The day 13 of our ride, Tennant Creek to Alice Springs, was one of the most happening days as far our photography goes. The entire route, around 510 km long, was full of some of the most iconic places in the Northern Territory, including Devil’s Marbles & Wycliffe Well. We were riding on the Stuart Highway and there were a large number of termite mounds all along the highway. Some of these mounds were even dressed up by locals/tourists and look like scarecrows (p.s.: some of these even look like actual human being sitting on the side of the side of the road)!
The first major attraction point along our route was Devil’s Marbles Conservation Reserve, which is also known as Karlu Karlu in local language. It got its English name ‘Devil’s Marbles’ due to the large round shaped rock formations that are found there. This area is of great cultural and religious significance to the aboriginals. When you see those rocks, you start wondering whether this is nature’s work or really Devil’s marbles or whether some aliens did it. Talking about aliens, there was this town of Wycliffe Well along the way, which is called Australia’s alien capital by some because of the number of alien & UFO sightings reported in this area. The entire Wycliffe Well Roadhouse dons the alien theme, including the paintings on its walls and the two alien statues that sit outside the roadhouse. There were also many alien theme souvenirs on sale there.
Around 240 kilometres further south, there was Aileron Roadhouse which houses two giant statues of the ‘Anmatjere Man’ & ‘The Big Woman & Child’. Then there was the Tropic of Capricorn marker just before entering Alice Springs. Then, we also met a guy named Justin who was riding on a bicycle from Melbourne to Darwin – the kind of stuff that needs superhuman efforts. He kind of made our ride look small.
And on day 14, we finally reached the Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock, which is a World Heritage site and perhaps the most well-known icon of Australia. We spent one full day here to explore Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, which will require a separate blog post.