Wycliffe Well the UFO Centre of Oz and Tennant Creek

What can we say about Wycliffe Well? We can offer some demographic facts: it is located 130 kilometres south of our next major stop at Tennant Creek and 380 kilometres north of our previous destination of Alice Springs. Or maybe an historical fact: that it began life as a watering point along the route for the Overland Telegraph Line in the 1860s, after being discovered by the explorer John McDouall Stuart on his famous expeditions to reach the Top End in the late 1850s.



Flowering trees at Tennant Creek

Or we can offer the spurious and conjectured rumours that it is a hotbed of alien activity, and visited by more creatures from another dimension than you'd encounter at an Elton John concert. The Wycliffe Well Roadhouse where we stopped at to get fuel held claim to some long-time extraterrestrial association and so had a strong UFO theme with murals, spaceship models and smiling alien creatures there to greet us at the bowser, after the owners donated to us some fuel.

Sneaking a peek around the back at the camping ground we saw there larger than life effigies of Elvis, the Phantom and the Incredible Hulk. A man polished the head and touched up the paint-job on a lime-green alien with meticulous attention to detail in the small theme park at the front.



And we wondered; are people living and working in these remote places because of any specific motivation, or just because they found themselves there. Maybe they were tempted by the freedom involved in being able to walk around during the day out-and-about in nothing but their underwear and a pair of cowboy boots, and not only did no one care, or mind, but actively encouraged such behaviour and took photos of them to post of Facebook. The alien theme thing, well, it stands out, and in the monotony of sameness and the dirge of amusement that is driving through the desert, they at least offer some diversion.

But is it enough of a reason to stop somewhere and but a coffee and some food, maybe a car sticker and a novelty naked stubby-holder just because something that may or may not have happened is rumoured to have occured nearby? Or, looking at it another way, is it enough of a reason to make you curious enough to linger there for five minutes longer to know that the people who live there and who run this place advertize themselves as a weird conglomerate offering the commodity of oddness? The answer to both I think we all know, is yes.

How can you not pause to take a second look as a man carefully, dilligently and so thoroughly polishes the head of his six-foot, skinny-armed protruberant-headed, large silver-eyed, lime-green coloured model of an alien, smack bang in the middle of the desert? How can you fail to entertained by the absolute randomness of it all? An alien themed playground and mini-theme park! How can you not be a little enthralled by the news that you are travelling through an incredibly active area for sighting UFOs, as you look around you and the tumbleweed blows towards the expanding and shimmering horizon?



Ultimately, though, no one cares all that much. A polite nod, and a raised eyebrow is all that is required. You know, sometimes, you can know too much, and while we realized that, yes, maybe the truth is out there, it could stay there, and we just enjoyed it for the oddity it is meant to be, and left it at that. The aliens at Wycliffe Well Roadhouse; what a strange idea.



Wycliffe Well, more than just a place to refuel

Driving off, enlivened by our first encounter of the nerd kind, we made it to Tennant Creek early evening and were given fuel by the BP station there and some food, groceries and such, by the Food Barn, and bedded down for the night at Tennant Creek Caravan Park.

It is an interesting little place. Found initially by the explorer John McDouall Stuart who camped at the nearby watercourse on his expedition to the Top End in the 1860s, and he named it after one of his sponsors, a man called John Tennant. It was later to by used by the Overhead Telegraph Line in the 1870s as a Repeater Station.



A tree at Tennant Creek Caravan Park

It remained relatively isolated until the 1930s, when Australia's last Great Goldrush brought men from all over hoping to make their fortunes, and legend has it that in 1934 a man named Joe Kilgariff built his stores where his beer wagon became bogged, and the town simply grew around it.

It is the ancestral home of the Warumungu people who have lived here for over 40,000 years and are the area’s traditional custodians. The Warumungu people’s legend says that Tennant Creek grew up around the home a powerful ancestral being - a spiky tailed goanna called Nyinkka.



Mick the local servo owner is happy to give us donations for work

It was hot the next day, the kind of heat that begins to boil you from the inside, that scorches the perspiration from your face before it forms. We managed to talk the owner of another servo, the Central Service Station, into giving us a couple of hours work, in exchange for some fuel, and Mick, the owner, was only too pleased.

