Camp Roasts to Greek Lunches

2008 Best Australian Quilt displayed at Royal Flying Doctor Museum Alice Springs

Detail from quilt above

The Campoven kitchen that can feed hundreds at Gemtree 

River bed as part of walk at Gemtree

Our Bush Camp at Gemtree

First shooting of the shy Territory dingoes

Three wise men (or women) at the Devils Marbles

A lucky shot at the Marbles

Territory single lane roads - even used by road trains but not while we were using them

The Marbles are pretty big

A quirky shot from Sally

We are so far north that swimming is possible - maybe later this afternoon

So - here's a change. Sally is quilting so you get me doing the blog.  In return I have used some of Sally's photos to show that she is a better photographer than me.

The last post saw us leaving Alice Springs and contemplating going out of coverage for a week or so.  Thankfully we have had coverage in spots and are now in Tennant Creek.

As an addendum to the Alice post, I have added pictures of the quilt that hangs at the RFDS museum. It was judged Australia's best in 2008 and well deserved too.  Such precision and beauty that even a troglodyte like me was impressed.  Sally had a fantastic time for the last few days in Alice as we were parked next to Elaine and Brian.  Elaine is a long time quilter and so it left Brian and me with a lot of time while they talked quilts and crafts.  You meet some wonderful people on the way.  I discovered a leak in our main water tank 24 hours before leaving Alice and with Brian's help and transport managed to remove the tank and have it repaired before reinstalling and all over a period of about 3 hours.

On our last day in Alice we went for coffee at our favourite "Red Dog Cafe" which just happened to be owned by Brian's cousin (he discovered that while in Alice).  They are lovely people and serve great coffee.  We sat next to a pair of grandparents with their 5 year old grand daughter.  What a card - she talked non stop and the crowning line was "MY hair smells of Bug Killer".  Grandmother laughed and admitted that the nits in Alice are so bad that the only treatment that works is "Frontline" - yes the stuff they use on dogs for fleas.  I had pictured this beautiful girl with a dog collar for a necklace but apparently you can buy it in liquid form.  We have had the most wonderful conversations over morning tea in all sorts of places.

Reluctantly we left Alice, a town we had grown to love, and headed North on the Stuart and then turned onto the Plenty Highway driving 70 km to the Gemtree Campground.  The attraction was the legendary Campfire roast held on Wednesday nights.  We were not disappointed - a huge meal with seconds and the most tender beef I have eaten - and that's saying something given that we get our meat at home from Queensland's best butcher.  It must have been the atmosphere - the stars above, the two campfires and the old newsreel style movie of the proprietors' family history.  Dated from the time that the grandfather had set out from NSW with family and wagon arriving in Gemtree over a year later, some story.  Gemtree is named for the gem fossicking industry in the area but we resisted the urge to get down and dirty and left the next day headed west to rejoin the Stuart and the north towards Litchfield.  140 Km just for a baked dinner - distance matters little in the Centre.

The Stuart is a beautiful 2 lane highway with unrestricted speed so it is the first step down to get on to a one lane bitumen road which was what we had all the way to Gemtree.  The idea is that you drive in the middle of the bitumen until you have a two car situation and then you work it out.  Our strategy was one of total submission so when a car was spotted in front or in the mirror we pulled over and parked on the verge till they had gone.  The idea was to avoid dust and stones.  You would be amazed how many 4x4 people couldn't cope with this and took to the dirt just to spray us.  Luckily there was no damage from flying stones.  It is amazing how much damage these people cause to their own cars by doing 100k on rough dirt tracks.  The rear skirt on many had been peppered with, not chips, but divots from their own flying stones.  There is certainly a smell of testosterone in the air when you talk with them.  There is a picture above of one such encounter.

We stopped at a couple of Roadhouses and mixed with the many tourists and nomads plying this busy highway.  Aileron, which is the town of the Big Aborigine, Barrow Creek, Ti Tree and eventually we arrived at the highlight of the day - the Devils Marbles.  The marbles bit is obvious but why the devil I'm not sure (Sally would look it up and give you the history if she was writing this but I guess I'm lazier).

I have included some of our photos of the Marbles but it is hard to show the magnitude of the group.  The first amazing thing was to get a photo of a real live dingo up close.  We have seen almost no wildlife on the trip and it was almost like it had been trained to sit in the carpark and wait for tourists.  It is a bit like Stonehenge in the 60s when you could crawl all over the rocks so we joined the throng and the challenge was to get people-free photos.  We were there for about 30 minutes and moved out with a mission to reach Tennant Creek that night.

Many years ago Sally had a sewing machine called an Elna Lotus.  When she bought a lovely Bernina full size machine she handed it down to the kids and now she has been longing for the compact Lotus (which we bought in Nottingham in 1969).  Just out of Alice Springs Sal found a near new Lotus on Gumtree still in the box and protected by the foam inserts.  It was for sale in Tewantin and only used by a little old lady who was now in a Nursing Home.  With very patchy 3G coverage we negotiated the deal and finalised it as we arrived in Tennant Creek.  It's funny the things you find to do while driving hundreds of kilometres on an unrestricted highway.  Deal done and safely at Tennant Creek in a beautiful, fairly dusty, old but clean camp ground.  They have Imparga TV coverage so at 9 tonight I can gnash my teeth watching a game that Manly needs to win to avoid the possibility of going from first to fifth on the ladder. Go the mighty Maroon and Whites - see there is a time each week when I barrack for the real original Maroons.

Tennant Creek is a real surprise - quite a nice little town with a couple of pubs and a hospital, post office, supermarket etc.  We found the most wonderful little Greek Cafe for lunch and will be back for Brunch before we leave tomorrow morning.  Our next stop is Daly Waters where the pub does great meals we are told (who says life doesn't revolve around food?).

Once again I must warn you that coverage will be limited but we are really looking forward to a holiday in Litchfield and Kakadu.  Hopefully Chris and Brittney will have sprogged soon with our second Great Grandchild so that we can rip the top off the champers that we are saving for the occasion.  Keep smiling guys and get plenty of rest, you will need to bank some sleep for  the night shifts ahead.  We wish we could be there but no doubt when we arrive in August there will still be some baby hugs left.

For now that's all folks and normal transmission will resume after Litchfield.

PS

Sorry I left out some of the wide shots of the Marbles.  Look at the size of the people in the third one.  After the last picture Sally has added some real information.  You can't keep a good raconteur down.

Yep, I can't help myself.  We did wonder why Devil's Marbles? and here is what I found.  John Ross, of the Australian Overland Telegraph Line expedition, 1870, said :
"This is the Devil's country; he's even emptied his bag of marbles around the place".

More interestingly, the Aboriginal term is Karlu Karlu, which translates as Round Boulders.  One of the main Dreaming stories for the area relates to how Karlu Karlu was made.  This tradition tells of Arrange, the Devil Man, who came from a hill nearby and travelled through the area.  Whilst walking along, Arrange made a hair-string belt.  As he was twirling the hair to make strips, he dropped clusters of hair on the ground.  The clusters turned into the big red boulders at Karlu Karlu that have become so famous today.  On his way back to his hill, Arrange spat on the ground.  His spit turned into the granite boulders in the central part of the reserve.  Arrange finally returned to his place of origin, a hill called Ayleparrarntenhe, where he remains today.

Just saying!