After a great night’s sleep we awoke to trouble in the camp…seemed that Branch  had passed out on Glen’s caravan battery…no power to the Hackfath van!

While diagnostics were being run I noticed some interesting burrows around the cap area (photo below) and was unsure as to what lived there – even Google Goggle could not identify it!! All comments welcome…

After a bit of troubleshooting looking for possible causes we decided to head on to Karlu Karlu for lunch and then Tennant Creek to source a new battery… Branch had thawed out and was back on the road with us in fine form.

First stop was Barrow Creek for fuel and coffee – we filled up but decided to make our own coffee in the vans as the coffee available was just an urn with instant coffee… There was a grave site well kept in memory of 3 line workers…. Lots of interesting locals and Glen made friends with a dog..

We arrived at Karlu Karlu for lunch and enjoyed stretching our legs and having a walk around marvelling at the Devil’s Marbles.

Trev tried his strength out on the rocks and found a big crack.

The flies were very persistent and Rosie got out the fly swatter to deal with them!!

The flies loved the colour red….

There were some spectacular rocks – the marbles are due to erosion of the granite in the area wearing into the round shapes – fascinating!! There were some huge marbles with very large cracks – it would be quite easy to be crushed if a boulder broke or split when you were standing next to it.

Trev put the drone up for some aerial shots…

Even in such a dry arid place there were small beautiful wildflowers and white-trunked gums with striking green leaves that provided a great contrast with the red rock and blue sky.

We spent some time taking various photos and then ate lunch – the Hackies left us to push on to Tennant Creek to get their replacement battery sorted.

At Tennant Creek we all fuelled up again and pushed on along the Stuart Highway lined with power poles and stock crossing at various times to arrive at Attack Creek free camp for the night.

The campground was very full but we managed to get some spots and set up – Branch hopped out again to assist Trev as the Hackfaths had no power to their van… but Glen found the issue after a bit of troubleshooting and pressed a button on the solar regulator and the van came to life!

Branch was then found in our van as the stove had a few loose screws – nothing Macgyver couldn’t handle!

The sunset was beautiful and an almost full moon rose over the plain.