We worked at an annexed games room, and we cleaned some railings ready for repainting, and stripped paint from doorways too, dealing with deadly redback spiders as we went, and listening to Guns n' Roses on repeat. Mick then filled us up, and donated a healthy sum to Book Aid too.



Tennant Creek Caravan park donated use of their facilities

We cleaned up and ate at the Caravan Park making preperations for the long drive up to Darwin, and the imminent prospect of Christmas was prepared for with the voting to save as emergency rations a fancy tin of Champignon mushrooms and some chick peas, although we hoped, we really hoped, we would have some beans to go with them.



Anne finds her feet covered in the paint chips she strips from the walls



Anne finds a highly poisonous redback spider on her thumb whilst cleaning under the window frames, luckily it didn't bite her



Phil climbs a ladder to wash down the walls in an arcade games room



We get a donation of fuel Read a cheeky bit more!

Ti Tree Desert Grapes

Phil eats more than he picks and packs

Ti Tree is the first substantial stop heading north from Alice Springs and in order to preserve our record of moving no more than a half-bitten cuticle's width on the vast map of Oz, we made our way there, to find a bloke called Ronnie. Ronnie runs a grape farm in the desert, we were hoping we could possibly find some work, keep the donations rolling in and maybe pick up some fuel.

The area around Ti Tree has a population of around 1000 people of whom only 200 odd are non-Aboriginal and much of the land surrounding Ti Tree is Aboriginal land, owned by the Anmatyerre people. The population is distributed between the 11 cattle stations, 6 Aboriginal outstations including Utopia, Ti Tree township, Barrow Creek community and the agricultural produce farms of Ti Tree Farm, Central Australian Produce Farm and the Territory Grape Farm, where we were headed.

The frangipani flower which has been perfumming our journey with it's gorgeous scent

The area is an emerging centre for grapes and melons due to its year-round sunshine and abundant underground water supply, and despite the abstract inconstancy of growing grapes in the desert, they flourish and have put Ti Tree on the map as a valuable horticultural area where the annual table-grape harvest alone reaps $10 million.

Phil and Gareth walk past hundreds of rows of grape vines

Approaching the end of the season, the beginning of summer heralding the harvesting of crops, we drove down the dusty side road to Ti Tree Red Globe Grapes, just off the Stuart Highway. Louis, a Tongan man-mountain with a heart of gold gave us work the next day despite their coming to the end of the harvest and work being scarce.



A Tonga Islander entertains with traditional music

That evening as we made dinner, we were invited for a drink by the rest of the Tongan lads, of whom there were about twenty in all, most up for the season from Victoria, where they live. To a man they were huge, imposing barrel chested behemoths who were as nice as pie. We sat for the evening with them, in a circle on the ground, as they played guitar in stirring falsetto, singing traditional Tongan ballads, almost all of which seemed to be about a girl; losing a girl, wooing a girl, or finding the perfect one, then losing her, or about the beauty of life on their Pacific Island.

Anne was asked if she would serve everybody their drinks, a very important Tongan tradition. Back home in Tonga the fairest maiden in the village is often asked to perform this rite, sitting patiently as the men slur their orders for more and reach out with their empty coconut husks. As it happened, at this time, Anne was asked to take over the job from a skinny guy with a wide smile and a thick tash.
When Anne was the subject of a drunken seduction one of the lads translated his muttered mumblings of everlasting devotion telling us as Romeo fumbled through a sentence:

“What my friend is trying to tell you is that he… what? Oh! yes yes. Ok. He’s saying to you, he’s telling you that ‘Your smile makes me… walk like a duck... and I have a wife and two children’”

To which the would-be seducer waved a hand dismissively in our translators direction, took a lengthy pull on his cigarette, coughed chestily, and sipped on his beer as the other lads laughed and consoled him through the sensitivity of berating.

The delicious table grapes we picked

When we saw the Tongans passing around some money, we thought they were in on some bet, a few playing poker off to the side chipped in, and we were passed some more beers as we listened to some more stories about Tongan life. I wish I could remember them, as they had us laughing most of the evening, but as happens when you substitute your notebook for a cold beer, all memory goes with it. The money they were handing round was for us, and they gave us $300 from their pockets, which astonished us.

