The Traveller's Table: To The North - Devils Marbles, Tennant Creek and Daly Waters!

Leaving Alice Springs for the second time we are heading north to the Devils Marbles for a quick overnight stay before heading to Daly Waters Pub. The marbles weren't as we expected them to be and overall very disappointing!

The Devils Marbles are directly beside the highway heading north to Darwin, and therefor an easy and VERY POPULAR overnight stop for travellers. We arrived reasonably early in the afternoon (lucky for us) to find only a few camp spots available and not a great deal to look at. After witnessing Ayers Rock, Kings Canyon and The Olga's just days before, the marbles were a bit of a let down. The camping area here has no facilities, everyone parks on top of each other and packs up to hit the road the following day... so that is exactly what we did.

Continuing north we got to Tennant Creek, no overnight stop but we decided to take a underground tour of the old gold mine. Of course, Ben has seen enough underground mining but he humoured me and tagged along anyway. The history in this area is rich and very interesting, we put on our hard hats and ear muffs and headed into the underground shaft. Along the 1 hour tour our guide explained how the miners spent days without coming out of the shaft, and rationed water that much that they'd pee in their gold pans instead of using water... not joking! Our guide started up the old equipment the used in the mine and we had a new found appreciation for the mining pioneers.

It was late in the afternoon when we arrived at the very famous Daly Waters Pub. What a great place... I was so tempted to stop and work here! A quick camp set up and off the the pub for a "Beef & Barra BBQ" listening to "Chilli" their local entertainer, songwriter, balladeer, poet, spinner of tall yarns, a champion bullrider and rodeo clown. My god we laughed and I don't think I have ever felt to Australian and proud of it! A truly smashing pub... the way they're meant to be, the walls are covered in memorabilia, bra's, undies, thongs, hats and all sorts of things people had left behind. You could spend hours looking at the things from years passed. I am so disappointed we forgot to leave our thongs behind..... next time!

Lucky for us we were able to chat to some guys at the pub that had just returned from the Roper River... our next stop. I don't think they had much of a clue really... they caught a few fish and told us the road was shocking but nothing could deter us from heading to the Roper Bar and catching some Barra.