Our Australia trip

After an early morning of watching boulders turn red (a bit like watching paint dry or grass grow), we have lazy breakfast and a slow start. Marjo gives highlights of Eastern Australia to a youngish couple from Italy who are heading back to Brisbane from Devil’s Marbles so their trip can benefit from the highlights of our trip while I pack up. Despite doing everything s l o w l y , due to our early rise, we’re on the road by 9 am.

On the way we shed some weight. First we need to rid ourselves from our liquor and pornography. The NT folk are a restrictive bunch, but I guess everyone has read about the child abuse in aborigine communities related to alcohol consumption. Also we had to finish all our fruit to prevent fruit fly entering the region. As if the little cretin’s can’t fly there?

The road is more varied, providing some distraction from the monotone kilometers. First some nice red mountains, then a real UFO centre near Wycliffe Well, a deep red billabong and even yellow flowers! It being winter all we have seen is dull colors like brown, grey and flat green. It seems spring is upon us?

We look at various camp options before Alice Springs and dismiss the rest areas as not dog friendly. Northern Terrorists (or whatever they’re called) don’t seem to have much respect for things (including the environment). Every 50 km or so there’s a small closed building beside the road, perhaps to control the radio repeaters, powered by solar. You see them in Queensland as well as here. The difference is though that in NT they invariable have all the solar power panels missing. And I don’t believe that, because it’s more sunny here the installation can work without the panels. So they must have been nicked.
Also it is remarkable the number of bottles, cans and beer boxes you can find on the side of the road.

Most rest areas here also have broken glass which is not very friendly for our dogs. One of the rest areas has a story about the inland sea of thousands years ago and a stunning satellite picture showing the dunes of the desert not far from here and the geological structures.

When we see a sign 68km east to Gemstone to do your own fossicking, we’re easily convinced that a 136 km detour is nothing after all this driving. So we go down the Plenty Highway down a single lane bitumen road and arrive an hour later at Gemtree park. A nice campsite where we spend the night.

Gary, the guy who drives in front of us on his quad bike to point out where we can park the bus knows the answer on the yellow balls: paddy melons (like in paddock). They are apparently quite bitter and no one eats them. When we look closer (and not zooming past) we can indeed see that they just grow along the side of the road.

Since turning onto the Stuart Highway we have seen flocks of the little birds that we photographed while drinking water at a rest area.

These birds are tiny and fly in flocks and – somewhat like dolphins accompanying a boat – these birds weave and dive in formation around the car. A beautiful sight. We have seen them in green, but now we’re seated at the Gemstone park a little blue bird seems courageous to come within photo distance.

Instead of taking fuel ($2.25 per liter), and getting a bucket of stone that might or might not contain gems ($30) we decide to take a shower, let the dogs walk themselves, order fish and chips and settle in for the night.

That morning we have the first day where the sky is not completely blue. There’s overcast and it is bitterly cold (17 celcius). We decide to do fossicking on the Dutch. Meaning we drive down the area where they find gemstones (near the mudtank) and look around for pretty stones. After half an hour Marjo has a few pretty ones and we say goodbye to Gemstone.

Posted from Anmatjere, Northern Territory, Australia.

Our next stop is going to be Devil’s Marbles, a collection of boulders best seen in sunset or sunrise. It is apparently a busy camping surrounded by the boulders and you’re advised to arrive early. It being 320 km from Barkly’s, we decide to leave early. So at 8.30 we’re on the road, heading west first and encounter a nice farewell from Barkly’s.

There’s 200 km of the same type of scenery and road, so not much to tell apart from every once in a while we see yellow balls along the side of the road. No idea what it is?
Then we get the option to either take fuel at the Three Way point or continue to Tennant Creek. We decide that we’re brave with our tank size and continue. That decision in the end saved us $0.25 per liter as diesel at the roadhouse is $1.93 and the BP in Tennant Creek charges $1.68 which is still about $0.20 cents higher than the bigger cities. Hey, remember, I still have Dutch character flaws and love a ‘bargain’.

We stop in town to stretch the legs and make a coffee but decide to move on soon again. There is no nice spot to stop, fields are bare or burnt with broken glass and chicken bones. It seems that there are several aboriginal communities around town and by the tone of the graffiti there’s not a lot of harmony between aborigines and others. The only thing to remember town by is a life size aboriginal mural.

So we make a cuppa and move on, south this time. The road here is endless too.

I have to make an adjustment of my view of Northern Terrestrials. Not everyone is smarter. The cows for instance seem to be the only road kill and none of them recent. All we see is hides with some bones and no bird seems interested. Also, where in Queensland there are cattle grids (metal vertical bars too wide for animals to cross) in the road every couple of 100 km’s or so with fence on either side to keep cattle within the property. This is well sign posted. In Northern Territory they seem to have the same signs and fences but instead the cows are tricked by just painting white lines on the road instead of the metal grid. I have no idea if the cows fall for it but it is definitely more friendly for the traffic.