We stayed up talking and listening to stories and music until the early hours.

In the morning we were up bright and early and despite the three of us working as one collective, we were not able to pick as many grapes as the lads and ladies working alone on the rows of vines next to us. Picking the grapes, pruning the bad ones and packing them in 10kg bunches into boxes, we worked as hard as we were able, which was not unduly slow, we thought, but still lagged behind. Moving up the one row, we would strip the vines clean, find a row that had not been done, and repeat. The lads on the tractor would come around regularly to pick the boxes up and take them back to the warehouse for cold storage.

Why we wondered, chipmunk cheeks exploding with grape juice, were we three slower than the others, but we came to no common sense conclusion and so kept going until they came to tell us we were finished for the day. Finding the camp a little more sedate after the merriment of the night before, we chatted to the Tongan lads some more, arranged with Louis for some fuel from our wages, and rose to leave early, the next day.

As we headed towards Tennant Creek we could not help feeling justified in our more laid back approach to travelling, preferring the take-your-time to the headlong rush approach. Sometimes we have no choice but to stop and work for fuel and food, occasionally we have a good feeling about a place and that turns out to be justified. Our little adventure in Ti Tree was very rewarding. Not only because of the generosity of those Tongan lads of large stature in donating a portion of their wages to us strangers, but because of their friendliness, hospitality and trust. We may be moving slow, but we’re moving on.
Anyway, we now had 314 kilometers travel time, enough fuel to get us there, and no more reasons to divert. Tenant Creek next stop.

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Playing with the The Devil's Marbles

Anne plays around with the Devil's Marbles

The Devil's Marbles, or Karlu Karlu as they are known by the lands traditional Aboriginal owners, are huge granite boulders scattered across a wide shallow valley. It is a remarkable landscape with some of the boulders resting atop others in a seemingly impossible arrangement. This site is a nationally and internationally recognised symbol of Australia's outback and it has great importance as a spiritual meeting place for the Aboriginal people of Central Australia. The boulders are located in a boundary area for both Warumungu and Kaytetye language groups, and Walpiri and Alyawarra language groups also have traditional associations with the area.



The Stone Marbles silloetted by moon light

The traditional Aboriginal owners of the area regard the marbles as having extraordinary powers and damage to them can have life threatening consequences for their custodians.

Many traditional dreaming stories intersect at or around Karlu Karlu and unlike many sacred aboriginal sites which are specifically male or female, men, women and children meet here.

Accounts of Aboriginals believing the site to be eggs of the mythical Rainbow Serpent are now believed to be incorrect. The dreaming stories are alive and well today and are passed on from generation to generation of Traditional Owners. However only a handful are considered suitable to tell to uninitiated visitors and it is therefore probable that we may never learn all their stories relating to this ancient landscape.



One story is of Arranji, the Devil man who while travelling through the area stopped to make a ritual hair belt. Twisting the hair into strings he dropped clusters of it on the ground and these turned into the Karlu Karlu. On his return journey to Ayleparrarntenhe Arranji is also believed to have spat on the ground, his spit forming more boulders.





Geologists however believe the mysterious shapes to be caused by erosion. The Marbles are made of granite and were surrounded by sandstone deep within the earth. Over time this layer is brought to the earths surface and the sandstone erodes quicker than the granite leaving little islands of the harder rock. The lack of pressure above ground allows the granite to expand and crack, falling apart in big square blocks. On the surface wind and water can now play its part in shaping these rocks in a process called spheroidal weathering. The extremes in temperature between night and day causes some of the boulders to crack and in some cases even split in half.



No matter what you believe, surrounded by these enormous sacred boulders you sense the peace and tranquility of the outback and it is hard not to get enchanted with the magic of the place. On Tuesday the 28th October 2008 ownership of Karlu Karlu/Devils Marbles was officially passed from the Parks and Wildlife Service of the Northern Territory back to the Traditional Owners at a ceremony held on the Reserve. The Reserve is now leased back to the Parks Service under a 99 year lease and the site is now managed by Rangers and Traditional Owners in joint partnership.







