We regretfully bade farewell to Mataranka and moved on to Katherine, only 100 kms away. Arrived mid-morning on Saturday, just in time to catch the tail end of the weekly market. It wasn't a very impressive market, except for one exceptional find - fresh mangoes, by the boxful. Apparently this is mango season here. I was happy to buy five or ten, but George insisted on a whole box - over 30 mangoes. We were only planning to be here a few days before moving on to K...

The Devil's Marbles was the last of the 'new' things we hadn't seen on our previous travels. On that trip we had come west from Queensland, through Mt Isa, and met the Stuart Highway at a roadhouse called 3 Ways. Although Tennant Creek was south of this, it was only about 25 kms south, so we had taken a little detour to check it out as we had heard the name before. We weren't very impressed last time, so were keen to see if anything had changed over the past thre...

After finishing the MacDonnells, we had one more day in Alice. In the morning we checked out all the touristy bits - The Ghan Museum, the Natural History Museum, the Aviation Museum etc. By the time we got to the Old Telegraph Station we were museumed out. And they wanted to charge us $17 for the privilege. Gave that a miss. Alice Springs was first established as a telegraph station to link Adelaide and Perth. The early explorers had considered it a good place a...

A short geography lesson. The terrain around Uluru and the Olgas is a flat plain, with the rock, or rocks, jutting out unexpectedly out of nowhere. Further north and east, around Alice Springs, there are mountainous ranges - specifically the MacDonnell Ranges. In fact, Alice Springs sits in the gap between the east and west MacDonnell Ranges. The ranges are a row of rocky hills / mountains which run horizontally from east to west in almost a straight line. The Ma...

Left Coober Pedy early in the morning and hit the road. The plan was to get to Uluru, a drive of about 700 kilometres. Although the road was long, it was flat and easy. We passed through Marla Roadhouse, (the start of the Oodnadatta track), then crossed into the Northern Territory and hit Kulgera Roadhouse - the first and last pub in the NT. As it was getting late in the day, we thought there was no point pushing on to Uluru that night. We had heard it was diffi...