26 October 2011 - Connor Well, Stuart Highway, Northern Territory

This morning dawned clear and warm once more and the young Victorians were full of energy and ready to go. During breakfast I heard a call, “Muu..um. Look at us”. Realising of course that it was not my own children (in case you thought I was mad) I did still venture outside, with camera, and saw as their parents did, three of these free spirits high on the top of the nearest peak. I applaud the fact that these children are not kept in cotton wool, that they are allowed to move without fear of falling and complimented their parents on the same. Too many children today rarely venture outside the safety of their home comforts.

Posing amongst the Marbles

After a brief walk through the marbles, we set off south again, first pulling in to Wauchope (pronounced Walk-up) where there was little but a roadhouse and a simple camping ground. 

Just down the road a bit, we pulled in to Wycliffe Well, UFO capital of Australia. Apparently it is here that most UFO’s have been spotted in Australia. This could have something to do with the location of the pub. No matter what, there are zany sculptures and pictures around to make it a memorable spot. A caravan park is situated just adjacent to the roadhouse, the entrance gate adorned by red flowering trees.

 Another 100 kilometres on and the landscape changed; a wide valley with high sides, topped with cliffs.

Obviously once upon a time, a river cut through this landscape and left it like this. I was reminded of the Mokau valley in New Zealand’s King Country, except here the limestone was replaced by the red sides of the Crawford Range. We stopped at the old Telegraph Station which along with the roadhouse and another camping ground, is the extent of Barrow Creek. We wandered about the ruins, partially restored and read the few interpretative panels. Some sort of workshop, or rather wrecker’s yard, stood between the roadhouse and the station, an eyesore to what would have otherwise been a charming, albeit lonely place.

Seventy five kilometres south of Barrow Creek, we pulled over at the McDouall Stuart Memorial which marks the centre of Australia, as ascertained by John McDouall Stuart when he came this way back in the 1860s, and which has subsequently been verified by other more modern methods. The nearby hill, he named Mt Sturt, but was later renamed in honour of Stuart himself. He, like Burke and Wills, was one of Australia’s great explorers, but unlike them, more successful and less foolhardy (if explorers of that time can be considered so).

After leaving Tennant Creek, the road markers every ten kilometres had shown the letters TT which we had figured to represent Ti-Tree, so I assumed that this place, Ti-Tree, must be a place big enough to have a shire office and works yard. How wrong I was. Ninety kilometres past Barrow Creek, we came to Ti-Tree. We pulled off the main road, passed through and on, unimpressed.

Remnants of the telegraph station at Barrow Creek

During the course of the trip we had seen road killed lizards, but more often those poised mid-course, frozen like statues. They sense the danger but cannot quite comprehend whether that danger is a swooping raptor or an oncoming wheeled monster, and then by the time they figure it is the latter and flee, they are too late and end up as another road statistic. Today alas, we added to those statistics; we felt the bump as the wheels rode up over it, and resolved from hereonin to sound the horn as we do for birds busy clearing the roads.

Our camp at Connor Well

About another one hundred kilometres on, we pulled in to this rest area, devoid of any amenities, but having water, the quality of which is not guaranteed. Again there is a derelict water pump windmill, which offers an odd kind of charm. We hope the flying bugs will be less, having come so much further south. Alas the bird life will have suffered great loss from these fires, and so the bugs will be looking out for food, even Kiwi blood. There are millions of ants close to our site, however they do seem to be happy to get on with what they were doing before we arrived, which includes surviving the attacks of the tiny little skinks that are darting about. Go skinks! As a precaution, we have made a talcum powder trail all around the tyres and around our outdoor seating area. It seems they, the ants, are not as keen on smelling sweet as we are.