Tennant Creek, Wauchope & Mt Isa - Wednesday 10th September

Tennant Creek, Wauchope & Mt Isa Car Kilometers: 177,034

Distance Travelled: 1600km

Total Distance Travelled: 8783km

We set off from Katherine for a few more one night stops, the first being Tennant Creek.On the way we snap a few pictures of street signs in Elliott, and also stop at a curious pub in Daly Waters for a drink.It's busy with other tourists having a break on the way up from Alice Springs, and we immediately see why it's so popular - aside from the cheap drinks and friendly service, it's the only pub for miles, and is cheerfully decorated with travellers' left behind tat - there are baseball caps, business cards, t-shirts and underwear plastered all over the walls and ceiling, as well as a 'thong tree' set up outside.This was not full of knickers as you might expect, given the name, but old and broken flip-flops by the hundred - there's a picture of the sign that accompanied it in the photo album.The pub is also proudly home to the most remote traffic light in Australia - although quite why there is one there at all in the tiny town around the pub, we're not sure.

We drive into Tennant Creek, population 3010, at dusk, and it appears to be deserted.The town is in the centre of a cattle farming area full of huge cattle stations, and home to several Aboriginal communities.We pitch our tent, and while I'm cooking dinner Dave goes over to the camp office to enquire if there are any activities in town for us to do tonight or tomorrow.We decide to skip the suggested offerings of an arts centre, mining museum or deserted telegraph station, in favour of buying a $3 ticket each to the 'Jimmy Hooker Show', which apparently takes place around a campfire near our tent in an hour or so.

Whilst the initial attraction of the show is, I admit, a personal fondness for the daft and random that I have come to love about Australia; once we take our seats (and we do quite literally take along our own seats) around the bushfire and are introduced to Mr Jimmy Hooker, we spend two hours completely hooked on his every word. He's an old bushman; age indeterminable, akubra hat grubby and looking happily at home on his shaggy head.His trousers and shirt look like they've seen a few seasons, and the dog hanging his head over the back of Jimmy's ute looks like he's seen a few seasons more.He proceeds to tell us a few bush yarns, followed by some poems - we're enchanted by his turn of phrase, and impressed at his vast memory, especially as he tells us that he can't read.There are about twenty people from the campsite at the show, and even the couple of children there are rapt - one of the poems has him writhing around in the dirt around the fire to demonstrate a bad toothache... this probably explains in part why he looks so rumpled.We also learn that he used to work as a prospector, looking for gold and gems out in the bush for weeks at a time, only coming back into town for supplies.He's given it up now, preferring instead to do his nightly show, and to work by day as a cleaner for the campsite.He seems to do ok out of it though, getting a free breakfast every day from the cafe in town, in return for telling a poem about them each night at his show.

The second part of the show is a bit more hands on - Jimmy gathers us around a large bench table, and goes to the fire to bury some things in the ashes to cook.A few minutes later he returns, dishing out roasted witchetty grubs, mussels and some fruits from the bush.I try the grub, which I am pleased to report tastes meaty-nutty and quite pleasant - don't listen to them on 'I'm a Celebrity' when they make a fuss about it!Dave enjoys the mussels, and we both sample some of the fruit, including mistletoe berries, which I'm sure I've read somewhere aren't good for you.After our snack, we learn about the other properties of bush plants, including herbs to stop a runny nose, a soapy grass that lathers up a treat in water, and some other lovely smelling bits and pieces from Mother Nature.

We've really enjoyed the evening, and wave Jimmy off home to Gum tree 69, where he claims to live - and sure enough, we see him again in the morning scrubbing the loos.It was great value for money, although our tummies are a bit achy in the night... maybe we shouldn't have tried the mistletoe after all.

