To the Gulf and Beyond!: Farewell Tennant Creek

Day 33 – Wed 24^th June.

It is our last evening at Tennant Creek. We have just pigged out on Pizza, Garlic Bread and drink. It was really good. It is the first pizza of our trip!

We have really enjoyed our stay here with Chris & Ali. The 4 days have gone really fast, but we have seen most of TC has to offer, so it is time to move on.

While we have been here we have been out to the ‘Pebbles’ (Kunjarra) which is an aboriginal cultural site which is a smaller version of the Devil’s Marbles further south from here. Unfortunately a lot of people do not respect these sites as they should, such as the tourist family who set up camp (tent, screen, flower pots, clothes line, etc) under the picnic gazebo, with their 3 large dogs who wouldn’t let anyone near them. They parked their car and camper in the car spot adjacent to the picnic area. They are probably the same people who left the toilet paper amongst the rocks. It is disgusting what people will do, especially when there is a camping area with toilets within 50m of where they were. Walking around the site with Ali was very enlightening, as she was able to tell us some of the history and meanings.

Chris also took K, B & I out to one of the Gosse River – about 1hrs drive into the bush. Beryl didn’t realise that we went out there to site in Chris’ 22.250, but she soon found out when we got there. We were there for an hour or so, and ended up returning just on sunset. It was a great drive. Chris was also able to impart a lot of his knowledge of the area, history and culture understanding…it was very enlightening, and I have a greater appreciation of the aboriginal culture.

We also spent some time with Bugalugs. He is a Bearded Dragon who is very friendly. You can see him in the photos below.

We made a quick trip to Lake Mary Ann (Tingkarli) which is the dam created to supply water to the town. We saw some very strange Australian wildlife while we were there – chickens, roosters, Peacocks, Geese and Guinea Fowl – not what we expected, and these were in the main grassy picnic areas. There was one Pelican on the far side of the lake so at least we did see some ‘real’ wildlife.

K&I did an underground mine tour without the women. This is a gold mine pretty well in the middle of town, which was active up until the late 1990’s. This mine was a bit different to other gold mines in that instead of finding the gold amongst the quartz rocks, it was imbedded in the blue Ironstone, and it wasn’t seam gold, it was ‘grains of sand’ sized bits. We were shown a piece of gold in the rock, and I had trouble even seeing it. However, the quality and value of the gold found here was larger than the Bendigo and Ballarat fields combined. Of course the problem with these mines is the effort needed to get the gold out of the rock. Large Battery machines were used, but continually failed due to the effort required, and the poor miners lived a very hard and brutal life.

W&B came along after our underground mine tour, and they saw the Battery tour, in which they actually showed the Battery running, but it was crushing quartz rather than bluestone to show you how it worked without damaging the Battery hardware.

Both tours were very informative.

Late this afternoon, we said farewell to the town by all six of us driving up on one of the outlying hills and watched the sunset, with our chairs perched on the wind swept rocky ground and drinks in our hands.

I am sure we will return to TC someday, and we will have a more interest in staying and looking around, rather than just driving through like we have done in the past.

Again, a big thank you to Chris and Ali for putting up with us ‘old folk’, and allowing us to be part of their personal lives for a little while.

So….we are off in the morning, heading 35kms north up to the ‘Three Ways’, then turn 90 degrees right and head East towards Qld again. Hopefully there will not be the usual SE ‘Barkly Breeze’ blowing which means a fairly strong headwind, for all of the roughly 460 km objective. We shall see, so watch this space.

A Holy Grevillia tree is endemic to this area and is actually a threatened species now.

The wind made these grasses dance, and enhanced the beauty of this special area.

Chris & K doing some first aid training???...or maybe it is sighting in the 22.250 at 100m!

Leaving the 'range', by exiting the dry Gosse River bed and starting the return trip as the sun drops behind the horizon.

Bugalugs the Bearded Dragon....very beautiful.

He is fascinating to watch....

...and he probably says the same about us...

He was happy to sit on my for 30 mins or so.

The rugged rock formations found in the area. It would have been a very hard life in the early days...

These are some of the 20-odd strong Guinea Fowl that roamed the picnic grounds of Lake Mary Ann.

Our underground gold mine tunnel...

This is a 'Bogger', which is really a small front end loader that scooped up the dug out rock and tipped it over the top to the 'trailer' that followed it.

The Battery in action as it crushed the quartz rock...

After the crushing, mercury was added to the slurry which adhered to the small pieces of gold to form an amalgam ball. This was then removed, the mercury scraped from the gold, and the gold was melted and put into bars. This was a very long and intensive process.