Devils Marbles

Heading south along the Stuart Hwy from Tennant Creek you eventually come upon a range extending east-west across the countryside. It is atop this range (Davenport Range?) that the Devils Marbles are located. Taking the service road that goes into the Marbles area (Thurs 17/7), I was surprised by what I saw. I had expected a pile of nice rocks balancing on each other, but instead what we came across was an extended area, a huge paddock if you like, strewn with granite boulders off all shapes and sizes. There are some areas where they are concentrated or stacked higher, and it is close to these that the tourist info, day use, and campground are located.

The boys had a great time climbing all over the place. There are plenty of rocks, nooks and cranny’s to investigate. Not to mention finding a way to the top of the tallest piles of boulders!

As is best with these types of natural features, I’ll let the photos do most of the talking. I spent a lot of time taking photos – sunset, sunrise, during the day….. and the photos reveal different colours/textures of the rocks at different times. A warning: this post has LOTS of PICS!

took a large diamond saw to get such a clean cut ;-)

took a large diamond saw to get such a clean cut 😉


holding it up with one finger!

holding it up with one finger!

It can be difficult to tell the scale of these rocks from the pics. Can you spot Jonathan and Daniel?

It can be difficult to tell the scale of these rocks from the pics. Can you spot Jonathan and Daniel?

view of the campground from up high

view of the campground from up high

looks like Jonathan won this one....

looks like Jonathan won this one….

final sunset pic

final sunset pic

Then the sunrise ones!

Then the sunrise ones!

the three boys up top!

I’m not sure if this is typical of NT camping, but the $7.70 / family / night fees are nice and low! This is the first place we have stayed where there were a lot of families/kids around. We’ve been moving around so much that we decided to stay an extra night (Thurs & Fri night). Not that there is two days worth of stuff to do here, we just wanted the rest – it’ll be the first time these holidays that the motorhome has not been driven during the day! The only issue with this is that there is no mobile/internet reception of any sort here! That makes 3 nights in a row 🙁

Friday night Jonathan decided he wanted a turn at being cook, so cooked us some yummy beef stroganoff! This was also the first time we unloaded the bikes and took them for a spin!

Jonathan cooking dinner!

Jonathan cooking dinner!

Sat morning it was time to pack up and head towards Alice Springs.

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