Day 92 / 2014 - Alice Springs to Katherine

We could have spent more time in Alice Springs and as much as we didn't want to set a schedule for this trip we had committed ourselves to be in Darwin by the 11th of May. Darwin being a popular destination means if you want to spend any significant time there comfortably you need to book in and get there reasonably early. Darwin is the place we want to spend the time so we Left Alice Springs and headed North once again.

Between Alice Springs we had a couple of spots we wanted to see the first being the Devils Marbles about 100 Km south of Tennant Creek. There is a campground there which we heard makes a good overnight stop. The cost of $3.30 per person per night makes it a cheap place to stay. On the way we called into Wycliffe Well which is suppose to be the UFO capital of Australia has the greatest number of UFO's sightings in Australia. There is only a roadhouse and tourist park there but it has all been painted with figures of aliens and alien spacecraft on the walls as well as a number of lifesize models spread around the place.

Devils Marbles are made of granite and are the result of weathering over millions of years. Like all the stone features in central Australia you can watch the colours change as the sun sets and enjoy the peace and quiet of the outback. Unfortunately the campground was quite full so not so much of the peace and quite but still the colour changes were nice. Through the night the wind decided to blow quite strongly rocking the van around a bit luckly we had rolled the awning in before going to bed but some of the others hadn't and at 2 am in the morning you could hear over the roar of the wind the familiar clicking noise or awnings being rolled back in.

The following day we headed for our next destination Daly Waters, not to be confused with Daly River, about 500 KM north of The Devils Marbles. We stopped in Tennant Creek to fuel up we also need to do some internet banking and emailing and needed a place with internet access. After fueling we found a rest area 6km north of Tennant Creek called Lake Mary Ann. Named after a mine managers two daughters it's a man made lake mainly used for water sport activities. It proved to be  beautiful stop and we ended up spending about 2 hours there.

Daly Waters being 400km away we decided to stop overnight in a rest area about three quarters of the way. If we though the rest area near Alice was busy this one was choco block full. When we got there it was already overflowing with caravans but people were still comming in after us we ended up parking against the fence on the access road. We checked with the caravaners we thourght to have blocked there way out but they didn't seem to worried and felt they had enough room to get out anyway. Next morning we woke and found a line of Wicked Vans in front and behind us which must have come in through the night.

Heading for Daly Waters we arrived about 10am. Daly Waters is a popular stop especially for Grey Nomads and Backpackers. It has an old style pub and has a reputation for cold beer and great food. The caravan park is part of the pub grounds where Ed directs you to your parking space. One thing we didn't know about Daly Waters was that it was the first international airport in Australia and was used as a staging area by QANTAS. Unfortunately as the range of modern planes began to increase the airfield use began to decrease untill it wasn't needed anymore. The airfields busiest time was during the second world war when it was used as a staging airfield for fighter and bomber aircraft.

The pub is renound for it signature dish Beef and Barra. You need to order it early then wait for you to have your name called. You can specify a time from 6:30pm onwards on the half hour. The entertaiment was great and the beer was indeed cold and it ending up being a really fun night. While others stayed for a few nights we only stayed one night as it is always good to leave on a high note. 

Leaving the next day we had planned to stop at Mataranka but somewhere along the way we changed our mind and ended up travelling all the way to Katherine stopping at the Big 4 Low Level Caravan Park. We had been to Katherine previously so had no plans to see any tourist sights we mainly wanted to use this as a restocking and resting couple of days. The park has a great pool we were ended up spending most of the day as the water was much warmer than I remembered from last time.