{"id":3359,"date":"2022-08-21T18:03:45","date_gmt":"2022-08-21T08:03:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/?p=3359"},"modified":"2022-12-02T20:54:42","modified_gmt":"2022-12-02T09:54:42","slug":"devils-marbles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/devils-marbles\/","title":{"rendered":"Devils Marbles"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Devils Marbles Trip<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>
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Karlu Karlu (Devils Marbles)<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>
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Biker Encounter<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t
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Jo at the wheel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

So… a long 391km tow up the Stuart Highway from Alice Springs to Wauchope where the Devils Marbles<\/a> are located. The township (roadhouse) of Wauchope seemed a little weird since Rob grew up in Kempsey, where the somewhat more sizable town of Wauchope was one of the nearby places. The Stuart Highway<\/a> really is an amazing piece of tarmac… In such good condition considering that the bulk of the traffic is caravans and road-trains. Driving 100km on the Pacific Highway is more tiring than 400km on the Stuart Highway<\/a>…<\/p>\n\n\n

Ryan Well<\/h5>\n\n\n
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Ryan Well camel powered bucket<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Ryan Well camel powered bucket<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Ryan Well camel powered bucket<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Ryan Well water trough<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Ryan Well<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure><\/div>\n
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Ryan Well was not too far out of Alice Springs… by outback standards. It is an extremely well preserved well that was dug to support the teams of workers on the Overland Telegraph<\/a>, the significance of which increases the further you go up the centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s quite a large well structure, which has undergone some restoration, consisting of a walled well with large bucket, a long livestock trough, the remains of a tank stand and a long cable driven bucket lifter that was powered by camels or horses. The well was hand dug and is one of a number of wells along the Overland Telegraph<\/a> route.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barrow Creek<\/h5>\n\n\n
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Barrow Creek Telegraph Station<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Barrow Creek Bar<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Barrow Creek tanker wreck<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure><\/div>\n
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Barrow Creek tanker wreck<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

We had a lunch break at Barrow Creek<\/a> and the Barrow Creek Roadhouse<\/a>, which was a bit of an outback experience… The roadhouse has seen better days but is still operating. We ‘enjoyed’ a pie from the pie warmer, that needed to be microwaved to make it warm, and cold drink served by a friendly local. It was really just an excuse for a toilet break (50c surcharge for non-customers)…<\/p>\n\n\n

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Barrow Creek Bar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The walls of the bar were wall-papered with bank notes, mostly $5 notes and mostly Australian, on which visitors have written their names to signify their visit to Barrow Creek. Since cash is rarely used these days we weren’t carrying anything less than a $50 so didn’t join ritual.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Barrow Creek Telegraph Station<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Next door to the roadhouse is the Barrow Creek Telegraph Station<\/a>, the first repeater station after Alice Springs. It is also well preserved but we opted not to visit as we were in the heat of the day with a long drive ahead of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Devils Marbles Hotel (Wauchope)<\/h5>\n\n\n
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Devils Marbles Hotel Beer Garden<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Devils Marbles Hotel Beer Garden<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Devils Marbles Hotel Beer Garden<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Very beefy Beef Cheeks<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Wrapped Chicken Special<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Rusty wrecks at Devils Marbles Hotel<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Devils Marbles distances<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure><\/div>\n
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Devils Marbles distances<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

We pulled in at the Devils Marbles Hotel<\/a>, about 10km south of the Devils Marbles<\/a> themselves and settled in for a lazy afternoon\/evening before visiting the Devils Marbles<\/a> the next day. Jo went in to to book us in as the group of bikers we encountered at Wycliffe Well<\/a> roared past. You can read about this in the Biker Encounter<\/a> tab.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Rusty wrecks at Devils Marbles Hotel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

