2006/06 Australia trip - Devil's Marbles |
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Later that morning we went back west along the Plenty and turned north up the Stuart Highway.
There are relics of earlier days scattered along the Stuart Highway: telegraph buildings, wells, even the homesteads of people who tried to farm the area. We stopped at Ryan’s Well and the Glen Maggie Homestead, originally a sheep and cattle station, then a store, and abandoned now since the 1930s.
We called at the Red Sand Gallery in Ti Tree to buy Michael’s birthday present. He wanted a didgeridoo like those we had brought back on earlier trips for his sisters. The gallery has hundreds to choose from and we picked one with a wide end-piece; they seem to be in fashion amongst trendy didg players. As it was six feet long, we decided to ship it back rather than try to take it on the plane as carry-on!
The desert seemed much greener than on our previous trips, with healthy shrubs and patches of flowers. There are no towns in this section of the highway, just a few unappetizing road stations, smelly and dirty.
We made it to the Devils Marbles by sunset. The campground there was packed, but we are small enough that we fit in OK. Most of the campers seemed to know each other and we found that they were returning home from a club rally in Alice Springs.
The Marbles are eroded granite. The granite cracks into car-sized cubes and then the corners wear down until some of the cubes become marble-shaped. Even then, erosion continues and some of the marbles split, fall, and gather in strangely balanced still-life arrangements.
That evening I managed to blow some fuses by watching videos on the computer, which had a flat battery. Running the computer, charging the battery, and powering the DVD player was just too much for the fuses. We couldn’t find the spare fuses, so for the rest of the evening we had to move the remaining fuse around to run either lights or the water pump or the fridge. I’d forgotten that the spares were in the ash tray.