Devil’s Marbles, Northern Territory 🇦🇺 2025

Date: 9-12th August 2025 

Travelled: 1120 kms from Adelaide River to New Barrow  

Visited: Stuart Highway and the Devil’s Marbles  

Stayed: New Barrow WWII Camp, free, S21.30912, E134.05841

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Leaving Adelaide River we return to the Stuart and make our way to Pine Creek. We enjoyed our stop at the Lazy Lizard here at Pine Creek on our way north a month ago, so why not again.

We have a nice spot in the shade and spend the afternoon in the pool or relaxing with a book. In the morning another one of Pam’s forced marches, this time to the lookout. To our surprise the lookout provides a panoramic view (pictured below) of the lake that was once an open cut gold mine. According to the information panels the water is 125 metres deep.

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Almost 300 kilometres and 4 hours later we turn into a wild camping spot near Larrimah. Just a speck on the map now but Gorrie was the RAAF largest base from 1942 until well after the end of the WWII. There’s nothing left now but a 2 kilometre long runway which 80 years later is still in good order.

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After a morning walk up and down the runway (something different) we pack up and make for the road. Another 350 kilometres or 4 plus hours later we turn off the Stuart just north of Pamayu into another wildcamp. Where really in the boonies now. An old gravel pit when the road was built it’s now a free camp.

The area is a maze of tracks and we spend the night a couple of hundred metres from an old couple in a caravan. Another free night in a quiet spot.

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We don’t wander too far in the morning before breakfast and getting the Jayco ready for the road we make for Tennant Creek. It’s a two hours drive with a coffee on the way.

We fill with fuel ($1.95 pl) and our water tanks at Tennant Creek, before driving up and parking in the middle of town.

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We walk Tennant Creek main street, which is the Stuart Highway. Frankly it’s all very depressing. Steel doors and heavily barred windows are the theme. Lots of people sitting around waiting for something, or perhaps that’s just what they do.

Continuing south some 90 kilometres we turn off the highway for the Devils Marbles. I stopped here in 1987, all the signage has evolved along with the name change to Karlu Karlu. What hasn’t changed, I remembered the Marbles as the most fly blown place I had ever visited and it still is.

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Despite the flies it’s an interesting place to wander, the shapes and sizes of the boulders how they have found there way, often balancing on each other does make for some good photos.

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Forty five minutes later we’re back in the Jayco and turning onto the highway again. An hour later we turn onto a gravel track to what was, in 1942 the New Barrow Staging Camp now a free camp. This was one of 5 staging camps built to support the movement of troops north during WWII. Obviously it’s all long gone but scattered throughout the site are numerous concrete slabs on which huts and other support structures stood.

These days those slabs are great level spot to park your RV on for the night. It was another quiet evening and a beautiful sunset. There were probably 30+ other caravans and motorhomes scattered about, so a popular spot.

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Life on the road continues south now for Alice Springs.

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Michael + Pam