MARBLE BAR

We stayed at the Des Streckfuss Rest Area last night.  It is set back from the road quite a bit but there were so many road trains (in and out of the mines) that it was a bit noisy at times.  Because we were staying only one night we just camped at the 'top' but there were a few reasonable spots in further by the river (what is left of it - still some water but not flowing).  There are a lot of birds and quite a few cows as well!

We drove to Marble Bar this morning and checked into the caravan park.  We would have preferred to do a bit more free camping but there isn't really anywhere in town you can just leave the caravan and do the tourist stuff.  The Visitor Information Centre isn't open on weekends either so you have to go to the caravan park to get the town map etc.  It is a bit annoying for us to have to go into caravan parks so frequently but we hope to be able to stay away from them for a while after this (fingers crossed).  Once we set up the caravan we drove out to Marble Bar.  This is actually jasper, not marble, and when you wet the rock the colours are just beautiful.

I went for a swim in the pool near the Bar, but was the only one!  It was a bit cold but was very refreshing. There were hundreds and hundreds of small fish in the pool but they left me alone so that was fine.

We ate a picnic lunch then drove out to an area where you can fossick for jasper (there is a $10,000 fine if you remove any from the Bar).  We picked up a few rocks but don't really know if they are jasper or not - I just liked them!).  From there we drove out to the old gold mine but it is all closed up so we went up to Flying Fox Lookout.  The view from there was nice and there actually is a flying fox which crosses the river.  It has been made inactive and is not used but obviously was once upon a time.

View from the lookout

At the top of the lookout.



We then drove out to have a look at the solar farm.  It is a large 'farm' of solar panels which was established in March 2010 and at the time it was either the first of its kind world wide or the largest of its kind world wide - I cannot remember which.  There are over 1100 solar panels which track the sun and they supply between 60% and 90% of Marble Bar's daytime electricity use.

We then went to the pioneer cemetary which is a bit of a sad place.  There are a very large number of unmarked graves and quite a lot of graves of babies or small children. It is very overgrown and looks like it needs a lot of tlc!

Bye for now.