Undara Lava Tubes
From the Tablelands, we drove to the Undara lava tubes where we stayed for a couple of days. On the second day we did a half day tour of the tubes, finding out how they were formed. Kate had a few creepy crawly moments while we were here. She found lots of ants on the towel and had a 3 inch beetle crawling over her leg. There were quite a few kangaroos and wallabies around the resort. We were cooling down in the pool and there were a few kangaroos grazing on the other side of the fence.
Oh a lava tube.
Why is Kate taller than me in this picture?
The end of a lava tube.
Some kangaroos at the campsite.
The Journey to Darwin
Once we left Undara the roads became incredibly narrow and quite scary to drive on as you still got these huge road trains (an articulated lorry with 3-5 trailers on - approx 50m long). Our first stop over was Normanton.
Fancy driving down these roads with a road train heading towards you?
This is an average size road train.
Normanton
Its f*cking hot, but everyone says its not!!! The air con in the car had packed up so the driving wasn't very pleasant. We had the windows open but it was like having a hairdryer in the face for 500kms. We also had a bit of an ant problem. Basically the ants were making their home on the back seat of the car. Nice! A few cans of bug killer hopefully has sorted that problem out.
Bloody ant hills everywhere!
Cloncurry
Another 450km of hot hairdryer. Not much to do, so we had a curry.
Kate doing a bit of driving.
Barkly Homestead
On the way we had a stop at the Burke and Wills memorial, which marks the spot where an ill fated expedition across the continent passed by in 1861 led by Burke and Wills. We are now in the Northern Territory for the first time since Alice Springs. Surprise surprise, Its v hot. We are sitting with bags of ice on our heads to cool us down. At the roadhouse, we had a meal and a few beers with a couple we met at Cloncurry. We had a lamb roast, which is the first roast we've had for a couple of months.
Burke and Wills memorial
Phew its hot!
Welcome to NT.
Wycliffe Well
Yes you guessed it. Another hot uncomfortable day driving to the UFO capital of Australia. This place has had the most reported sighting of UFOs than anywhere else in Australia. It a very quirky roadhouse/caravan park with random figures dotted around and newspaper clipping in the restaurant. While we here we went to the Devils Marbles which are a series of granite rocks that have been shaped by water and wind to make them look like giant balls or 'marbles' positioned precariously on top of other rocks.
And you wonder why the Hulk gets annoyed.
Its life Jim, but not as we know it.
Elvis lives in Wycliffe Well!
Kate holding up a marble
Very picturesque
More marbles
Daly Waters
By the time we got here we were very smelly indeed. This pub is basically in the middle of nowhere, but the local airstrip was used as a stop off point by Qantas to refuel on the flights to Singapore before they had planes that could fly direct. It was also a WW11 airstrip and used as a landing stage for Amy Johnson.
We threw the tent up at about 4 o'clock and went in the pub for a beer and didn't leave till midnight. The pub is also famed for its interior with lot of decorative features such as bras, knickers, undies, currency, flags, people's IDs and anything else you can think of from people who have visited the place. Not to be left out, Kate added a bit of England to the wall in the shape of some knickers. Its a fabulous laid back place and we had a good time.
Inside the pub.
Kate with the evidence. We had a far few schooners by this point, hence the cheesy smile.
Darwin
Yes we made it and we got the air con fixed, Hurahhhh!!!!!!
We went to the deckchair cinema last night. It literally an outdoor cinema by the sea.
