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.

DAY 15 – Wycliffe Well

Good Morning Wycliffe Well!
 
Low 15°c (59°F) – High 30°c (86°F)
0km
 
Up early this morning to catch the first light and it was certainly worth the effort, a beautiful warm morning and the temperature rose pretty quickly.  Even though the park isn’t exactly pristine we decided to stay an extra night – well mostly because there is another NRL match tonight for the Storm and there would be a sad husband if there was no reception at our next stop.  The internet is pretty patchy and we currently have really good reception here so thought to play it safe.  Besides – I can also catch up on a bit more of the Depp vs Heard case that, I’m sad to say, got me a little hooked before we left.
 
That said – we haven’t been able to make phone calls now since possibly around Port Augusta as after we left there we both have been receiving Telstra text messages periodically saying that there is no 3G service in this area (wherever we happened to be at the time) and so we can only message or browse the internet/email etc.  We’ll look into our options with that once we reach Darwin as we will no doubt experience the same as we make our way through Western Australia.
 
Wycliffe Well apparently started off as a market garden in the war years, and was taken on by Lew Farkas who thought he would be there for a 5 year stint and ended up staying for 25 years before selling up and moving to Alice Springs in 2009.  In those early years, British Petroleum, or BP as it became known in Australia, put a petrol bowser in so it converted more towards a roadhouse and from there Lew sunk about $4mil over the 25 years into making improvements to the park creating an Alien Theme Park until he sold it in 2009.  Since then it has had at least 3 different owners, currently owned by three young East Asian men who came to Australia in 2013 to study and ended up at Wycliffe.  
 
Honestly Lew would probably cry now as in the two days we’ve been here the park has had no love from the people running it including picking up rubbish that is just blowing around the ground, emptying any bins, and even when the gate fell off the front it was tossed to the ground nearby.  Several of the toilet blocks have “closed for cleaning” signs at the door, but it’s merely a rouse to make campers use one particular toilet block near the roadhouse and even the Alien themed props right next to the roadhouse are dirty and in disrepair.
 
We went for a wander around half of the grounds and it was just one sad story after another unfortunately.  Here is a couple of links to when the park was up and running https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9vTeF4-_CI and here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn6rPRPh6cU and then look at my photos below.  Just very sad.  The buildings for the most part are still sound with the exception of parts of the restaurant which have been trashed, massive windows smashed and pushed out into the courtyard, electrical fixtures pulled from the ceiling and smashed.  But oh!!! the murals!!!!!  Safe to say if I win lotto (and it would have to be a lot of lotto) – this is likely where you would find me! 
 
Most of our day today was just sitting talking, watching a bit of streamed video, a walk around the park and then watching the NRL match (YAY team Storm!).  Earlier in the day as we were wandering around the park we ended up at the roadhouse and saw several carloads of indigenous men purchasing alcohol.  Apparently a few of them only ventured as far up the road as the end of the service lane and the voices, yelling and fighting only got louder and louder as the evening wore on.  By 9.00pm things had become quite loud and as I looked outside the caravan I noticed two police cars had arrived which is no mean feat since the nearest police station is 37km away.  More yelling ensued, a number of people were taken away and the crowd eventually dispersed.  Shortly afterwards a car started up and sped off down the highway. 
 
Aside from a visit from a very large bull which came for a free drink at one of the taps that has obviously been leaking for some time (he knew exactly where to go), things settled down to a quiet evening.  We couldn’t help but remember our last visit in 2016 when even worse scenes occurred one night of a 2 night stay, including a couple of groups of men and youths walking through the caravan park, using the facilities that are supposed to be only for park guests, and wandering back out to their cars via a different path through the caravans.  There was also a considerable group of men and women who sat under the bridge opposite the roadhouse drinking and arguing for most of the night with no police presence in sight.  Since then, we noted, the alcohol sales at the roadhouse have diminished to just a takeaway and not a bar.  You have to wonder if perhaps this is a big part of the reason why the park isn’t what it once was especially when the old restaurant etc involved alcohol sales.