasis in the middle of red dirt and dust, supplied with and never ending supply of spring water. The manager encourages you to empty your water tanks to help water the grass and to fill up with spring water, you are also encouraged to wash you vehicles to help keep the grass in good nick. Happy hour was usually held behind the bar (licenced) where they had a large fire pit, a few hours of pleasent conversation with other travellers was had there.

BANKA BANKA STATION

Following our couple of nights at Banka Banka we headed off towards Daly Waters Pub, on the way we decided that we would have a free night at Newcastle Waters. This free stop appeared very popular, so we were lucky to get a spot. We arrived around 1.30 and there was probably 10 vans etc in by then, but by 3.00 the place was chockers, about 30 vans, motorhomes etc had set up for the night. We had a fifth wheeler pull up next to us and after setting up the wife decider to go for a walk in the bush behind the stop - luckiy she took a 2 way radio with her. She had lost sight of the vans and didn't have a bloddy clue where she was, after some time of stumbling around we could hear her talking over and above the 2 way. Her husband told her to turn off her radio and to follow his voice because she was so close to the rest stop. She managed to stumble her way into camp and her husband said that her directional awareness was hopeless, turn her around twice in a shopping centre and she's buggared. Anyway Newcastle Waters itself is a cattle station and has a memorial to the drovers how lost their lives droving in the Territory in particular out of the Newcastle Waters area.

NEWCASTLE WATERS

So we finally make the infamous Daly Waters Pub, reasonable caravan park, $24 per night with power and water (plenty of water, empty your tanks and refill with our great water). The pub is well known for its interior decor, knickers and bras hung over the rafters and cash stapled to the walls. The pub is a territoy institution for its meals, the specialty of the house is "Barra" and Beef, at $27.50 a head although it was nice it was a little over priced. They do about 14,000 a season, so with the attached caravan park which they put about 90 vans a night for the season. Thats before you start adding up the beer sales - of which there was plenty, not a bad earner. There was entertainment every night, firstly from 4.30 to 7.30 was a girl playing the sax - her act was called "Sax and the Single Girl". She was really good, played all sorts of music, from rock and roll to ballards, she was folloewed by "Chilli", he sang and told stories and "took the pi.." out of anyone in particular - very entertaining and humerous, a lot of old jokes but very good. after Daly Waters we are heading off to Mataranka Springs Homestead for a week of R&R, this is very exhausting you know.

DALY WATERS PUB

Weekl 17 No Town Like Alice

Alice Springs is not a town that really grabbed us, however we were both really impressed the the set up the School of the Air, so impressed that we are considering doing some relief out station tutoring - we will see how that pans out. Anyway back to the important stuff, we took a trip out to Hermansberg Mission, this was the place that Albert Namatjira was born and developed his magnificent skills as a water colour painter, seeing the landscape you can see how someone with the talent could do such magnificent paintings. on the same day that we visited the mission we took a trip to Palm Valley. As we turned onto the road there was a sign describing the road - you know the type, 4WD vehicles only, 22kls and expected travel time of 3 hours return. So after deflating the tyres a little we headed off, as you know Gaila is not too keen on 4WD'ing however I think the scenery distracted her sufficiently so as not to complain about the road/track too much. The track followed the Finke River, crossing it numerous time and driving along the river course it self (it was dry). The hills surrounding the road was brilliant, it looked like huge bricks had been laid. To get to Palm Valley you travelled through the Cycad Grove, a area of magnificent ancient Cycad plants. Scientists have estimated the age of these Cycads between 200 and 300 hundred years old, some of them were here before ol' Jimmy Cook discovered our fair land.The Palm Valley was still some way off and the was getting a little rougher but all credit to Gaila, she coped well with the bouncing around, but it was really worth it when we arrived, it was truly stunning.

I took a walk around the rim of the valley, truly incredible, again photos do not do the spectacular scenery justice, it just goes to show how small we are in this world of ours. The way that the landscape and vegetation adapts to the conditions is amazing, next to each other on the rim walk were two groups of trees, one group were native fig trees, they are usually found up in the tropics and the other group were white Cyprus pine, they are usually in the south of the country, they were there when the landscape was very different and over the eons of time they have adapted to the climate of the area.
The following day Gaila decided to stay at the van while I visited both Standley Chasm and Simpsons Gap. This prooved to be an expensive day, $8 for Standley Chasm and a new camera for simpsons Gap, yep that's right I stuffed my camera, the only made steps on both walks and I trip over the, drop the camera, rear screen busted, no so bad as I could have used the veiw finder, however, the two chips on the lense tended to put two soft focus spots on the picture.