Waving goodbye to Jimmy as we leave the campsite in the morning, we head first to the cafe that he has recommended, where we share a quiet coffee with a Vietnam veteran - we get talking to him because he's wearing a bright white Hanoi t-shirt, and it turns out he's now a chef in a pub down in Wauchope, our next planned stop.He recommends the pub's attached campsite, and in lieu of any better options we head there next - Dave almost managing to run over a huge flock of tiny bright green budgies on the way.

It turns out that there's not a lot in Wauchope (pronounced walk-up) apart from this pub-cum-service-station-cum-campsite-cum-motel, so we enquire at the bar about the price of a pitch.It's $14 a night, although we don't like to get too excited about potential bargain sites until we've inspected the showers...

Ablution inspection completed, it turns out we're the only tent there, and there are just another few grey nomads scattered near the back of the site.The bathrooms are spotless, and there is a lovely swimming pool for our exclusive use, as well as some lovely green grass (something we haven't seen for a while) to pitch on and a functional camp kitchen.We settle in, having a leisurely swim in the pool and a good hot shower each after lunch.

The reason for us coming to Wauchope is to see the Devil's Marbles, or Karlwe Karlwe, which we plan to visit at 4pm ish to have the benefit of both the light and the sunset.They're only a few kilometres down the road, and fairly tourist free.As you can see from the photos, the marbles are large red spherical rocks piled up on top of each other over a few square miles of desert.They have eroded over time to look like this, and when you see them you can't understand how they are physically still standing - imagine two real marbles balanced on top of each other - we expected them to topple over at any minute.Dave is in heaven taking hundreds of photos as the light changes, whilst I walk around the site and then find a spot to watch the sunset until Dave joins me.

We return to camp in awe, really impressed with the marbles, and amazed that they're just there at the side of the road, to be seen for free. We're only about 450kms away from Alice Springs, the gateway to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, home to Uluru, or Ayers Rock as it used to be known.On the drive down, we've toyed with the idea of going there several times, as this is the nearest we'll get to the red centre, and in Australian terms it's only just down the road.However, we decide that we can't do Uluru justice on our budget - prices rise steeply in Alice and beyond, and we felt that if we wanted to make the most of the experience, we'd have to sacrifice a lot more later on which we weren't prepared to.In the end, we're very happy with what we've seen at the Marbles and everywhere else, and we'll save that trip for another day.

In celebration of our decision, we share a 'burger with the lot' in the pub for tea, and chat to some of the barflies about our travels before bed.

The next morning, we're up and packed up early as we have a long driving day ahead of us.We drive back north past Tennant Creek and turn right at Three ways, heading east towards Mount Isa.We cross over into our fourth Australian state just after lunch, and are greeted at the entrance to Queensland, the sunshine state, by another half an hour time difference.

We've been warned by other travellers that the roads aren't great here, and we're inclined to agree - the surfaces are patchy and the roads are narrow, even though it's a main route through to the coast.However, we manage to make it to Mount Isa by 5pm, and go on the hunt for a site.

Unfortunately, even though we pick a usually reliable Big 4 site, we end up with a bad pitch, which is hard gravelly ground and on a slope.The bathrooms are also grotty, and we decide to leave in the morning for Longreach.Mt Isa is an industrial mining town, home to 22,600 people and apparently geographically the largest city in the world.I read a story in a laundry-room That's Life magazine (the Aussie Take a Break), about a girl who's been poisoned by all of the mineral deposits hanging around in the town's water supply and has had to move out of town for her health - much as this sounds feasible, I can't help but feel that the author lost their sense of objectivity somewhere in the first sentence of the story.

According to the grey nomads, our ever reliable sources of news and gossip, and also our new friend Jimmy Hooker, there is trouble in town this week, with a huge number of Aborigines from Tennant Creek heading across the border from the Northern Territories to claim their money in Queensland instead, since there are less restrictions on how to spend it.The locals are apparently not too pleased, and although we don't see any sign of this, and maybe it's just the storm clouds hanging in the sky, the place feels ominous and we are glad to shoot off early in the morning.