Heading through the town of Camooweal, we ventured to the Camooweal Waterhole on the Georgina River. This was a stunning free camping spot and we enjoyed the early evening watching the cows come down to the waterhole to drink. There were a couple of kites nesting across the river and they were periodically leaving their nest and looking for food. It was amazing watching them soar, as well as spotting the various other birds looking for their evening meal. The kids disappeared to invite other campers to a fire with toasted marshmellows. However, just as we were getting the campfire going, a massive gust of wind blew up and started to spread the embers into the nearby bushes. As it started to get worse, we had to quickly put the fire out as we were worried we would start a bigger fire! The wind continued most of the night so we really had to ‘buckle down the hatches’!

Heading across dry, grassy plains the following morning, we crossed over the Qld/NT border. There was quite a lot of road kill along the Barkley Highway and it was not uncommon for one of the kids to suddenly yell out ‘roadkill’!!!

At one point, Joe pulled the van over in the middle of nowhere. He had seen a snake on the road- so the kids jumped out of the car with Joe to check it out. The poor thing had been run over on its head. Once the coast was clear, they all proceeded to pick the heavy thing up and have a couple of photos. We later found out the the snake in question was actually a king brown- the second most deadliest snake in the world!

Arriving just after lunch at the Barkley Homestead, we all enjoyed a wander around the homestead, with a quick (but freezing!) dip in the pool. It was also great to catch up with some other campers, particularly a couple from Perth in their Retreat van. That night, we enjoyed a delicious home-cooked meal in the homestead and Joe enjoyed some homely normalities- watching NRL and playing pool.

Joining up with the Stuart highway the following day, we started to head south- right through the middle of this great land. We stopped at Tennant Creek for some lunch and were quite amazed that part of Red Rooster we were eating in had been made of termite mound bricks! The floor was even patterned with old local news paper! Despite all this, it was a very clean place with delicious fresh food.

Heading up to Battery Hill on Peko Rd., we had a bit of a look around (mine tour was closed that day) and then headed to the adjacent lookout. Before leaving Tennant creek, we stopped in at Lake Mary Ann for a look at this random lake in the middle of the dry plains.

We then headed the 90 or so km south to the Devils Marbles. When they first came into sight, we were truely amazed at the colour and size of them, as well as the way they were just sitting on top of one another! We all enjoyed a climb on the western marbles, before driving around the scattered bunch and heading into the National Park camping ground. After settling in, we climbed the marbles next to the campground for a gorgeous sunset. Just a stunning view of God’s handiwork!

The campground was lovely- being a National Park, it was only $7.70 for the family to stay in and had a good comfortable number of people camping there. We were quite surprised to see a dingo pup around the campsite during breaky the next day.