Left home June 30:
Brrrr! We thin-blooded sub-tropical dwellers really noticed
that it was winter when we drove from Richmond Hill (Lismore, for the
non-locals) through Casino to Tenterfield, then turned south to Glencoe, south
of Glen Innes, where we spent the night in the driveway of a niece’s home.
All seven of us dined that night at the Red Lion Tavern, the
focal point of that little town on the New England Highway, with big open fires
really warming the blood . . . as well as the red wine.
Then off we set the next morning, having woken to find it
was 8C inside the motorhome, and 2C outside, so on went the diesel heater.
South we drove to Armidale and Tamworth, then we headed west to Gunnedah, busy
and prosperous, though cold in the bright sun. We were delighted to see the
country between Tamworth and Gunnedah a bright, fresh green, the result of
recent rains, and so it continued, with water lying around even as far west as
Cobar. By then we’d travelled more than 1000km from home.
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| The green paddocks go on forever. |
When we reached Coonabarabran, we decided to head due west
so we could visit Siding Springs Observatory, and stay at the Warrumbungle
National Park. Up, up, up we drove on the access to the observatory, which had
narrowly escaped disastrous bushfires in early 2013, as evidenced by blackened
tree trunks all around, with newish sapling growth.
On top of the old volcano where the observatory is located,
it was extremely cold and blowing a frightful gale. We were told later it had
been the site of the deepest snow in the past week, so we were grateful not to
have been there that day.
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| Try picking up the milk from the Sun! It's heavy! |
We thoroughly enjoyed the visitors’ centre, complete with
mind-boggling displays such as the comparative weights of a carton of milk on
the various planets. Then we went up to the actual observatory, where from the
visitors’ gallery we witnessed the great dome slowly rotating. We thought one
of the huge apertures might be about to open, but one of the staff who came out
to see us told it had just been done for a film crew which had been there
months earlier shooting footage for a movie, and had returned for some more.
The full name is the Anglo-Australian Observatory, opened in
1974, and operated by the Australian National University, but despite the
gravitas of its pedigree, there’s a slight frivolity outside the great dome
with a steel sculpture of a bird holding a telescope to one eye.
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Telescope in hand, the bird outside Siding
Springs Observatory.
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Soon after we descended the mountain, we entered the
Warrumbungle National Park, and set up for the night at a delightful camping
ground, ready for yet another cold night, with a promised minimum of 3C the
next morning.
As long as the water is hot for a shower, the kettle boils
for tea, and we have plenty of doonas . . . and each other . . . we’ll stay
warm.
Then on to Gilgandra, past an emu farm on a back road, with
hundreds of the feathery chaps around the paddocks, then west past Warren and
Nyngan to Cobar, where we arrived about 2pm. This gave us time to explore the
town, particularly the Great Cobar Heritage Centre . . . it is ‘great’, but the
name comes from the building’s first purpose as the admin centre for the first
Great Cobar Copper Mine. It later was derelict, then a series of flats, before
a community project turned it into one of NSW’s best museums.
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| The entrance sign to Cobar, celebrating its mining heritage, plus helpful hints from the museum. |
As well as the pioneering and pastoral history, it is full of
info on the town’s mining heritage, with five mines still producing copper,
gold, silver lead and zinc.
We also discovered some interesting formulae for getting rid
of flies or mice, and then peered into the green water filling the original
open cut copper mine.
The caravan park is full of travellers . . . mostly from Victoria
and some from Tasmania. It was warm enough to sit outside with sunset drinks
and nibbles and chat with passers-by . . . the joy of travelling.
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