Tennant Creek – Devils’ Marbles – Epenarra – Davenport Ranges N.P (Old Police Station Waterhole) (xxxkms)
Easy drive to Devil’s Marbles, which were outstanding. Basically, the granite cracks, and is exposed, and the cracks allow in water, which – etc – causes the rocks to split in various ways. The result is rocks split asunder, and rocks perching on top of one another. It is also a significant Indigenous people’s site, and I clearly annoyed the spirits by surreptitiously photographing, and my hat blew down a small cliff. I scrambled down to retrieve it. Europeans came later and (re-)in named it – the Marbles not my hat.
Headed off the highway onto a dirt road to the Davenport Ranges. Bruce drove for the first 100kms over quite challenging surfaces, and handled the car really well- ”too easy”. Lunch beside road of spinach wrap with hummus, tomatoes, lettuce, feta cheese and black olives – yummy!
Dave took over driving on easier surface and barrelled along at 90kphd+. We decide to grab an icecream at Epenarra; sadly, it was Sunday so nae fooking icecream.
Headed into the Davenport Ranges National Park, to camp at the Old Police Station Waterhole. Long story short: wolfram mine established nearby; trouble between miners and local indegenous people; so police station established in the middle of bloody nowehere. Set up camp and decided to take a stroll around the billabong/lake to the Old P.S. Well, at hour and much exertion later, we had not found it. Still, it was a beautiful evening even given the 100s of flies that accompanied us.
Bruce prepared chillie, and I roughed out this blog entry, and took some sunset photos. Enjoyed a preprandial beer, and chilled white wine with the excellent chillie. Afterwards, we sat around the campfire, nursing our glasses of wine, and shooting the bull. [Campfire fueled by wood collected before we entered the N.P.]




