Wednesday 15th June 2005
Today started out with some un seasonal rain in Tennant Creek and the
red dirt became pretty sticky on the bottom of our shoes, however there
wasn't enough rain to really wet things down or turn the dirt into mud.
The raid ceased quite early but the sky remained overcast for the remainder
of the day. It wasn't enough to stop us from refueling our stomachs
with a good feed of bacon, egg and cheese in a toasted sandwich before
we eventually took a drive around the town.
Our first stop was the Information Centre on Battery Hill. This centre
had a section inside laid out with paintings, cut outs and corrugated
iron to reflect the old times in the area and in the shed wall is a
large TV relating the local tourist points of interest from Alice Springs
to Katherine. We watched this for a while before wandering around Battery
Hill for a short while before leaving for the next tourist spot mentioned
by the staff in the centre. Although there is a mine tour and a couple
of museums to visit at Battery Hill, we both felt we were almost 'Museumed'
out for the time being and at $30 per person we didn't think we would
get the best out of it at this time.
Our next call was to the top of the 'Bill Allen' lookout where we had
a panoramic view of the surrounding countryside, including roof tops
in Tennant Creek.
From here we traveled to the north side of town where we visited the
Mary Ann Recreational Dam, however there was not a huge amount of water
in the dam, although 'One of Us' was pleased to see a pelican sitting
on a small island in the middle of the water that remained.
Next we continued out of town the headed west for about 6 kilometres
to an area they call 'The Pebbles' and after seeing the Devils Marbles
about 100 kilometres south of here, we can understand why these are
only pebbles. They do stretch over a couple of hills, however they didn't
have the round shapes or the size of the marbles and could not really
be compared in any way.
Then it was back into town where we paid a short visit to the Nyinkka
Nyunyu Cultural Centre where there is an aboriginal art display (entry
of $10 each person) and a fair range of aboriginal artifacts such as
boomerangs and didgeridoos with starting prices at about $300 and up,
needless to say we didn't walk out with any.
By this time we were ready to return to the caravan were we settled
in for the afternoon until about 4:pm when we drove into town again
to post another letter to daughter Jay and to refill the Patrol with
diesel, ready for our drive to Mataranka Springs in the morning.