The road provides a bit more variety and the red mountain ridge is mesmerizing. Not sure that shows the same in a picture though.

Then we arrive at the Devil’s Marbles turnoff, it’s a mighty sight, these massive red boulders. apparently they are marble that over thousands of years are broken off from a marble layer of rock after small cracks occurred from the hot sun during the day and the cold at night, then water seeped in and split the rock. Then erosion rounded off the broken parts and boulders remained. The red is really just engrained dust as broken off bits are grey inside.

We arrived early, so had time for a walk, for some art (Marjo had enough inspiration here) and some maintenance (re-attaching the magnets to the aluminium frame of the fly screens). I might have dozed for a bit.

Then we did a walk and saw the marbles up close, they get more enchanting the later it gets with the sun turning red.

Then we suddenly see many Dotti’s! Oh no, there are dingo’s here and they are not shy!

It shows that these dingo’s are well used to campers and come very close to look for food.

We talk to a late twenties camping party of three from the UK traveling in a small car about their trip and they are in a hurry to get on, want to do Darwin in a day and then move on. Darwin is about 800 km from here but good luck to them.
We also learn from Peter who travels alone in a 4WD ute and sleeps on the top (lucky for him he’s only 5 foot so he can fit. For me it would be claustrophoby galore. The principle of just one 4WD vehicle has merits though. Food for thought.
He also recommends Darwin on Thursday (there are beach markets) and otherwise don’t bother with it. Litchfield, which we’re planning to do after we have returned back up north. And finally take the Tunnel Creek road between the Savannah Way and Deep River road. Keep tuned for a later post on that one.

If we are able to get up early enough, you’ll find marbles at sunrise as well below 🙂

Posted from Davenport, Northern Territory, Australia.

Well luckily Marjo corrected me or this post was called Burke’s Roadhouse. I have a problem with names I guess. For the ones under you noticing, this is our first post from Northern Territory. On 14 August, 12.45 pm with 301,550 km on the odometer we crossed the border between Queensland and Northern Territory.

I hear you asking: “so, what is different?” and we kept track for just such a question:

– Northern Terrestials (or whatever they’re called) do a proper job of roadwork. No guy with a bucket of tar filling potholes like in Queensland, but serious road replacement.

– in NT they actually care for tourists with proper roadside stops and water that people and birds enjoy

– in NT they’re way smarter than QLD, well at least the animals as during the past 250 km we have seen NO dead animal on the side of the road. The downside is that it becomes a bit more boring, with no distractions and only the straight road and every 30 km the only human structure is a repeat transmission tower from Telstra. Otherwise dead grass, some shrubs and the odd tree.

Then we arrive at the only food, drink, fuel and sleep place for 500 km (250 km either way) on this road. We saw one house that said “sorry no fuel” and a few signs (one who pathetically tried to outdo others and called itself “Austral Downs Station” and a new couple of “Plains”. So if you want to be hip then for your next house sign you can choose between “station”, “downs” and “plains”.

The campsite is quite big with a lot of unpowered options which, as you know by now, has our preference. Sometimes it’s nice to have the facilities for a shower and….tomorrow it being Marjo’s birthday, I can see dining out coming up and then it’s handy to have a homestead within reach 😉

Marjo is feeling a bit under the weather with stuffed nose from all the dust and bushfire smoke along the way, and after just haven driven 1800 km in 6 days we deserve a break. So we decide to take it slow. Marjo gets breakfast in bed and even stays there to have her once-a-year after-breakfast smoke in bed. Despite feeling a bit under the weather she is glowing.

When I come outside a young Dutch couple that camped next to us took care of decoration and even left a present. So nice!

Then it’s unwrapping of the gifts, a pan to cook over a wood fire, a shawl, some books: termites, Northern Territory camping and understanding Aboriginal art and a black-bag shower (fill it with creek or other water, lie in the sun for an hour or two, et voila, a hot shower).

Also Dotti had to test the working of the shower, and needed a nap after that!

Then it’s time for coffee with cake.

The rest of the day is taken by
– changing our bedside planks so the bus can accommodate springbed mattresses (the foam mattress started to sag) and now we can put in two instead of one. The only thing we now need to find is a place selling them…..perhaps Alice Springs or otherwise Darwin.
– changing some of the clothes from cold to warmer
– hand washing of some of the dirtier clothes
– a walk with the dogs where Marjo spots some nice birds.

Then at dinner time I take care of dinner. The homestead bends the rules for a birthday girl and gives takeaway fish for Marjo and Schnitzel for Axel and throws in a piece of chocolate cake with a mini candle.

We pack up that evening so we can leave early for the route towards Uluru (Ayers Rock).