Part three (finally) Katherine to Alice Springs nearly

[Yowie]

Hi all, I have been pretty busy lately but it is time to sit down and give you guys the next chapter in this story.
Continuing from the last part, we left Katherine in the late morning after our three gorge boat tour.
Our destination that day was Tennant Creek. This little drive is only a mere 676 km's, just 6 hours.
The road was surprisingly quiet. We saw the odd road train and Grey nomads with there caravans, but little else.
About two thirds of the way we stopped for fuel and lunch at a little place called Daly Waters.
Daly Waters is famous for being the spot, where the explorer Stuart (after who the Hwy we are traveling on is named after) discovered water on his trip from adelaide to where darwin is now. His trip charted a track for the overland telegraph, the hwy and eventually the cross country train track(An interesting side note is that up until a few years ago the train track only ran to Alice Springs, I guess we were just grateful to the yanks for the excellent hwy they built for us in the 40's ).

This plane body was on display at our stop for fuel outside Daly Waters.

The terrain behind the plane is fairly indicative of what we had seen for the last 400 odd k's. Lots of Gum trees light grass and red dust ( the famous Bull dust of the red centre).

I seem to have misplaced some of the photos from here but Daly Waters is a nice little village comprising a caravan park a general store and a famous pub. The pubs rafters are covered in underwear and currency from around the world ( Bill Bryson stays there in his excellent book "Downunder" if you are looking for a better description)
Daly Waters is also a mecca for Barramundi fishers in the wet season. (My accountants mother travels there every year for six weeks). But to look at the river when we were there, it was dry.

A refreshing brew at the bar inside the servo :-)

Two hours later we hit Tennant Creek. Unlike Daly Waters Tennant Creek is famous for nothing. Every shop in town is covered in security grills and barbed wire to stop theft, by the locals. We found our hotel that looked like a Victorian era Jail. A large notice was posted on the 10 foot wall warning us that the large gates would be locked at 10 pm til 6 am.Is it really that bad? yes it is. Inside the hotel room was just as bad. We arrived around 5 pm and it was the dingiest room I have ever been in. And to make things worse, due to a power overload caused by the local rodeo that was on that night the whole town was blacked out for an hour. Sitting in the darkend room sweating in the 35' heat. we decided that we did not want to join in the riot brewing at the rodeo, but to have dinner at the local RSL.
RSL's (Return Service League) clubs are a great Aussie place for a good feed and a beer. Most towns have one and all welcome visitors. Tennant creeks's RSL was the highlight of the town. We had a great feed ( I had a chicken parmigana, chicken schnitzel with napoli sauce salad and chips, mum and dad local barramundi fillets).
Inside the club was a large model of HMAS Arunta II an RAN destroyer from WW2. The local Aborigine tribe are the Arunta and coincidentally the name of my Primary Schools house ( for sports). The model was a very detailed one and above it was a large photo of the current HMAS Arunta one of our Arunta class frigates.
Outside was...

25 pounder arty

After our meal we rushed back before curfew, for an uncomfortable nights sleep.
If i had to choose I would stay at Daly Waters next time. It had a lot more character, and no feeling of being a prison camp.

The next morning was the drive to Alice Springs only a mere 510 k's today
and like this whole trip about halfway there there is a completely unique place to see
behold the devils marbles....

There are acres of these huge boulders sitting in the middle of nowhere

This was amazing, everyone of them reminds you of something, we probably spent 2 hrs looking at them from every angle, climbing on them and taking so many pictures.

Dad in front of a large rock

The 'Lizard'

The 'Jelly Beans'

The 'Split Pea'

Our first ( and only Dingo)

I think this guy was on the parks and wildlife paylist. He seemed very tame, but like all wild animals best not to try and pat them (several people over the years have been killed by dingo's, the most famous being Azaria Chamberlin in the Ayre's Rock campground ). He appeared out of nowhere when about three cars showed up lay down, let everyone take some photo's then ambled back off into the scrub to wait for the next tourist bus. We4 hadn't seem a lot of wild life yet, aprt from birds, lots of hunters (eagles, kites etc). This Dingo was the first large mammal we had really seen, we had not even seen a Kangaroo, and I have shot kangaroo's of the back step at Mum and Dad's. It was a little surprising not to see any.

A pile of bloody large rocks. In the back ground is an example of an infamous Grey Nomad setup

Well we are only about two hours from Alice and mum and dad have finally dragged me off the top of the highest rock I could climb and we headed south.......
Next time Alice Springs
Yowie

[housil]

A huge Thank you for the trip report from the other side of the world and the great pictures!!!