The Devils Marbles sit directly alongside the Stuart Highway and still manage to feel genuinely remote — partly because the landscape around them is so relentlessly flat and vast, and partly because the boulders themselves are so improbably large and perfectly balanced that your brain keeps insisting you must be looking at something constructed rather than something that has simply been here for 1.7 billion years.
Karlu Karlu is a sacred site for the Kaytetye, Warumungu, Alyawarr, and Warlpiri peoples. The interpretive signage at the site is well worth reading before you walk through the boulders — it explains the cultural significance and the custodial relationships that continue to this day. This is not just a geological curiosity; read the signs and carry that context with you as you walk.
The campground is a small, basic site right alongside the reserve — 25 or so unpowered sites, pit toilets, no water, no showers. It is exactly enough. You arrive, you set up, and then you watch what the light does to the boulders over the course of the afternoon.
Arrive late in the day if you can. The granite begins to warm from orange through to deep red as the sun drops, and by the last 30 minutes before sunset the whole rock field glows in a way that’s genuinely hard to describe. There are a few good vantage points scattered through the site; walk the full loop to find yours before the light peaks. Dawn is similarly spectacular from the opposite direction.
Flies are severe — among the worst conditions in the Territory. Fly nets are not optional here; they’re the difference between enjoying the place and enduring it. Tennant Creek is 105km north for fuel and supplies. The Wauchope Roadhouse is nearby but hours are limited — call ahead before counting on it.