Day 8 Exploring the neighbourhood

The tour guides in The Pebbles

Sitting amongst The Pebbles

Abbey and Olivia

Alison and the girls acted as tour guides for the sights of Tennant Creek. The first visit was to The Pebbles which is an outcrop of mysterious granite boulders located 11 kilometres north of Tennant Creek. Known to the Warumungu Aboriginal people as Kunjarra, The Pebbles, known as the smaller relatives of the Karlu/ Karlu/Devils Marbles, are a sacred site. Here, dancing and healing rites of the Munga Munga dreaming take place, along with the ritual instruction of young girls.

Heading back into town we stopped off the Telegraph Station and then to Lake Mary Ann. The Telegraph Station dates back to the 1870s and connected Australia to the rest of the world. With the Overland Telegraph Line linking Adelaide and Darwin messages would take 7 hours to reach London. A number of the original Georgian style stone buildings have been restored and would have been an oasis for travellers on the track. 

Lake Mary Ann

Tennant Creek Telegraph Station

The telegraph station was manned 24 hours a day and visitors were always welcome to relieve the boredom. Particularly interesting would have been James Murif who in 1897 rode his bike from Sydney and arrived at the Telegraph Station half starved. Our trip is therefore hardly very adventurous.

Lake Mary Ann was a real oasis in the middle of the area - green grass and shady trees - very different to the other landscape. 

View over Tennant Creek from the Jim Allen lookout

A quick visit to Battery Hill to see the 'Gold History' of Tennant Creek - the last goldrush town in Australia where they mined gold up to about 1985. 

Also went to see Alison and Thomas' horses which are about to come back into town after spending the summer holidaying in the paddock out of town. They have to come back in to the stables and be domesticated again before the start of the campdraft season in three weeks. 

We have also checked out the comments section of the blog and you should be able to leave comments now. Click on the Post a comment section and you should be taken to a separate box to leave a comment. If you have a Google account it will ask you to log in, however anyone can select anonymous and publish the comment. 

Another day in Tennant tomorrow before heading to Alice Springs on Monday.

Love to all

S&E