DAY 16 – Wycliffe Well – Renner Springs

Good Morning Wycliffe Well!
 
Low 15°c (59°F) – High 30°c (86°F)
312km
 
An early rise this morning to greet the new day and thanks to having hooked up the van and packed half of the equipment last night we were ready to leave by 8.30am this morning after having to wake Miss Kitty from her very comfortable position on the bed to be able to get going.
 
We decided to stop at Karlu Karlu again to get a few daytime photos of this amazing spot.  I would love to camp here but being a national park dogs are not allowed.  No Kitty – No Us.  But it is truly a most special place to visit.  A number of traditional Dreaming stories have Karlu Karlu as their setting, hence its great importance as a sacred site.  The rocks themselves were formed millions of years ago of granite with natural processes of weathering and erosion creating the various shapes of the boulders.
 
Back on the road and once again the terrain changes many times, from long flat stretches to a few hilly parts with some curves.  The next stop was Tennant Creek to top up fuel and potentially buy a couple of chickens as we were running low on chicken for Kitty which is the only thing she will really eat for dinner.  Tennant Creek has been having a rough patch with crime and has always had a difficult relationship with family violence issues related to alcohol abuse.  The rules around the purchase of alcohol pretty much from Port Augusta right through to Darwin are in place to attempt to address this in part.  Bottle shops open from 2.00pm – 4.00pm, there is no drinking allowed in public places and police are there at all times to ensure limits of alcohol purchases are adhered to.  Recently Tennant Creek’s only supermarket was burned down and it had taken some time to arrange an alternate location while the rebuilding took place.  As we found out today, the supermarket is back open and thankfully they had chickens – so Kitty is relieved.
 
Our original thought was to spend the night at Banka Banka Station but on arrival they had no powered sites which in itself wasn’t a huge issue, however the site they gave us was so uneven I’m not sure if our jockey wheel would have wound high enough to stop the blood rushing to our heads all night while we slept, and not to mention it was completely in quite deep powdery desert sand whereas the powered sites have grass.  I knew we were going to have issues getting the van on and off the car on that slope so that coupled with the thought of Kitty covered in red dirt and sleeping on the bed was enough to request a refund and keep driving.  As luck would have it, despite the Banka Banka manager telling Shane we wouldn’t get in anywhere else nearby, we managed to get a dead flat site with power and access to water at Renner Springs just under 70km up the road and while there will always be red dust, at least for tonight we also had nice green grass to walk Miss K on.  We’ve also broken the back of 1000km to Darwin today – now down to triple figures.
 
We were even more grateful for having our caravan after watching our neighbours with a very new and fancy looking camper trailer.  What a lot of work it turned out to be!  After backing into their site they proceeded to set up an awning that curved around the rear of the trailer.  They settled down to read a while and then had to pull various drawers out for a kitchen, fridges etc.  Once finished with their meal they had to pack down the awning and push away the drawers (which took considerable effort from both of them to get them back into the trailer) so they could push up the tent top for sleeping at which they went to bed just on sunset because they had no-where else to sit.  Each to their own I guess but I did wonder what they did when it was chilly or wet because the awning was quite small and offered little more than a bit of shade.
 
I had a lovely chat with two sisters who had just returned from Broome and were headed to Uluru and then home to Queensland.  It is moments like this that make the trip even more interesting and also helpful to hear tips on what to expect and also to avoid where you are heading.  We had already expressed some concerns for the journey between Katherine and Broome and it seems there is still some cause for concern based on recent incidents in the area.