Wauchope

8 – 9 September 2017

We headed off from Alice, intending to go as far as Barrow Creek. We stopped for coffee at Aileron and wished we hadn’t. It was the most awful coffee, from an automatic machine - yuk.  From there we travelled on to Central Mount Stuart – a nice rest area with picnic tables but no toilets – for lunch. Driving into Barrow Creek we decided to keep going and ended up at Wauchope, just south of Karlu Karlu (Devil’s Marbles). 

We checked into the campground behind the pub and considered our options. The campground was very basic but the pub looked very nice (especially compared to some we have seen) so we decided to visit Karlu Karlu for sunset and then return for dinner at the pub.

The short drive up the highway takes you to a day use area and a campground. There were lots of people camped in what looked like a giant carpark. We drove to the day use area and beyond to look at this special place. I hadn’t realised there were so many “marbles” spread over quite an area. We stopped for photos and then returned to the day use area and wandered around for a while. This is a sacred site so visitors are asked not to climb.

It's great to have a subject that is so good at standing still.

Low cloud on the western horizon made the sunset a bit of a dud.

While we were there we accessed the free NT WiFi that is available at some key tourist sites. Mostly it is very slow and unreliable due to high visitor access but on this occasion we were the only ones there so it worked terrifically well, so much so that we were able to make a Facebook call to Julia in Tasmania. As the sun set we went back to the pub for a very nice dinner.

Setting off in the morning, we would drive north to Threeways and then turn east for home, but still with a long way to go.