When I planned the whole roadtrip, I decided that we would do two long days after our break in Uluru, gambling that the 130km/h speed limit that I'd seen near Darwin would be the same near Alice. I was right, and the two almost-1000km days were just fine, as insane as that sounds.
We left really early from Uluru, just as the sun was rising. We saw less than 10 vehicles on our way to Stuart Highway, and didn’t really think we were in civilisation until we got to Alice Springs. Just out of Yulara, we came across a pack of wild camels just on the side of the road. What majestic creatures they are! They stood tall and proud, with such muscular bodies, staring at us with heads held high as we drove past.
Alice Springs was a huge shock to the system after so much time in the desert. There were so many people that I felt like I had landed back in a major city. We left after picking up some food, and returned to the flat, featureless road.
After we drove out of Alice, we started to plan our lunch break. At one rest area where we tried to stop, there was a gang of youths lying across all the tables staring at us as we pulled in, so we drove off again. At the next town, there was nothing but a shop and a police station, something which I'd never seen before (no other one-shop towns I have ever been to in my life have been accompanied by a police station!). I felt afraid, as if I had passed into a danger zone. Everywhere we looked, there were people idling by the roadside, in groups under the trees, at the rest areas.. I felt annoyed at myself, that I had become frustrated by their presence, and that I was inexplicably affected by my own prejudices. Somewhere at the back of my mind I remembered Maddie telling me "don't stop in the middle of nowhere or when people wave you down, no matter what happens" and then I was truly paranoid, probably the only time I've ever felt that way during daylight hours in Australia. So we kept driving, and the kilometres passed by.
We stopped by Devil’s marbles, which are incredible round fragments of rocks that have broken off solid sandstone chunks under the ground. Here it was so hot that we felt dehydrated just walking for 10 minutes around the rocks. It would have been an amazing place to visit when it’s cool, or to rock climb, except a huge Contiki bus pulled in and so we left.
Devil's marbles
The last 100km to Tennant Creek from there were totally unexciting and we were happy to pull up. The town itself looked run down and our motel was pretty decrepit too, but I did discover a little garden of relics from the gold mining era in our motel. I love stuff like this (others would call it junk)...
Old stuff
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