Barkly Homestead to the Alice

Barkly to Alice

Anyway I’d give the Barkly Homestead a big miss, its all very expensive, they do have a sign that (they think) explains the expense – They claim they run their generators all day and all night and they use 500 litres of Diesel hence the reason for the high costs BUT if they pay $1.50 per litre (and I doubt its that expensive) then their running costs are $750 per day and they don’t have any other power bills.
Tennant Creek…I hadn’t been to TC for over 20 years and it was a LOT bigger than I remembered, still not a place I’d settle into, we had a quick trip out Peko Road where I lived for 6 weeks but I couldn’t remember how far out the place was, must’ve been all the alcohol consumed, so we turned around and headed into town for a cuppa. We couldn’t find a park for the car and van so we continued on our way…next stop Devils Marbles… an amazing place and there is a great camp ground but Trish saw a Dingo and that was that, couldn’t see the Dingo getting into the caravan and carrying us off but …had a walk through the rocks a bite to eat and off again…we stopped and Wycliffe Well, the “UFO Centre of Australia”…sorry Mike, we didn’t see any! Had a nice evening doing the washing and chatting with some other travelers, they were on their way to Alice for the Masters Games…we hadn’t heard about this and were worried we wouldn’t get a “haltin’ site” but it turned out the “Masters” had booked every room in Alice but very few were bringing caravans so we had a spot.
The drive from Mount Isa all the way to Alice is VERY boring and although there are changes in scenery it just takes soooooooo many kilometres to change. The real interesting thing has been the road trains, now they are BIG machines and when ye see a truck with 3 trailers its over 50 metres long and full of cows…ye wouldn’t want to be over taking them in a convertible car if the cows let go, brings a new meaning to a pat on the head. The mining trucks are even bigger with four trailers and to see them snake through the country side is quite amazing.
Did i mention the weather? We saw rain at the Barkly Homestead, had a bit more at Wycliffe Wells and it was overcast and gloomy all the way to Alice and since then its been sunny, a bit chilly but still sunny. I had to wear jeans and jumper for the first time here last night, more on Alice later..