The red centre is a harsh, unforgiving place to be. Ask Sturt, Lasseter and Flynn. They will tell you it takes a special person to survive this barren land. You will need a place to shelter, water, a good sense of direction and people's companionship for sanity as the bare minimum to get by.
After you have made the wise decision to drive to Temple Bar (sorry not an actual drinking hole) you will be gob-smacked by the range that towers up on your left and in the far distance on your right. Smacking your gob even harder is the temple shaped red rock that seems to loom over head the closer you get (see photo above). I have driven on this road many times and the visual spectacle of these olden giants never fail to amaze me. The light changes continuously and the colours are different every time your gaze is drawn towards them. From dark orange in the morning, to golden edged brown at night and anything in-between.
At the foot of The Temple Bar lays a caravan park with that oasis
feeling we savoured when we first drove through the dried up creek. It is
a shady, leafy place with green lawn covering drive-through sites and quirky, but
functional ablutions. A variety of caravan-attached dwellings are huddled
together waiting for a big boulder from the temple above to ten-pin them over. People wave at you here in this place and crank out a 'G'DAY'!!!
There are massive gum trees, ghost gums and jacaranda trees
lining the small streets. In and around them, birds are frolicking like pigs in a pen. It is 6am when the
galahs start screeching as if possessed and the babbler family of eleven strong, come
around and entertain us as if you are watching a warped
episode of Benny Hill. At night, the lone call of the red-tailed cockatoo can be
heard echoing off the Temple Bar wall.
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| This babbler is feeding a cricket to her young. |
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| A galah is flat out drinking |
The weather around these parts appears to be on steroids. Winter night temperatures have been known to drop to minus seven while in the summertime the temp will barely squeeze below 24 in the small hours of the morning. High 30s and scorching 40s are common place during the day without let off. This summer has been extremely humid with record rainfall.
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| Heavy summer rain clouds at dusk |
To make this place taste even more like the outback there is a colony of black-footed wallabies that live half way up the rock. At dusk and dawn you can see joeys racing like mad around a large shaped boulder, that hasn’t quite made it far enough down the hill to kill anyone yet. We are regularly visited by large muscly euros (kangaroos) that come to drink water left out by the tenants or just come out to graze and a good old eyeball.
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| These wallabies are having a play fight at Wallaby Rock |
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| What yah looking at? |
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| Alan; the best cartoonist I've ever met |
Take that time when the creek flooded. A month of intermittent heavy Darwinesque, tropical downpours pushed its sticky, humidity upon us Temple Bar Termites. Over here, with the rainfall in the wrong catchment areas, anything can happen.
With some warning from the Bureau of Meteorology we all parked our cars on the other side of the creek. You could see the water trickle down over the white, sandy creek bed towards us. It takes a while to saturate this dry country, but in the end Roe Creek was flowing freely. In order to get to
work, all of us had to wade across the strong flowing stream, whether you were wearing your high- vis, stubbies and thongs or a long hoiked
up flowing dress with painted nails.
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| Alison on the grader that blocked the access road |
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| Michelle's feet enjoying the soothing feel of the water |
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| Julie coming back from work and being helped across the water by a gallant Rob |
What a great excuse not to turn up for work. “Sorry boss. Can’t make it through the creek. Send me a helicopter!”
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| Garth in the outback deck chair |
Excitedly, we watched the arrival of the water - we sat on our camping chairs in the stream – coldie in hand - Stevo was there with his fishing rod – Rob and Brett were paddling around pretending to drown - water level going up and up - beer and wise cracks flowing as hard as the river.
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| Dealing with the water. Rod the owner always working hard to improve the park |
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| Brett cooling off in the river |
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| Stevo the (de)grader |
"You know you're a local when you see the creek flooded three times" said Stevo.
What a place to call home.
Grey Bits
Steve has just been told there are no fish to be caught in these rivers. He has put away his special lures and is now using his fishing rod as a flag post.
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| Julie recommends keeping socks on when crossing a creek. Pink ones preferably |
This is the Temple Bar Facebook page.
Come and say g'day some time.
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