Leaving Camooweal we were still 1000km away from Alice Springs and our hike so in outback Australian terms we were getting close!! We decided to split the journey into 3 stops so at least we would get to experience a bit of what was around. There wasn’t much. The first two days we were driving predominantly straight roads, I measured one as being 50km of dead straight before I had to turn the wheel.
The speed limit was 130km/h but realistically you would have been crazy to drive that fast as while the road was straight it certainly wasn’t flat and couple that with some flood damage and at times we were crawling along at a snail’s pace winding ourselves around potholes that would have swallowed the ute whole!!
For our first stop we didn’t have too many options, well more accurately we had one option, that was Barkly Homestead. It was a huge campground which just about everyone had to stop at so got very busy and they advertised live music at the pub so we thought we would treat ourselves to steak and chips and a beer watching the music. It was actually quite a fun night but as there was nothing at all else to do there we (and everyone else) left the next day to continue our journey.
Our chosen stop was the National Park of Karlu Karlu also known as the Devil’s Marbles and as we entered the park and drove to our campsite we were blown away by the beauty of the place. We were camped right up next to some of the rock formations and spent a fantastic couple of days wandering around the park looking at the rock formations.
The main thing that struck us was how vast the area the “marbles” encompassed. We thought that there would be a few rock formations and a couple of photo opportunities but we were walking for 3 km around the whole park. The other strange thing was that there was literally nothing and I mean nothing for hundreds of kms beyond the National Park. It always makes me wonder how much more is out there away from the roads and the other side of the fences.
We enjoyed sunrises and sunsets and in all the time in between. It really was special seeing all the different colours and shadows as we walked around and we both were very pleasantly surprised by how good our stay was. Definitely well worth it. T