Gold & Gem's, NT

Tuesday night the 16th of October... and after a busy day we all rode our pushbikes to the Ayres Rock resort for a couple of drinks in the bar and some dinner.
A cook your own BBQ, meant the boys (Jack and Harry) could take control of dinner.
They did a great job of the cooking, and got to taste all of the NT's wild culinary delights like crocodile and kangaroo skewers and emu, buffalo and camel sausages.
The general consensus was that the buffalo was the best.
We headed home around 9ish well and truly ready for bed and another early rise.

Wednesday morning 17th of October... the alarm went off around 5 and Richard and I packed up camp before waking the kids.
 We were on the road just after 6 and saying goodbye to the big red rock as we glimpsed it for the last time.
 We were stopped along the way by a man, who we had met in the bar the night before, who'd run out of petrol. Richard gave him what we had left in our jerry can which was about 5 litres, no where near enough to get him to Erldunda, the next roadhouse.
We followed behind him and sure enough, before long he was out of fuel again. It was just lucky he had run into a very generous, clever man (my husband)... who while driving had devised a plan to get the man to the next roadhouse.
We pulled over beside him and Richard set to work siphoning the fuel out of our generator and before long there was enough unleaded in the jerry can. We left a very happy man and continued to follow him until he reached Erldunda safely. He refilled our jerry can as a thank you and we all topped up our tanks before heading in our own directions. No doubt he'd learnt a lesson the hard way.

About 150 kilometres before Alice we stopped to look at the memorial for the inaugural Cannonball Run in the NT, which ended in tragedy in 1994 when two officials and two Japanese drivers died when their car lost control....

The Cannonball Run memorial

 The race was cancelled and never held again after that.

 We reached Alice around midday and Richard dropped me off in town to run a few errands while he and the kids went to see if they could find the Badminton Centre and hopefullly catch Rob & Minnie playing a game.
It turns out, their timing was impeccable when they walked in, just in time to watch them win a gold medal in the mixed doubles... Gold! Needless to say, again they were surprised to see us again...

Rob & Minnie shake the umpire's hand after winning gold

After lunch we took the caravan to a refrigeration place to have the fridge looked at after it died on us about a week ago.
All sorted, we were on our way again covering old ground as we headed north, the way we'd come last week.
Richard and I shared the driving, Barrow Creek gave us an eerie feeling, it was where Peter Falconio went missing and we decided to call it a day when we reached Wycliffe Well around 6, we had been on the road for 12 hours.
Wycliffe Well claims to the be the UFO capital of Australia due to the hundreds of UFO sightings that have occurred there since World War II... I suppose every town has got to have its thing.
The caravan park certainly used the title to its advantage with little green men everywhere... It was quite a novelty.

Wycliffe Well caravan park

The caravan park reception

Harry with some little green men

Richard went to book in and came out disappointed at how much they were going to charge for the night.
So we continued on to Wauchope, it didn't claim to be famous for anything but the caravan park was attached to a tavern which had lots of loiterers out the front so we decided to keep going.
We ended up in a free camp at Devils Marbles.
It was beautiful watching the sun set behind the marbles while the kids played on the rocks.

The sun sets on the Devil's Marbles

our campsite from the top of the Marbles

The beautiful sunset

Dinner turned into a bit of a disaster when the gas oven went out and our lasagne was still frozen when it was time to eat, so it was cold chicken and salad.
Richard made the mistake of throwing a chicken bone in the bush and before long, we were being stalked by dingoes.
One of them hung around the campsite for hours and well into the night.
Laying back and enjoying the stars, I ended up going to bed startled , when I turned around to see a dingo right beside me - breathing down my neck, he freaked me out and was way too close for comfort. It left me with no doubt whatsoever, that a dingo could creep into a tent a take a baby, they are so silent and predatory.

Thursday the 18th of October... I woke early and went for a walk to watch the sunrise over the marbles, another spectacle by mother nature.
The rock formations are a spectacle in themselves, some of them look like they have been placed there to balance precariously on top of each other for millions of years, while others look like they have been dropped there and left to roll, like marbles - funnily enough...

