16/12/08 We didn't have time to look round Tennant Creek properly as we had another massive distance to cover to get to Alice Springs, but after ringing home, we did go in briefly to refuel and get a couple of drinks for the journey. I spotted something I had to get a photo of though - a signpost with signs pointing to places within Australia, but also London, Fiji etc., with their distances in km as well! In contrary to expectations, I hadn't seen any of these in Asia, so I felt I had to get a photo of this one! We also went into a butchers', to see if they had crocodile or emu in stock, but like in Katherine, they told us that it was the tourist off season so they didn't have any. Despite the great distance (about 670 km), there were a few stops on the way, the first of these being the Devil's Marbles! It's an incredible sight, seeing hundreds of large, red boulders piled up in groups, a couple balanced on top of others so precariously it looked like I could have given them a poke with one finger and they would have rolled off quite easily. It reminded me a bit of the Cheesewring on Bodmin Moor, Devon. One single big boulder had split exactly in half, which looked quite surreal. The area is of great significance to the local Indigenous population so we couldn't climb around on them, so we just had a walk round. The flies were a nuisance, but although their persistance forced us to cut short our wander round, they didn't stop us from enjoying the views of the Marbles and taking lots of photos! Our next stop was at Wycliffe Well, supposedly the UFO centre of Australia! It was basically just a roadhouse/cafe/pub, with a campsite, caravan park and children's playground attached. The outside walls of the building were covered in murals of aliens and space. We bought a couple of boiled eggs, which they had in a little basket by the till (a good idea, methinks), and a tuna sandwich, and took them into the cafe to eat. The walls were covered in newspaper clippings about all the alien sightings and experiences that have happened at or near Wycliffe Well, and elsewhere in Australia and the world. There were a couple of ones about crazy conspiracy theories, including one about how apparently Marilyn Monroe was murdered by a Mafia hitman hired by JFK's father, because she was about to give a press conference where she was going to tell the world lots of special, confidential information about UFOs, which would have brought down JFK's presidency! We continued down the Stuart Highway, stopping briefly at the roadside Stuart Memorial, which was in memory to the explorer John McDougall Stuart, the first man to cross the middle of Australia. Our next proper stop was at Aileron Roadhouse, which has a giant statue of an Aboriginal warrior on a hill behind it. After stretching our legs and buying a couple of boiled eggs and a drink, I walked round to the statue, but you couldn't get up very close to it. We carried on to Alice Springs, not meaning to stop again, but then about 30 km from Alice Dave suddenly saw a sign saying 'Tropic of Capricorn' on it, pointing into an approaching layby, so he pulled into it and stopped, so we could see what was there. It turned out to be a staue of a globe on top of some iron girders and a base with a plaque on it, recording its exact longitude and latitude - marking the exact line of the Tropic of Capricorn! We noted the '24 hour camping allowed' sign for future use, and carried on to Alice. It seemed to rise out of the red earth and the nearby McDonnell mountain range as we approached - it's a very impressive backdrop to the town! We had to get to the campsite before it started getting dark, so we went straight through the town onto the other side, where the campsite was that I had chosen on the journey down. We managed to set up the tent and cook dinner before it got properly dark, and then after washing up and going in the pool for a while, we had another early night.