Gareth takes a photo of Phil playing amongst the stone marbles



The sun sets and leaves a magical purple light in the sky sillouetting the powerful shapes of the Devil's Marbles



This place has been one of our favourite places thus far and we highly recommend a visit here should you get the chance. Read a cheeky bit more!

From Isa to Alice - Anne Falls Asleep at the Wheel!

The 47m long road train Anne drove

Phil (the hero of this piece) suddenly grabs the wheel and pushes it anticlockwise, the van veers back onto the road and we are back again where we belong - on the bitumen. The wheels wobble beneath me as I try to correct my course. I non-chalantely utter "Oh, sorry" and then carry on driving, feeling extremely calm. Phil’s furrowed brow and incredulous eyes burn into the side of my face as he simply shouts “Anne!”. “What?” I say calmly. “Pull over!!!!” he firmly demands of me.


One of the Alleron Aboriginal statues

What strikes me most as I look back now is my lack of surprise. There was no jump start, no adrenaline released to help me deal with the imminent danger at hand, no increased heart rate and no worries. The sincere apologies and worry came later that evening as I lay in bed and was just about to fall asleep and my brain kicked in and suddenly filled me with dread as I thought “Good grief! I nearly killed us all today!”



For as far as you can see in all directions the land is featureless

The dangers of driving in the immense heat on roads which are straight, flat and featureless, the only exciting thing to happen is the smell of road kill wafting in from the roadside. We have no air-conditioning and we can’t pick up any radio signals. It really is incredible how far and wide Australian roads can take you without changing at all. It is hard to imagine the immense stretches without driving over them yourself, especially coming from small island countries as we have.



Anne tries to wake herself up with a leg massage

I was lucky to awake just in time to see us heading in the direction of a cattle fence and trying not to wake the snoring Anne, gently steered us back onto the bitumen. Anne had just experienced a micro sleep. It happens a lot with truckies and road train drivers in the Australian outback. Anne's eyes didn’t shut but her brain shut down, she didn’t realise she had veered off the road and she was still in a dream like trance when I asked her politely to stop the car.
A note to all friends and relatives - we have since made sure we swap drivers often and one of us is always awake and alert as a passenger when driving.



The Camooweal Bullaroo, an imaginary creature Australians like to fool tourists about

The Barkly Highway joins the Flinders Highway at Cloncurry forming the last part of the Overlanders way. We travelled the 188 kms along the worlds longest high street and arrived in the town of Camooweal at lunch time. Only 12 kms from the Northern Territory border this small settlement consists of a pub and a couple of servo's. The BP Roadhouse on the edge of town kindly donated $20 worth of fuel, cheers David and Susana.



A poor road train driver who had been stuck waiting at a road house for three days for two cars to arrive so that they could drive infront and behind him warning others of the wide load he was carrying

The museum attached to the general store being closed, we sat and talked to a couple of road train drivers over lunch. Col, a trucky who had just stopped to make use of the free shower facilities at the road house kindly agreed to let Anne travel with him for the 250 kms to the next fuel stop at Barkly homestead where we would later meet up with them.



Wide load road train



Col with his road train



Anne has a go at driving the 20+ gear, double-shift road train and manages to get it to go at a whopping 40kms an hour



We decided to stay at Barkly Homestead for the night and approached the roadhouse to ask if this would be okay. The man we needed to ask was a young lad called David and he had apparently just nipped home for a quick while, so we retired to the van for a much needed cup of tea and some cake. Returning half an hour later we were informed that he was still out and 'sure to be back anytime soon', 'he had just gone home for a quick shower'. This process repeated itself for the next couple of hours and reluctant to just pitch a tent without asking we waited patiently in the van. It became too late to move on. The next place to camp was 200 kms away and the thought of playing dodge the Kangaroo didn't interest anyone, so determined to finally set up camp and cook a warm meal we staked out the roadhouse. Every half hour we approached the counter for an update and every time we were rebuffed. It crossed our minds that he had possibly drowned.



