Tropic of Capricorn

A day later than planned, we left Alice Springs. It was the first place we'd stayed more than a day since leaving Purple Pear, and once again, we met and felt like we got to know some wonderful people.

The farther north we drove, the hotter it got. The AC in the old Camry did not work well, so we just had windows down. It was impossible to get out of the sun on the open desert highway. We crossed the Tropic of Capricorn soon after leaving Alice. There is a marker along the road indicating this.

Hard to get a good pic of the termite mounds

We drove and drove under the desert, now tropical, sun, passing road trains and termite mounds in the red desert under the blue blue sky. The next point of interest was Wycliffe Well, the self-proclaimed "UFO Capital of Australia." The "town" consists of a roadhouse and Holiday Park...with a hilarious UFO/Alien theme. We stopped for gas and a potty break, as pretty much everyone probably does, since there's not much in the way of services in either direction.

 A relatively short distance up the road is our destination for the night, Devil's Marbles. It's a collection of, guess what, more red rocks, strewn over several kilometers. There's a state park campground with rough camping for under $5 a night.

There are only a few other campers here when we arrive in late afternoon, but a steady stream pulls in after us. We picked a site that had a little grass on the gravel, parked, and headed out to explore among the rocks and goof around a bit. 

Balance

Resident dingo

Sisyphus impression

Between a rock and a hard place

Thomas and Claudia, imagine running into you here!

                          


We watched the camping area fill up as we climbed over the rocks. By the time we got back down to set up our tent, it was quite full. Thomas and Claudia were not staying the night, so we wished them safe travels.

The ground was quite hard and we were unable to drive in a single tent stake. It was pretty windy, so Shawn rigged up a way to tie down the tent rain fly using the car wheels and some string. It looked pretty good, but as it turned out, the wind just whipped the tent around all night. I found it impossible to sleep, so I got up and sat in the car. I couldn't put the seat back very far, and I think I slept a couple times for about 20 minutes each. Shawn joined me in the car after a couple hours.

Being awake more or less all night did afford us a chance to see the stars, in probably the brightest, horizon-to-horizon display I have ever seen. The stars in Australia had already been amazing; one can see the milky way on an unremarkable evening, but this was out in the middle of nowhere, no light pollution or even trees to interfere, and on a crystal clear night. (Despite the beautiful sights of the night, I was still pretty grumpy in the morning.) The rocks were beautiful in the morning sun, but we were too bleary-eyed to enjoy them much. Time to hit the road, northward!

Tying the tent down; at least it didn't blow away

View almost identical to the cover of our atlas/guidebook.