the Devils Marbles

We left chilly Alice Springs behind on Wed 1st.  We crossed ( didn't stop) the Tropic of Capricorn outside Alice & heading for warmer temps at long last.

Unfortunately that van was in the way when we zoomed past!!
Passed a couple of interesting things along the Stuart Hwy.
133k's north of Alice there's this giant statue on the hill behind the servo. It's called  Anmatjere man. Just like the big pineapple or lobster or bull etc. Any thing to grab attention to the place I guess.

This bloke was photographed from the moving car, by good luck rather than expertise.

We also passed the mathematical middle of Australia. Called Mt Central Stuart. It was prob < 10k's from Stuart hwy. We'll do anything to relieve the boredom in getting from A - B!!!! At least we had great green trees, shrubs, spinifex grass & gums to look at along the way. Some land was burnt out, either from lightening strikes or from 'some of the locals trying to flush out the goannas'  .........................(quoted from a council worker in Tennant Creek) You can see from the above pic how much vegetation there is. A guy camped at the "marbles" said there was no vegetation 3 -5 yrs ago.

This is only 1/2 the car park at Devils Marbles. BTW it is 10 k's out of a small town & 100k's sth of Tennant Ck. Get there early or miss out on a spot!! & miss out on some amazing sunset & sunrises views!!!!!!!!!!.

This is the view out the back window at sunrise this morning - pretty amazing hey?

Yesterday we walked amongst the 'marbles' & found these discoveries as well

 Rod's in amongst the tall grass there somewhere in front of a perched 'marble'

Rod thinks this big 1 is just a small push to move it!!!

Sunset was a picture, took too many pics again.................... but am showing you a couple of different places that I thought were worthy of concentrating on. 

 The black spots on top are people who climbed onto the top & had a wine/ beer of 3.

 The green plant in the middle of this set is a native fig tree. The aboriginal people love the fruit when it's ripe enough to have grubs in it to provide protein as well as Vit C.

4 young O/S tourists pulled up in their station wagon car stuffed with their belongings & proceeded to climb up onto the set of rocks in front of me. Heard a cry of despair - the girl had fallen a few mtrs & grazed several areas on her legs & also what seemed to be a deep gash to the knee bone - I could see fatty tissue pushed to the side & clean boney area of knee cap................. stupid people......................... sent them back 100k's in the direction they were coming from to Tennant Creek as next 450 kms they were going  had no hospitals.

The sun has gone to bed for another day & this 'marble' looked lonely!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunrise looks much the same - beautiful still - just my shadow showing up in some of the pics. 

So what are the 'Devils Marbles'? They are a couple hundred acres of rocks amongst a landscape of no ranges. Indigenous legend says that the Rainbow Serpent layed her eggs there.

It is in fact what's left over after 1,800million yrs of erosion. Beautiful which ever way you look at it.