Devil's Marbles and Alice...

Thursday 24^th August

The campsite here is one of those excellent affairs that abound in Oz in that it’s a bush camp, with chemical toilets, tables, bonfire gratings and all for the princely sum of about 6 bucks on average. Best of all though is the fact that you place the money into an envelope and put it into a letter box type affair at the camp entrance. The reason this is amazing? The boxes haven’t been busted open for the cash and the facilities aren’t vandalised. It still amazes me now when I see BBQ areas in parks where there’s been no attempt to destroy it or steal / burn the gas bottle. I imagine the worst thing is just people defecating on the trays and the only reason I suspected that was because the thought crossed my mind when I passed one drunk in NSW!

But I digress – Devil’s Marbles – the real reason we were here was for the sunsets which is apparently glorious, with the sun setting off the red rocks al around. And as it says on the tin, the rocks themselves look like marbles placed by a giant hand. In the same way that Ayers Rock was formed, erosion has worn away the surrounding rock around this harder stone which then appears balanced precariously on the softer rock beneath, like a giant marble! Cool huh?! The Aborigines believed that the rocks represented the spirits of their Ancestors who had departed and that this spirits sometimes wandered at large during the night – we would have to be careful! In fact, I woke up a couple of times with a start, which I think was just feral cats or wallabies, but in truth the whole place felt strange, my dreams were disturbed and sleep fitful. It was either the stories playing on my mind or the half bottle of red wine I had!

One of the spirits?!

That evening though, after din-dins was great. I had collected some firewood and I got to make a bonfire. It’s amazing how soothed and comfortable a fire makes you feel and I felt the hassles of the day slip from my shoulders as the night wore on and the wine bottle got lighter! I took photos of the fire, which seemed to produce some amazing shapes and faces!! Small things and small minds huh?!

Friday 25th August

An early start for the push to Alice – ugh – which was pretty uneventful. We stopped in at the next road house to clean our teeth and have a wash to be greeted by the owner growling ‘Are you buying something?’ when I asked for the toilets. If I’d’ve known, I would have bought fuel at the next place – I never get any grief like that. I’m dying to ask to use the toilet, be told only if I’m buying something and then going back outside and having a leak on the corner of the forecourt or something but there you go; small things!

Alice rocked up early afternoon and after a bit of debate, we decided to head straight to Ayers Rock the next day.