I get up at 2:30 to use the facilities (the bushes) and note that the wind has dried out my tent. I consider packing up there and then to keep my tent dry, but I don’t want to disturb the people sleeping on the bus. By 4:30 the rain in piling down again and the passing road trains (trucks with three or four trailers attached) keep me awake until daybreak.
Our journey south continues and we stop at Mary Ann Dam, where there is a man-made lake. This is a sedate spot that stands out from the rugged landscape of the outback and a nice picnic spot, but we are mainly here for the free showers.
The rain had let up a little, but it starts to come down as we visit Devil’s Marbles, a large area of precariously balanced boulders which were formed by molten lava and erosion. The flatness of the landscape makes me wonder what happened to the volcanoes, so maybe they are really the eggs of the Rainbow Serpent, as the Aboriginals believe. I climb up the rocks closest to the road stop to get a good view and then take a walk around to the other rock piles, but the rain has nearly turned the terrain into quicksand and my calves get half swallowed. I almost lost my precious Crocs….
Before another rainy night camping, we pass by Barrow Creek, where there is a telegraph station which opened in the 1870s and is now preserved as a sort of monument to the early European settlers of the Northern Territories.
On our first night in Australia, we were served two lamb chops each for dinner. Such early promise was not to be maintained though, and tonight we are having barbequed Kangaroo tail. Although Andrew, who generally likes cutting things, has a happy time sawing the thing up, Australian dogs get fed better parts of the kangaroo than this.
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| Andrew enthusiastically taking a saw to the 'roo tail |
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