Tuesday 22nd July 2014

We had a pretty early wake up for our pick up for our next part of the tour with Wayout Back. Our new guide is Dave, a typical Aussie, swears like a trooper, dreads, pretty chilled, strong accent and born in England...!! We played some silly games to get to know each other before our first stop along the Stuart Highway. A road house in Wycliffe Well, where has seen quite a lot unusual UFO sightings!!! The whole of the road house was painted and decorated with UFO and space themed items!!

We had another long drive before another stop break at Airlie road house. The name for the road house is due to when during the world wars the planes were transported in pieces on camel back from South Australia to Darwin. After the wars when the road house was built they found a part of the plane, an airline, so was named after that. I hope no one flew that plane!!

On the road again and our next stop was the devil's marbles! The aboriginal meaning of this name is a spirit who lived in the rocks used to enchant children to join him in the rocks. This was to scare children from coming here! The white man's meaning is a sheep herder lost 200 sheep overnight, so he named it the devil's marbles. They later found out the sheep ate a poisonous bush and killed the sheep!!

The Devils Marbles are large granitic boulders that form the exposed top layer of an extensive and mostly underground granite formation. The natural processes of weathering and erosion have created the various shapes of the boulders. Some of the boulders are naturally but precariously balanced atop one another or on larger rock formations, while others have been split cleanly down the middle by natural forces. The boulders are situated in a wide and shallow desert valley, and are found in scattered groups mainly in the western side of the reserve.

Karlu Karlu/Devil's Marbles is within country originally belonging to the Alyawarre people, all of the other local Aboriginal groups, which include the Kaytetye, Warumungu and Warlpiri people, also have spiritual connections and responsibilities for the area.

Dave told us about the dreaming story about how Karlu Karlu was made. This tradition tells of Arrange, the Devil Man, who came from a hill nearby and travelled through the area. Whilst walking along, Arrange made a hair-string belt (a kind of traditional adornment, worn only by initiated men). As he was twirling the hair to make strings, he dropped clusters of hair on the ground.

The clusters turned into the big red boulders at Karlu Karlu that have become so famous today. On his way back to his hill, Arrange spat on the ground. His spit turned into the granite boulders in the central part of the reserve. Arrange finally returned to his place of origin, a hill called Ayleparrarntenhe where he remains today.

He then explained how they are formed from a more scientific way, the Devils Marbles are made of granite and are part of the top layer of a formation which penetrates the ground from below, like little geological islands in the desert, surrounded by large amounts of sandstone. The granite was formed millions of years ago as a result of the hardening of magma within the Earth's crust. Thick layers of sandstone on top of the granite exerted extreme downward pressure on the granite. After some time, tectonic forces caused folding of the Earth's crust in the area, which lifted the granite and fractured the sandstone, allowing the granite to come closer to the surface. As the pressure diminished, the granite expanded causing cracks to form, and then the larger formations began to separate into big, square blocks.

The next phase of the formation of the Marbles started when the blocks were exposed to water. The surface of the blocks began to decay under the influence of the water and a layer of loose material surrounded the individual blocks. When the blocks came to the surface completely, the loose material was eroded away by water and wind.

Our next stop was Tennant Creek, which is the 5th biggest town in NT, and we stop at another telegraph post just outside the town, the town was originally here but moved south to where it is now because the monthly delivery of beer never showed up. So a couple of the men in the town went to see if something had happen. The town got worried as the men never came back so they went south looking for them. They found the men, the beer truck. It had broken down and there was no way in moving it, so the town moved south to the beer truck!!! Talk about priorities!!!

We finally arrived at our camp for the night Banka Banka cattle station, it was really cure and we stayed in a little cabin for the night in our swags. We helped Dave make dinner, showered and got ready for bed as it had been a long day of travelling.