STANDLEY CHASM

SIMPSONS GAP

PALM VALLEY



CYCAD GROVE











Week 16 - Yulara, Uluru and Kata Tjuta

It's another Thursday morning and it's time to hit the road. We are heading off to Ayres Rock (Uluru) and The Olgas (Kata Tjuta). Today we are only travelling about 300 to 400 ks and we will stop at one of the many rest spots on the way. Travelling up the Stuart Highway Gaila and I were both amazed at the amount of vegetation evident, far more than we had been expecting. It really showed the great seasons they have had in the area over the past couple of years. We pulled in for the night a Agnes Creek rest area about 50 to 60 ks from the NT boarder. A large area with some shade and a few already set up for the night or even longer. We joined a couple who pulled up near us for the obligatory happy hour and discovered that they spent the majority of their time on the road. They have a base in Howlong but most of the time they travel, they have a small business that they operate on the road - Electrical Tagging and testing. they do it all over the place, Darwin, Alice Springs, cattle stations in western Queensland down through Wagga Wagga, all over the place. We had a pleasant evening with them swapping stories of our travels etc.
The following morning we headed of towards Yulara, but our plan was to spent another night on the road somewhere along Lasseter Highway. Our second night was spent at Curtin Springs, a roadhouse and camping area about 85 ks from Yulara. They unpowered camping was free or $25 for a powered site, we went unpowered. While travelling the highway to Curtin Springs you come over a rise and there off in the distance to you left is the 300 mt high Mt Connor - a truly awesome sight.


MT CONNOR

The following morning we headed off for Yulara - Ayres Rock Resort Campground. I don't know if it was an optical illusion or not but the road always seemed to be going up, beats me. Again just over a rise there came into view Uluru - the deep red of its sandstone really standing out in the surrounding landscape and blue sky.
Just behind the campsite was a lookout that gave a 360 degree view of the surrounding landscape. We were treated to a great view of "The Rock", "The Olgas"and a pleasant sunset.

As magnificent as "The Rock" is The Olgas are a truly magnificent sight, the closer you get the more breath taking they become. I remember seeing photos taken many years ago (I was probably in 6th grade) by a very close friend of my parents and although you sort of knew the the Rock was big you didn't appreciate the magnificence and sheer size of The Olgas. I think I preferred The Olgas.

It was really worth the extra 50k drive to get right to them.

On our second day we went into the "Park" $25/head for a 3 day pass. Heading off to The Olgas, the walk through one of the gorges was almost reverential in a way, the sense of the place was quite mystical, it felt like the place spoke to you.

We joined the throng of people for the sunset viewing of "The Rock" and it showed some of the different colours the she is famous for, Gaila chose not to join me on the sunrise viewing, again I joined the throng of people, it was OK but nothing too spectacular.

SUNSET

SUNSET

The cultural centre at Uluru gave a very informative and interesting indigenous history of the area and the clans and tribes that used Uluru as their place of ceremony, we joined a guided tour of one of the areas of "The Rock" that was used by the Mala people for ceremony and that gave us a really good insight to a small part of the culture and customs.

One of the waterholes at the base of Uluru, the one is at the end of the Mala walk at the base of Kantju Gorge. This was obviously a very special place for the Mala people, however they never took water for themselves from here, this was left for the animals, they would wait for the animal to have its drink and when it was leaving the waterhole they would then hunt them. The Mala people took their water from soaks some distance away from the waterhole. This always ensured that they had good hunting in the area.

One of the many Wedgetail Eagles that we have seen since since Wilpena Pound. This one was on the road from Yalara to Alice Springs. To get this photo we had to creep along the road verge so that it would not scared off, they are truly magnificent birds.

Tomorrow we head off to Alice Springs, about 440ks away. Today I filled the main and aux fuel tanks at $2.13/lt, $235. Luckily we filled up at the resort, on our way in Curtin Springs was $2.30/lt. In this vast country you really do use the fuel. Since leaving Bairnsdale in December last year we have used about 2,900lts, travelling about 20,800kl (about 9,400k towing the van), costing approx $4,600 at about 13.9lts/100kl or about 20mpg and you know what it has been worth every cent of it..