Heading
north of Alice Springs, it's not long before we are stopping for a
line of latitude – the Tropic of Capricorn.
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| Roger, Gwen and Fay fight with the bush flies at the Tropic of Capricorn |
Honestly
– you would think we were a bunch of tourists the way we pile out
of our cars and start taking happy snaps of all and sundry. It is at
this point in the blog that we should tell you that speed
restrictions in the Northern Territory vary quite considerably - from
50 to 60 klms per hour in the towns to 'open slather' on the roads.
They have however covered this unrestricted speed with suitable
signage.
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| Unrestricted speed advisory sign |
Never mind that it is impossible to read when travelling
past at our sedate speed of 95 klms per hour let alone at warp speed.
Of course nowhere does one see the rules and regulations concerning
the evasive actions needed when faced with an approaching 'roadtrain'
let alone (and heaven forbid) an overtaking 'roadtrain'. Our advice
– Just get out of their way and give them as much road as they
want! About 133 klms north of Alice Springs is Aileron Roadhouse.
We had read that there is a sculpture worth seeing there so we pull
off the highway and take the short loop road in. Ahead of us we can
see the roadhouse but our attention is drawn to the giant figure of a
man standing on the hill behind the roadhouse.
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| Giant man sculpture in the distance |
We pull
up near the roadhouse for a better view of the sculpture
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| Getting closer to the giant man |
and
discover that the sculpture is of an Anmatjere Man (the local
aboriginal tribe).
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| Anmatjere Man |
Beside
the roadhouse is an aboriginal craft museum and also a giant
sculpture of an Anmatjere Woman and Child. Wok was taken by the
'perentie' lizards standing guard to the entrance of the roadhouse
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| Nope! That lizard doesn't look like he going to give up that can of VB he's holding. |
and when
asked where the restrooms were the lady behind the counter simply
said to follow the signs. We are pretty sure this is one of the
signs.
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| The lady said no-one could spell 'toilet' |
Back out
on the driveway we noticed this ute loaded up with bikes, camping
equipment and kids stuff.
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| All loaded up! |
Sitting
in amongst all the clutter was the 'dog' – relegated to minding all
the gear and not looking too happy about it.
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| Not happy Jan ... ! |
That
night Roger and Gwen and us camped out at a rest area while Barry and
Fay travelled on to the next roadhouse for the night. The rest area
was quite popular and we counted over 35 caravans/motorhomes camped
there for the night.
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| Our rest area campground for the night |
The next
morning we met up with Barry and Fay and then travelled on to the
Devil's Marbles.
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| Our rig at the Devils Marbles |
These
impressive granite boulders have been eroded over 1,500 million years
and one
might think that just a slight push on one of those preciously placed
rocks could bring the whole lot tumbling down. One might think that
but one would be wrong – these babies are here to stay.
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| Noisy galahs at Barkly Homestead |
We
continued east and pulled in at a rest area for the night. There
were a few caravans crowded around the front part of the rest area
and we could see one lone caravan parked way out in the scrubby grass
at the back. We wondered how they had got there and investigated and
found a track leading off the back of the rest area. We slowly
trundled down the track, past the lone caravan we had seen and then
found a quiet spot all to ourselves and far enough from the highway
to hardly hear any road noise.
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| Robyn takes in the view |
That
night we watched the sun go down over empty plains. A great way to
spend our last night in the Northern Territory.
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