Anne was at times more than a little shocked at Col's uncouth truckie humour
Unlike some of Australia's city's, parts of the outback have huge underground springs and basins full of water so there would be no water restrictions in place here. It hit midnight and there was still no sign of David, not knowing where he lived and with the nearest lifeguard station over 500 kms away we were at a loss for what to do. In one last valiant attempt we ventured forth into the roadhouse, again we were confronted with an exasperated assistant wearing a look half of incredulity and half admiration (presumably at our staying power). They finally relented and agreed it would be okay for us to sleep at the side of the forecourt in the van and that David would definitely be there between nine and ten the next morning. We climbed into the van and were lulled to sleep by the constant hum of a diesel generator and the occasional thundering road train but at least we had some real dunnies (toilets) to go to in the morning.

It's impossible to forget where you are in Australia
The next morning exhausted and hungry we set off for Tennant Creek. The road between Barkly and Tennant was much the same as most outback roads we had travelled, long, straight and hot and after three hours travelling at a steady 80 km/h we were in Tennant Creek. Knowing that all being well we would pass back through here on the way up to Darwin we decided to motor through and try and reach The Devil's Marbles before sunset. We had no idea what to expect or who we might meet.

The long straight road suddenly starts to contain some rocky features to one side.
The Devil's Marbles are a geological oddity situated just off the Stuart Highway between Tennant Creek and Alice Springs. We arrived late in the afternoon, just in time to see them glowing in the warm dusk light. It wasn't hard to understand why the lands traditional owners held this site as sacred. Aboriginals from the local four language groups still meet at this place today.

There is a campground on the Devils Marbles Conservation Reserve and as the sun went down we decided to set up camp. It was here that we met Jon Duncan, the manager of a cattle station east of Alice Springs. Before finding out his name and before having the chance to introduce ourselves a beer was thrust into our sweaty palms and cigarettes and insect repellent were offered. Stood around, slaking our collective thirst we discovered that Jon was up here from Alice trying to find somewhere he could water his cattle for a while.

Stations in this vast territory need to work together and it is common place that one station will allow neighbouring stations to temporarily graze cattle on their land if they have any to spare. Without this cooperation a lot of cattle would lose their condition or even perish during the extremely harsh dry season. In outback Australia this can mean moving cattle huge distances, as some of the stations in this part of the world are larger than some European countries.
The Northern Territory uses none sniffable fuel as many youths abuse the sustance

After hearing about what we were trying to achieve Jon took it upon himself to give us a well earned break and the cold frosty beers kept on flowing. Talking further we discovered that Jon hadn't always been a station hand and had only moved here in the last few years flying back to see his family in Brisbane whenever he gets the chance. He had a laboratory background in the sciences, but had done many different jobs in many parts of the country before arriving here. When the beer began to run low he suggested a short trip to the nearest pub where he kindly donated a couple more and we propped up the bar for the first time since leaving Brisbane. A bottle of Bundaberg and some more tinnies were acquired and off we headed back to camp.

With no shade from the intense sun and very little water we were surprised to still see the odd plant forcing it's way through the red earth

Having been to the UK himself a few years ago Jon had discovered a band called the Kinks and being from that part of the world he knew we would have heard of them. Inserting the CD and pumping up the volume he asked, in fact he politely insisted that we sing along and wanting to thank him for his unwavering generosity we broke into song. This scenario repeated itself regularly throughout the night and was interspersed with a couple of his old Aussie favourites from Slim Dusty and Kevin 'Bloody' Wilson. When it seemed like we were faltering and couldn't remember all the words to 'Waterloo Sunset' Jon produced a printed sheet with the lyrics on and with no excuses we valiantly sang on into the small hours. Eventually tired but elated we hoarsely strained our good nights before stumbling off in the direction of our van. We had a few hours to sleep before waking to our well earned hangovers.



The pub Jon Duncan took the boys to for singing supplies
Apart from Anne deciding to take a brief nap at the wheel of the van, the road down from here down to Alice was less eventful. We stopped at Wauchope and Wycliffe Well and both service stations donated fuel.
We reached Alice Springs that evening and met up with another Woof host called J9. Fed and refreshed we went to bed wondering what adventures Alice would bring.

One of the immpressive, giant Aboriginal statues at Alleron Read a cheeky bit more!