From the outside the Devils Marbles Hotel looks a bit barran and quirky but once you pull around the back you encounter a large caravan\/camping area that backs onto a really impfessive beer garden, dining area and pool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There’s not all that much to do at the hotel other than happy hour in the beer garden, which we were more than happy to partake of. The beer garden was really well done with rough slab style benches and tables under shade and pretty good drinks prices with a fair selection.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Devils Marbles Hotel Beer Garden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Dinner was another matter again… Rob enjoyed a plate of braised beef spare ribs and Jo went for that night’s special, proscuitto wrapped stuffed chicken breast. Both absolutely magnificent and as good as you’ll get anywhere else (and pay more for). Nobody starves in an outback roadhouse…<\/p>\n\n\n

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All in all, our stay at the Devils Marbles Hotel<\/a> was very comfortable and quite memorable after one of our longer tows to get there…<\/p>\n\n<\/div>

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Karlu Karlu – Devils Marbles<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Karlu Karlu – Devils Marbles<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Friendly Top-knot Pigeons<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Karlu Karlu – Devils Marbles<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Karlu Karlu – Devils Marbles<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Termite mound<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Karlu Karlu – Devils Marbles<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Karlu Karlu – Devils Marbles<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Missed!!!<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Ubiquitous Stobie Pole<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Truck wreck amongst the boulders<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Karlu Karlu – Devils Marbles<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Karlu Karlu – Devils Marbles<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Karlu Karlu – Devils Marbles<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Karlu Karlu – Devils Marbles<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Karlu Karlu – Devils Marbles<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Split boulder<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Karlu Karlu – Devils Marbles<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Karlu Karlu – Devils Marbles<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Karlu Karlu – Devils Marbles<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Devils Marbles perspective<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Weather split boulder<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>
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Karlu Karlu – Devils Marbles<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure><\/div>\n
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Karlu Karlu – Devils Marbles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Devils Marbles<\/a> are an absolutely remarkable group of weathered rounded granite rocks that just pop up out of nowhere as both a jumbled but orderly piles of earthy red boulders scattered in clumps and groups over a few square kilometres.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Missed!!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

As with most of these places they are a significant sacred site to local Alyawarre<\/a> indigenous people and neighbouring groups. There is a free-camp campground at the site, which is quite close to the main viewing area and is also the start\/end point of some walking trail that takes you around the entire site for about 5km or so and crosses the Stuart Highway at two points.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Karlu Karlu – Devils Marbles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The ‘marbles’ are huge granite boulders that have weathered and eroded over millenia into a series of groups and clumps of rounded balls, some of which are stacked on top of each other like a croquembouche<\/a> tower.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Karlu Karlu – Devils Marbles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Other formations create a string of marbles, while others have a single marble perched on top of another as though it is balancing in place. Each formation is completely unique and interesting in its own right.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Weather split boulder<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

A few of the boulders have split cleanly down the middle through expansion and contraction in the baking sun and cooler overnight temperatures. The split face of these boulders show a ring known as onion weathering as opposed to the weathering of the outside surface known as exfoliation weathering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is interesting to note that the original boulder on John Flynn’s grave in Alice Springs was sourced from the Devils Marbles<\/a>. This did not have the approval of the local indigenous people and was a cause of great hurt to them. A reconciliation took place whereby the boulder was returned and re-placed at the Devils Marbles<\/a>. The Arrernte people of Alice Springs negotiated this and replaced the boulder with one locally sourced from the Alice Springs region.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>

