The stretch of road between Alice Springs to Katharine is rather uninspiring. It’s flat and monotonous and there is really nothing to fix your eyes to. The only things we saw of interest was Devil’s Marbles, which are huge granite boulders strewn on the side of the road in precious-looking piles. They are called Karlukarlu by the local aboriginal people who believe them to be the eggs of the rainbow serpent.



We stayed the night at a cattle station, Banka Banka. During the night they showed a slideshow about life on a cattle ranch, and I can honestly say that “life on the land” as a jillaroo doesn’t attract me in any way. Twelve hour days mustering cattle for 4 months at a time, the heat, the dust, the flies… not for me.

The landscape changed before our very eyes during this drive. From a hot, dusty, acrid environment with scrubby bushland set in red dust, it because a hot, humid environment with lush greenery and plenty of water. It feels like we are in SE Asia already. The flies are gone, but the mozzies now take their place. And there are frogs everywhere! The old “flog in the bog” really holds true here, you don’t want to sit down on the toilet before checking first, believe me.