North to Tennant Creek

We were given the “good oil” from a lady at the Alice Springs Information Centre to visit Aileron on our way north, and it was worth a visit. It’s just a roadhouse/pub and an indigenous art gallery but it is dominated by a couple of massive and impressive statues of aboriginal people. The art is honest, local and very good. The pub is a gathering place for the local identities and speaks in plain language (see below). One old bloke rolled in and told the barman he was “off to Alice for a funeral – not my own!”

                                           The way to the "Restrooms" in plain English...

          How to tell the difference between male and female goannas - it was really easy!!!

We made a fatal error when we were at Standley Chasm. The kiosk there had a delicious Mango Ice-cream that was made locally at a place called Ti Tree Farm (just north of Aileron). The convoy came screeching to a halt at Ti Tree Farm and two women piled out and into the little shop like a well-planned police raid. Ice-cream was procured (I might have had one myself) and on we moved with sticky fingers but happy hearts.

                                              Elvis and Aliens - there has always been a connection

We stopped for the night at Wycliffe Well, a roadhouse with enough fresh water to support luxurious green lawns (and enough beer to support life). The owner of Wycliffe Well has a desire to make this place a tourist attraction in its own right, exploiting a number of UFO sightings in the area as its claim to fame. He may have gone a little over the top as the caravan park and roadhouse are festooned with little green men, a Mighty Hulk statue, a green Elvis Presley (and here’s the freaky part), walls full of UFO press clippings from all around the world, all with their dates of publication mysteriously removed (presumably by the aliens), so that no one can tell just how long ago a UFO has been sighted at Wycliffe Well or anywhere else. Some of the clippings are looking a little aged, let’s say. I offered to pull the first watch for UFOs from 7 til 9pm, suggesting Maurs took 9 til midnight, Thomas midnight to 3am and Marg 3 to 6am. I thought it only fair – they thought otherwise. No watch was posted and therefore no UFOs spotted. I was disappointed. Maybe you have to pay extra to be beamed up to the mother ship and probed.

                                                Even the site numbers had little green men
Wycliffe Well is just a stone’s throw from the Devils Marbles so we ambled along to see this extraordinary structure – rocks weathered into spheres as far as the eye can see. There’s a free camp out the back of the marbles and there were quite a few people taking advantage of the campground, but facilities are pretty sparse.

                                    Travel shot of Devil's Marbles (Karlu Karlu in local talk)

We made our way to the town of Tennant Creek – our last day with Thomas and Margaret. The next day they would turn right and head for the relative safety of the Queensland border while we would continue north into the Territory.

Now Tennant Creek just strikes me as being different. My sense is that the town’s general ebb and flow has developed like no other that I have seen. In most other towns, people move about doing their business in a way that is so “normal” that you don’t even notice. In TC, it occurred to me that something was different. It’s not a good thing or a bad thing, it’s just... different. The local people tend to move about in groups or just sit about randomly around the town, waiting for something to happen maybe. Why did I even mention it? Because it looked different! (Maybe I was probed by aliens at Wycliffe Well and I am now slavishly reporting earthling behaviour to them via the Internet.)