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Wycliffe Well<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So we decided to pull into the roadhouse at Wycliffe Well<\/a> to fill up with fuel…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But first… Wycliffe Well<\/a> regards itself as the UFO capital of the outback and styles itself after a kitchy (somewhat lame) mashup of Roswell<\/a> and Area 51<\/a> in the U.S. Their caravan park and campground has a number of alien statues and UFO related sculptures as well as a statue of Elvis Presley just to boost the cringe level…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway… the cruiser fuel cap is on the driver’s side so we pulled into the right hand side of the pumps, which was very squeezy with the van on the back. There were about thirty bikers (as opposed to bikies) parked around the pumps and in front of the exit point from the pumps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two young women had their bikes lined up at each of the two pumps and were fiddling around and re-adjusting the loads on their bikes. Meanwhile two more vans pulled in behind us so we were effectively locked in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two women could see we were waiting but continued to fiddle around. Then after a couple of minutes decided to go inpay for their fuel, which took more minutes… They returned to their bikes and stood there yapping and then decided to fiddle a bit more with the panniers and load.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a small eternity they moved their bikes away, which meant that we could move forward and fill our tanks. After filling our tanks and paying, which took considerably less time that the two women we were stuck in place with the vans behind and about a eighteen harleys in front of us blocking our exit. All of the bikers could see that we wanted to exit but nobody moved an inch preferring to stand around a lick their golden gaytimes…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At some point, one of the older bikers called out to the others that they needed to move their bikes so that we could get out. Well you’ve never seen such a set of looks of abject indifference to this request. Grudgingly one or two them shifted their bikes so that they were still just perfectly blocking us. Then another four or five moved theirs to a position that gave us about one inch of manoeuvering space. Rob kept inching forward and the bikers, one by one, kept shuffling their harleys forward so that they were still blocking us from exiting without ploughing over the tops of their bikes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now at some point, anyone with a brain would have moved their bike over to the two acres of empty space across from the pumps but not these intellectual giants who continued to play shuffle and leap-frog with their bikes, grumbling all the way…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So finally, after four or five micro shuffles, these biker Einsteins had cleared enough of an exit that we could get out with about 2 inches either side… Our van has a long turning point and it started to scrape a bollard as we inched through the gap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So then a couple of their geniuses decided to help me with some (genuinely well meaning) help to reverse a bit so that I could get past the bollard without scraping and miss their bikes by half an inch… At this point Rob wanted to just plough into the bikes to start a domino chain effect but resisted the temptation on the grounds that he probably couldn’t defend himself against a mob of that size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In all honesty, we both think that a bag of hair has more intelligence than this group of thirty dimwits… On a good day!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So… as mentioned in a previous tab, when Jo was booking us in later at the Devils Marbles Hotel<\/a>, this merry band of Jobbernowls<\/a> rode past. The receptionist ran out and asked Jo whether they were heading north or south, after which Jo explained that they were heading north and that we had had a minor but harmless interaction with them. She then proceeed to advise the manager who was on the phone to the Tennant Creek police to advise them of a group of bikers headed north. It seems that they operate as an early warning system for the Ketherine police of any potential nuisance or threat headed their way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nothing was to come of this particular event though… mainly because this group were bikers not bikies. They also didn’t have half-a-dozen brain cells between them…<\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Making our way to Karlu Karlu to see the magnificent Devils Marbles, which spring up out of nowhere and seemingly out of place and time. Also an interesting (in hindsight) encounter with some bikers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[137,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-big-trip-august-2022","category-the-grand-tour"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0152.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Rob Maguire","author_link":"https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/author\/rob\/"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0152.jpg",720,480,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0152-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0152-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0152.jpg",474,316,false],"large":["https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0152.jpg",474,316,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0152.jpg",720,480,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0152.jpg",720,480,false],"wprm-metadata-1_1":["https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0152-500x480.jpg",500,480,true],"wprm-metadata-4_3":["https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0152-500x375.jpg",500,375,true],"wprm-metadata-16_9":["https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0152-480x270.jpg",480,270,true],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0152-672x372.jpg",672,372,true],"twentyfourteen-full-width":["https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0152.jpg",720,480,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Rob Maguire","author_link":"https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/author\/rob\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Making our way to Karlu Karlu to see the magnificent Devils Marbles, which spring up out of nowhere and seemingly out of place and time. Also an interesting (in hindsight) encounter with some bikers.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rjjc.net\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}