DAY 35 DEVILS MARBLES (KARLU KARLU)-ALICE SPRINGS

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Up early, we hiked the Yakkula trail to catch the sunrise. Again, we weren’t disappointed. We breakfasted, and set out on the longer of the trails, the Nurrku. No one else was about. Whilst at it, Jane walked the short Karlu Karlu trail too. The area is one to be marvelled at and not one to be missed.

The topography heading into Barrow Creek warmed my heart. High, red coloured, eroded hills with mesa tops and much scree. The photo does do it credit. The Barrow Creek Telegraph Station has been very well cared for. The service station is definitely ‘ancient’ but with great character befitting the owner who served Jane. It seemed that anyone who entered the bar area commented on any wall face. We were assured that the piano and fireplace were still in use.

The highlight of the day were the sculptures in the small community of Aileron. They are by far ‘the best’ in the world. From our travels, no town equals or captures the people as the sculptures do of the mother protecting her child from the giant lizard or the Anmatjere Man high on the hill overlooking the community. The sculptor was detailed in all aspects particularly the facial expressions of all 3 people.

A huge surprise for us were the hectares of grapevines 10kms south of Ti Tree. Established in the 1970’s by Ian Dahlenburg who cleared heavy mulga scrub by hand, sunk bores for water, planted the vines, and the Central Australian table grape industry was born. The production of table grapes at Ti Tree is the 2^nd largest horticultural industry in the Northern Territory. Wine tasting is on offer too. We had to get to Alice Springs, hence Jane was chained to the car seat. No wine tasting!

Driving into Alice Springs we saw that it was much busier and with quite a few traffic lights compared to our previous visit in 2006. The town has developed and grown enormously. We headed to our booked camp site as we were quite tired. We are here again tomorrow so will explore more.

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