Day 3: Tennant Creek to Alice Springs. On day three the activity level increased and we got to see the sacred site of Devil’s Marbles, the historic Telegraph Station in Barrow Creek and a few shops that sell overpriced indigenous works of art and handicraft.

About 100km south of Tennant Creek on the Stuart Highway we pulled in to see the giant granite boulders.  Karlwe Karlwe is their Warumungu (local indigenous tribe) name, for whom the site is associated with many stories and traditions.  Scientists believe the marbles are the remains of molten lava eroded over aeons.  We spent a leisurely hour walking around, smoking fags, climbing and taking photos.

A little further south we pulled in at Wycliffe Well, a town where UFOs apparently fly over with astonishing regularity.  One roadside cafe has taken the whole thing a little too seriously and created a shrine with alien figures and newspaper clippings (‘That UFO was Chasing Us’!).  Interestingly, there are few photos of actual UFOs.  Funny but not quite what you’d expect in the outback.

Even further south we reached Barrow Creek, a (so called) town with a filling station, a pub and a controversial telegraph station. In 1874 a station master and his linesman were killed by natives in retaliation for being driven off ‘their land’.  A bigwig was sent up from the city to investigate and deal with the culprit.  Obviously nobody owned up so he had his men kill all local native males, around 300.  The government has only just apologised for the mass slaughter. This is one of many stories we’ve heard as we travelled through the northern territory and you can’t but feel for the natives with the injustice that has ensued since captain cook and his fleet landed in Sidney.

12hrs after leaving Tennant Creek we arrived in Alice Springs, checked into a nice hostel and went out with the group for a meal and too many beers.  Most mornings we’ve been up at 4am having had only 4hrs sleep – a lively bunch and mad for the drinking games!  A great social gathering and educational in many ways as there were guys from The Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Vietnam, Greece, Canada and the UK – a great mix.