On the road to Alice

Took off pretty early in the morning – but still one of the last out, ha ha. Gee, these grey nomad types are in some kind of race to get going – possibly to snap up the best spots at the next campsite!  Anyways, drove west to the end of the Barkly Highway, where it meets the Stuart Highway at ‘Threeways’.  After a brief ice cream at the roadhouse we turned south - destination Tennant Creek. 

Hmmmm, what to say about Tennant Creek.  Lets just say that there was a big shiny new police station and a party going on all night that we weren't invited to.  Sydney Morning Google told us that there had been a crime spike in Tennant Creek in the days before we arrived, and the court roster was full!  Apparently someone carted in a bunch of kids from outlying regions to compete in a football competition, without providing for them while in town, so left to their own devices...

Spent the arvo setting up and swimming in the (bloody cold) pool, if you call jumping in, getting wet and getting straight back out again swimming that is.  Rich and Dylan tried to chase a willy willy that formed in the camp but couldn’t quite catch it.  Took a drive up to the gold mining museum where we saw the old workings of an old mine – Dylan was convinced that he had found an overlooked piece of gold bullion.  

The 'social museum' was really well done and both Rich and Kel enjoyed reading about and looking at old photographs explaining the hard history of Tennant Creek.  Couldn't help but notice though that the white history of the town had few references to the original inhabitants - like two separate worlds.  

Didn’t get much sleep that night due to aforesaid party and the pride of feral cats prowling around the camp site.  Wondering if it is normal to see this many cats in the desert.  

Slightly bleary eyed, we took off again for our next stop on the Stuart Highway, just south of the Devil's Marbles at Wycliffe Well.  For the uninitiated, Wycliffe Well is the UFO capital of Australia.  According to their brochure, they spot one here every couple of nights!  This is because there are 'ley lines' in the sky that intersect above WW - an interchange on an intergalactic highway so to speak.  It struck a chord with Rich’s ‘I want to believe’ sentiment and we loved the quirkiness of the campsite.  Someone has gone to a lot of trouble, decorating the whole place with alien art and other bizarre features - Elvis, giant pig, man made mountain lookout.  They even had their own alien preserved in a glass cabinet!



Elvis spotted

We scored a nice spot and the kids made friends with the resident donkeys, emus and camp ground assistants.

Later in the arvo, we ventured out to the awesome Devils Marbles for a look around and a few sunset photos of the rock formations before heading back for dinner.

We finished the night off with some portraits of us and our alien friends and a bit of UFO spotting, Dylan even seeing one moving slowly and satellite-like across the sky (after which he refused to walk to the bathrooms by himself).