Devils Marbles - spectacular!

Today we decided to book our accommodation for Darwin since we just found out that there is a rodeo there on the weekend we are there too. What’s going on here? Fin rang a heap of places starting with the one we had expected to go to of course and found that they are booked up for at least two of the three nights we wanted so we have rejigged our schedule a bit to allow for this and now we are going to Bachelor first then Darwin which seemed to make more places available, in fact we got the first one on our list. So we will be in Bachelor on Thursday and Friday and then Darwin on Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights. After lots of phone calls we were finally ready to go out and look at the sights around Tennant Creek.
We headed straight to the Devils Marbles or Karlu Karlu, which is the traditional name for the reserve. It is located just over 100 km south of Tennant Creek. We were not prepared for the magnitude of these rocks – not only are many of them huge and amazingly round, sitting against or balanced precariously on other rocks but there are so many of them spread over a wide area. And they look so beautiful with the green bushes, straw-coloured dry grasses, and red sandy earth all against a glorious azure sky! There are three main groups of them that you can wander around and take photos of with the 2nd one having an information shelter and sign-posted self-guided walk and loos. We stopped there and had lunch which we brought with us and then did the walk and took more photos. You could spend ages there just marvelling at these incredible natural sculptures that were created simply by the rain wearing down the granite over many, many years. Considering that they were discovered and named in the late 1800s so who knows when they became the way they are. The aboriginal people have stories about them of course and the area is still considered a sacred site. While we were at the information area having lunch a bus load of people arrived, piled out of the bus and set up their tables for lunch. By the time we had finished the walk around, another bus had arrived. We went back to the 1st group of rocks only to find another busload had arrived there and this wasn’t counting all the individual visitors like ourselves, mostly in 4WDs as it happens. We had taken a lot of photos already and decided not to try to get more with all the people around now so headed back to the other side of town to see some other sights.
We went first to the Bill Allen Lookout which is 2km past the Battery Hill Mining Centre on Peko Road. There were great views almost 360 degrees around but unfortunately there is a whopping big water pressure tank up there that obscures the view to one side. There were still magnificent views up there and they have plaques which around in each direction pointing out places of interest. Following this we went to Battery Hill Mining Centre but they were not running any tours at the moment due to renovations so we moved on to the Overland Telegraph Repeater Station which was a vital link for Australia with the rest of the world. They had a copy of a newspaper article from The Age in 1872 stating that: “We are now actually in possession of news from London up to the day before yesterday” which was due to the number of repeater stations that dotted the country. And here you are reading what we did today straight after it happened or talking to your friends in another country in real time via phone or internet. It puts it all in perspective when you see what the early settlers had to deal with doesn’t it?
Our last stop on the way back was to Lake Mary Ann which is just 7 km out of town and provides a lush green oasis in this desert city. There are big, shady trees, green lawn, and the lake that you can swim in, walk around or simply just sit near and relax. We met a group of young aboriginal boys there who were happy to have a chat and tell us what they are doing. They had a football (real one, not one of those rugby things!) and so Fin asked if they were going to have a footy game. They said they were and Fin commented on the witches hats they had to represent the goals then one boy told us he plays real footy and his team beat High School team. He was very proud about that and said that High School was unbeaten but “we beat that mob”, getting his mate who also plays to confirm the story. They asked, “Where you fellas from?” and when we said Melbourne were very interested because the MCG is there, isn’t it? The chatty one showed us his Brisbane Lions top under his other top and his mate said he barracked for Melbourne. Soon an older young man came to organize the game with them and they said goodbye and we left too. It was great to chat to some of the local kids like that.