In the morning light

The sun peeks through the marbles

A million year old balancing act

We all had brekky, packed up and headed towards Tennant Creek where we stopped for a coffee and after reaching Three Ways to fuel up, it was nice to be seeing things again for the first time.  We had been backtracking for almost 1000 kilometres.
We passed through Renner Springs and stopped in Elliott to swap drivers.
Richard had a nap while I drove along hundreds of kilometers of a mesmirizingly long straight road. Around 1:30 we reached Daly Waters after Uncle Barry suggested we stop in and have a look at the pub.

Harry, Jack, Nina & I 

It was so well done, with a few different collections ranging from bras and undies to t-shirts and thongs. The walls were decorated with thousands of business cards and coins  and notes from around the world... It was very impressive.

The bra bar, Daly Waters

The beer garden is adorned with thongs

I wonder who swallowed a seed :-)

We had lunch and Richard struck up a conversation (for a change) and before long we were staying the night.
The kids made friends and went for swim while Richard made a few phone calls, it was a great spot, a real Aussie classic with a quirk in every corner.

Nina and her friend Lily

Dinner was also at the pub and Richard was left with his new found drinking buddy Pete, a lovely guy from Adelaide who was on a working trip to Darwin with his young family.
Heaven knows what time they called it a night.

Friday 19th of October, I was up early and off for my morning walk (solo) we then began slowly packing up.
Pete and his wife Kim and their little girls and Kim's mum all came to say goodbye and we were on our way.
Our first stop was at Larrimah to look at the Pink Panther pub.

Pink Panther in his flying machine

The kids with Pink Panther

The pub looked feral and the live snake collection in the pubs back room did nothing to change my mind.
It also had a zoo out the back with pet birds, emu's, crocs so I rest my case. I felt like  opening the cages and letting those poor animals run for it (except the croc), the cages were so unkept.

We continued on and decided to stop at a cafe just out of Larrimah which was advertising good coffee, home cooked freshly baked pies, sausage rolls etc... On closer inspection it was a lady's house.

Fran's Devonshire (do it yourself and supply it yourself) Tea House  ;-)

Her name was Fran and she told us she could make us a take away coffee, if we supplied our own cups and milk.. so I went to the van and grabbed our travel mugs.
Richard also couldn't resist trying a sausage roll but we had to supply our own sauce.
It cost $18 ... The most we have ever paid for two coffees and a sausage roll where we had to supply most of it ourselves.
Richard's and I had a chuckle to ourselves and I walked away hoping that she used the $18 to buy some spray n wipe and chux to clean her kitchen... Again that word feral sprang to mind.

Another hour down the road and we were in Mataranka, capital of the Never Never... where some people we had met along the way had told us to stop.

Capital of the Never Never

Jeannie Gunn, the author of the famous novel "We Of The Never Never," wrote the book on her experiences at Elsey Station near Mataranka in 1902.
The caravan park and tavern is located on Elsey Station and attached to the park is a natural spring which is beautiful.
Our friends from Daly Waters stopped and had a swim with us before leaving for Katherine, but we decided we would stay for the night at least.
 Walking down to the thermal springs was an experience, we had never seen so many bats hanging from trees.....

Stinking Bats everywhere

 It's good Barra country so the boys were  keen to try their luck so after  lunch and setting up camp we went for a drive and the boys threw out  some crab nets into the Roper River, hoping to catch some cherubim (big prawns) which can then be used as bait to catch Barra.
It was 48 degrees so when we got back to the homestead the kids quickly made a new friend named Jack, who's  parents manage the park, and they were off making mud slides and swimming in the thermal springs.

Being kids

The thermal springs

Nina, Harry and Jack, cooling off

Richard and I went to the bar for a drink and watched on as all the wild animals wandered in, these tourists only too happy to let this roo sit at their dinner table....

Skippy has supper

We returned to the caravan to put dinner on and watched in amazement as thousands and thousands of red winged bats took to the skies at dusk.
It was an amazing sight watching the skies turn black as these bats darted in all directions.

This area and the expanse of the Stuart Highway is full of weird and wonderful characters with stories to tell about life in the NT. It's hard country and the people are just as hard but happy to have a chat about anything and everything. Well if it's not the people, then it's Richard who could strike up a chat with a bar stool :-)