Day 107

Sunday 21st June 2015, 13 – 22 degrees

Elliott to Ti Tree

We’re eating breakfast and outside the window is one motor home, two nylon tents and three peacocks. I think there’s a song in there somewhere. It’s a glorious morning a long straight white road and the sun is lighting up the scrub with colour.

Tiny Renner Springs boasts a rodeo ground which consists of a mowed circle of grass with a white water-pipe fence. Across the road is an old roadhouse, a van park with some grass and a large windmill. There are more dead trucks than there are people.

Banka Banka Station on the other hand looks inviting, all green grass and safari style tents and right on the highway.

There are so many RV’s heading north that it could be described as a stream. Woody keeps complaining that he’s sick of waving and wants a plastic hand on the dash board. Southbound we’ve passed an old bloke collecting aluminium cans, a backpacker whizzbang (small Kombi type vans) and a fellow idiot on a bicycle.

Tennant Creek is a service town because of its proximity to Three Ways. Wow, that means that we’re only 447 kms from Camooweal, Queensland!

We had intended to spend the night at the Devil’s Marbles campground until we hear that Alice Springs had gotten down to zero overnight. Looks like it will be powered sites from here on.

I text my old boss to wish him a Happy Birthday and he tells me that his Dad is at the Marbles. We drive in and are amazed at how good the Marbles actually are, but not much fun for an old duck on crutches waving an iPad out of the window. We drive about harassing the campers looking for a bloke called Moloney. Alas it looks like he’s moved on. We probably waved to him somewhere back up the road.

Just around the bend is the Wauchope Hotel. We pull in and hobble over for a huge Parma. The first Parma of the trip I think. The place is spotless, friendly and has a landscaped garden and pool. They even give us a doggy bag. I gaze longingly at someone else’s pictures of the Marbles on the wall.

After Wycliffe Well, Australia’s UFO capital, which actually has a nice van park, the highway speed opens up to Unlimited. Yay, and we’re doing 93!

Barrow Creek (population 11) looks like something out of a horror movie. We choose not to stay. Eagles perch motionless on dead trees. We later remember that this was where Peter Falconio was murdered.

Thus we push on to Ti Tree a town which is larger than expected. It even has some brick buildings. The road house has a neat van park and a peacock who talks, when he wants to be fed. “Cook cook.” It is three in the arvo and the two vans next to us are roasting on the Weber, smells good. Through sheer tiredness we polish off the remainder of the cold Parma and fall into bed.

Accom: $20

Travelling Kms: 567Kms