Day 4 to Night 6

Day 4

Continuing on from my last post, I was in Forbes. I stopped at the Motor Museum and took a quick look.

Made of canvas and with a top speed of 30km/h, I'm glad I'm not doing my trip in this

I drove to the town of Parkes, where I had lunch and saw the CSIRO Radio Telescope. The Telescope isn't actually in the town, but just outside. It needs to be free from radio wave interference, like mobile phones.

When approaching the telescope all radio transmitters must be turned off, or to aeroplane mode. The CSIRO have signs everywhere telling you to do this. The only way you could miss it is if you just didn't care, but if you didn't care why are you looking at 'The Dish'. That's right, this is that dish from that movie! Unfortunately there wasn't an option to play cricket on the dish, but the CSIRO do sell stress balls in the gift shop that look that cricket balls.

Parkes Telescope with its old receiver in the bottom right of the photo

From Parkes I drove on to Dubbo staying at the Big4. It's a nice place although the camp grounds were suffering from a lack of rain. By my luck, that decided to be the night it would start to rain! While having dinner I spoke with a group of two families.

Day 5

My swag was wet inside and out by morning. With only a towel to dry it and with the canvas still soaked I rolled it up and went to the Dubbo Zoo. It's an open range zoo, a little like Victoria's Werribee. The novelty of this zoo is driving your car around and stopping off at the various enclosures. Maybe this would be a good place to take a Jurassic Park painted 4WD... In hindsight, taking the push bike option would have been much better. I enjoyed the zoo, but I think Australia Zoo was more engaging and hands on.

One of six feeding times for the meerkats. Live crickets today.

Who want's a kiss? This giraffe just wants its carrot

This is me at the zoo.

I spent 5 hours at the zoo, after which I needed a break and headed out to the Dubbo main street for some coffee. I found somewhere to relax and regain my energy.

It was now late into the afternoon so I headed back to the supermarket and after another stunning sunset I checked back in to the Big4. This time I was aware of the pending bad weather, light shower they say... I don't trust them, I took the advise of an experienced camper I met this morning and set up my swag undercover next to the BBQs. Hopefully no one wanted a might night snack!

Sunset over Dubbo 

Ready for bed under the BBQ shelter

Overnight the weather was even worse than the night before, it rained for almost the whole night! The thunder and lightning was amazing! The thunder was very loud and continuous, however I couldn't see the corresponding flashes. It was nothing like what I had ever heard in Ringwood, Victoria. I woke up at 12:45 am, everyone I spoke to around town also work up, so it wasn't just me, it was a really big storm!

Day 6

I left the caravan park just after 9am and of course it had to rain while I was trying to pack up. I got some coffee in town, then headed to the Old Dubbo Gaol. The Gaol was built in the early 1880's and finally closed in 1966. It was opened in the late 1970's as a tourist attraction. A few of the exhibits on display could do with some maintenance, but there was a sign up saying that work was planned for between 2014-15.

Original hangman's kit.

I moved on to Gilgandra for lunch and looked at their WW1 gallery dedicated to the local hero's. It's a very small town with most things shut after lunch on a Saturday and closed on Sunday's! Just out of town I stopped in at the Orana Cactus World. I've never seen so many Cacti. The owner told me he had collected too many then needed to buy a block of land especially for the Cacti! Some in this front yard are about 40 years old.

I drove through Coonabarabran stopping to change the CD in my stereo. Before stopping for the night I made one last sight seeing visit for the day, to the CSIRO Australian Radio Telescope array for sunset which is just under 20km west of Narrabri.

I stopped in Narrabri for groceries and checked into a camp site. The camp kitchen was already being fully used so I pulled out all my own gear to cook. It was a gourmet dinner with red wine, bikkies and dip, Angus sausages & steamed veg. Followed by choc mint mouse for desert.

Gourmet camp cooking. 

Night 6

The night was fortunately dry with no clouds in the sky, so the air was a little colder. When getting into my swag it was damp and smelt musty. The morning sun has been terrific, I managed to completely dry and clean my swag. Night 7 will hopefully be a good rest.

I've now travelled 1464 km