Another early morning wake up call was necessitated this morning by our ongoing travels today. We quickly packed up our belongings, stowing everything securely for transport and bidding a fond farewell to what has been our plot of dirt for the last week. With the tin can again re-mated to the hitch on ‘The Beast’ we heaved the dogs into their pews, while we clambered up into our own front row seats, all ready to make a swift departure, only to find our egress from the park blocked by a couple in a campervan, stopped in front of us, while they sloshed some fresh water into their water tanks.

We waited patiently for their refilling affair to conclude, then as per our plan, we hit the road, skirting the edges of Alice Springs and as Adam Brand would sing: “My mind was made and my bags were packed and that GPS was set for Tennant Creek” (Get On Down The Road, Adam Brand). We are in fact continuing on a northerly tack today, but not actually quite as far up as Tennant Creek. Rather, we will be stopping short at Wauchope, but since Wauchope doesn’t rate a mention in the database of towns held in the memory banks of ‘Shazza’, the Creek was the nearest locality I could pinpoint.

Leaving Alice Springs, we spent a good period looking up through the windscreen at clear blue skies, as we ascended the outlying ranges, before the road leveled out. It was then only a few more kilometres down the road that we passed a pair of innocuous enough looking, yet exciting signs. What are actually some of the rarest signs in Australia, they indicated the beginning of Australias only stretch of road with an unrestricted speed limit. Far from the zebra striping of rubber tyre tracks that I had expected, it seemed no different than any of the other averagely finished roads we have travelled along, bumps, undulations, pot holes and all.

Signs Of…

…The Times.

Despite Becs incessant urging, I locked hip, knee and ankle, resolutely keeping an even pressure on the long skinny pedal on the right, keeping ‘The Beast’ chugging along steadily at a few notches past the ton in the metric vernacular. Even this sedate pace saw us closing in on other traffic, at which I must admit I did nudge ‘The Beast’ up to the 130Km/h mark on the speedo, as we did the overtaking. Here I was thinking that a close eye on the rear view mirrors would be required to spot low flying sports cars passing us at warp speed, and yet it was actually us doing the bulk of the overtaking. The locals obviously don’t take this whole derestricted thing seriously!

Not far into the derestricted zone, I noticed a sign out of the corner of my eye, suggesting that we were about to cross the Tropic of Capricorn. With an almost tyre screeching application of brakes, we swung off the highway into the little roadside stop, where a monument was erected for our photographic pleasure. Having crossed this same imaginary line across the ground on both the east coast and the west coast on our around Australia odyssey, we though it fitting to now be crossing it in the centre as well. With pictographic evidence of our achievement in hand, we mounted up again and continued into the tropical north.

More Man Spreading? Sort Of.

A little over 4 hours after having left Alice Springs, we found ourselves approaching the Wauchope Hotel and Caravan Park. Situated on a siding not much bigger than that at the Tropic of Capricorn, this outback mixed business is where we will be spending the next couple of evenings. Hardly a town in the true sense of the word, it’s a single building which serves amply as a pub, petrol station (with diesel available at the prime cost of $2.00 a litre), hotel, bottle shop and reception for the non-descript gravel yard out the back which is the caravan park. With a few shipping containers converted into basic, but adequate cabins, there was also room to park a ½ a dozen vans, all connected to power. As we slid the van easily onto our site, we came to the realisation that while power was plentiful for each site, water was not so, evidenced by the haste in which the bloke on the site next to us rapidly connected his hose up to the sole water tap the moment he saw our own water hose extracted from the boot of the tin can.

With a little investigation by Bec, she located a second tap at the opposite end of the grounds, luckily within the confines of the only site left to offer a modicum of shade. Thankful that we hadn’t yet unhitched, we quickly redeployed to site number two. A much better choice I must admit, notwithstanding my grumbling about the embarrassment of blundering about the park, not to mention the briskly ticking over of the extra cost of diesel involved.

Regardless, cocooned as we became between trees, the shade was a welcome relief from the tropical heat as we set about unencumbering ‘The Beast’ from the van and laying out the various accouterments required to provide us with all of the luxuries to which we are accustomed, including spending a good deal of time carefully aligning the satellite dish to ensure that we have reception for tomorrow nights big rugby league state of origin game. Had an apposite picture not been obtained, we would have been in for a long and immediate return to Alice Springs!

Having settled in, thankfully with crystal clear television reception, we bundled back into ‘The Beast’ to travel the 10km further north, to where the entire reason behind our journey lay. We are only 100 odd kays from intersecting the path once travelled when we toured around Australia and had come this time to see the Devils Marbles. We had been agonizingly near them when we last toured, but had expunged them from our itinerary in favour of other destinations. Having since felt that we had missed out, now was our chance at redemption.

Only a short jaunt up the highway from Wauchope, we took the road as indicated into the park, to be almost instantaneously surrounded by hulking great orange boulders, strewn across the landscape, many seemingly impossibly and precariously perched atop each other. Timing it as we did, to coincide with sundown, the final rays of light gave rise to an ever changing kaleidoscope of colours reflecting from the rocks. We climbed and clambered over and about them, along with dozens of others who were all here for the same thing. Each rock we rounded opened up another unbelievable vista for the camera to record for all posterity.

OUR FIRST LOOK AT THE DEVILS MARBLES.

The drive back to the caravan park was just as beautiful, as the western horizon became the stage for the miraculous light show of dusk, the foreground of Mulga silhouetted against the deep purples of the fading light. A sight like never you would see in the city, and even difficult to comprehend out here as it takes place right before your very eyes.

Until next time, have fun, stay safe and don’t forget to write.