The sixth leg: Alice Springs to Banka Banka Station. Distance: 610km. The smooth sound of bitumen. We had some errands to do in Alice, so we got up early enough to be on the road with time to spare. It was going to be a big day of driving, and we needed to get into Banka Banka at a reasonable time so we wouldn’t have to go knocking on any doors at the unthinkable hour of 8pm. After doing some shopping, and seeing a mechanic about what turned out to be a minor issue with the leaf springs, we headed out of Alice with full fuel tanks and a sense that we were almost at the end of our long journey.
The drive was relatively uneventful, pretty much a very long, very flat, very straight journey north. There was a surprising amount of greenery around, however, due to some recent rain that had come through. We passed the Tropic of Capricorn, signifying that it would only get hotter from here on out. One of the highlights was a random stop at a mango farm, where we enjoyed mango ice cream for lunch. Drop me in a tub of it and I'll eat my way out thanks.
We came to the Devil's Marbles. Stacks of granite boulders that looked like someone had placed one on top of the other, comprising acres and acres of bush. Quite the impressive site, and worth the stop just off the road. Once again, you could spend ages exploring and poking around the giant rocks.
Next was Tennant Creek. Before we started this trip, we'd almost decided to camp there as a stop between Alice and Darwin. But Tegan thought we could keep going and shave an hour off the next days drive, and Banka Banka looked like a nice place to stop. Boy did we dodge a bullet. A run down, dirty, dodgy looking town unfolded in front of us, with faded signs and plenty of abandoned buildings with smashed windows. Charming. If anyone from Tennant Creek sees this, please show us something good about your town, because we couldn't find anything. If we camped there we might've been lucky to get out with nothing being stolen. Stopping for diesel was a long enough visit, and we hightailed it out of there, laughing that we definitely made the right choice.
Banka Banka was an hour away, and we rolled in just as the sun was setting. After buying a couple beers from the friendly managers, we set up camp, had dinner, and high five'd each other because we weren't in Tennant Creek.
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Coming up: we hit the big city, find a bed to sleep in, and celebrate making it this far.
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