Sulptures in the Scrub, about 30 kms away:
Sandstone caves off Newell Highway:
Warrumbungles:
View from the lookout at 740 metres altitude. The observatory's at over 1100m.
For more detail, see below:
29 March 2012 Day 1.
BYO TOILET PAPER, FROGS ARE FREE
After a leisurely start, we left Rathmines about 10 am and set sail for Caroona, a village between Quirindi and Coonabarabran. We had a pleasant picnic lunch at Aberdeen, where clean toilets and a pretty little park make a pleasant rest stop. We christened the new “struggle rug” which Chris had won in a raffle recently, both of us managing to spill tomato seeds on it. The very tasty cherry tomatoes were from Chris’ garden, though untouched by human hands prior to picking- they are self-sown and grew without any help at all. That’s how Chris likes his garden.
Back on the road, we drove through very heavy rain at Murrurundi (no sign of Rhiannon this time but we were not about to venture into the hardware store to find her). Once over the mountain, the skies cleared and the sun shone. We drove onto the “land of sweeping plains”- Liverpool Plains stretched for miles, with distant mountains forming a frame around the picturesque scenery. Dark reddish-brown crops of sorghum ready for harvesting could be seen, mingled with green pastures.
Caroona is a tiny village boasting a one stop fuel/groceries/takeaway store, and a pretty red sandstone church proudly noting its 1926 heritage. When we walked around it, a horse in the next paddock trotted over to be friendly but alas we are not horsey people. As we left the churchyard, a ute pulled up next to us and the driver started a conversation. He told us he was a harvesting contractor (that’s how I know the crop was sorghum). Apparently they have to wait till about 4pm for the dew to dry off before they can harvest, and today at 4.30 it sprinkled with rain, so probably they wouldn’t be able to harvest the next day. Oh, the life of a farmer!
We parked the van in the grassy surrounds of the local community hall, which had been noted in our Camps book as a free campsite. There was already a van there, and several others joined us before dark. All of the caravanners and the motor home people were friendly, but some of them obviously have too much time on their hands and don’t know when to stop talking! One guy told us so much about the Cairns area that we were suffering mental indigestion. I know they were trying to be helpful, but there’s a limit to how much you can take in. Several travellers were heading for country music weekends in Tambar Springs and later at Hartford, wherever that is.
There are (surprisingly) flush toilets here at the campsite, but the paper’s run out. Not so the frogs, which were hiding in the toilet bowls (imagine being that desparate for water! ) Whenever someone flushed the loo, the frogs have to hang on for dear life.
It was a lovely clear night with the stars shining brightly. The overnight temperature told us we had left the coast behind, and fortunately the constant stream of grain trucks passing during the day almost totally ceased so they were not a deterrent to sleep.
Fri 30 Mar- Day 2 – about 170 kms today, total 432 kms
BIRDS, SUICIDAL WILDLIFE, SKELETONS AND FROGS.
We headed west across the Liverpool Plains, heading for the distant hills. The weather was fine and sunny, the views were stunning, with the plains spreading towards the ever approaching mountains, which are remarkably unlike other ranges you might see. We barely missed a mummy wallaby and her joey who left their safe possie to run across in front of the car, and later a rabbit did the same thing. There is a great variety of birdlife, so we’ve seen a number of new species already. We’ve heard of one area nearby which has 70 different species.
Arriving in Coonabarabran (hope you don’t mind but I’m going to call it Coona from now on) mid-morning, we stopped at the Information Centre where the friendly staff member was very helpful, and checked out the Diprotodon display- our first glimpse of a skeleton of the giant wombat-like creatures, which were as big as our caravan. Its skull alone was enormous.
We headed south 56 kilometres towards Toorawheenah, which we’d discovered in the Camps book. It’s a bigger town than Caroona, boasting a police station, a pub, a school and several churches. It’s neat and tidy, and the townspeople, aside from being very friendly (passing motorists give you a wave), is obviously very proud of its history. Back in the day (mostly in the 1920s) the town saw a rash of new building, and there are now plaques to entertain visitors with the history of the old butcher, baker, and general stores. The town used to be on the highway but has been bypassed in recent years (though the highway’s only 3 kilometres away), so the history is really all it has going for it. If you can call less than 100 years history.
However, Tooraweenah is on a tourist drive which circles through the Warrumbungles, and it boasts a lovely caravan park where you are made very welcome and encouraged to choose your own site. The manager, Vicky, even brought us a newspaper to read when she’d finished it- and no, it wasn’t a historical paper but today’s Daily Tele.
And the frogs, I hear you ask? In the swimming pool. I don’t think it’s terribly healthy for them, although we saw one swimming, there were also two dead ones. Needless to say, we didn’t jump into the pool ourselves, even after our bike ride around town.
Saturday 30 Mar Day 3 Tooraweenah- Murrumbungles, Coonabarabran, The Universe. 185 kms, total 617 kms.
MOUNTAINS, WALKS, GARRULOUS PEOPLE, SEEING STARS AND CALL THE POLICE!
We left the caravan park about 9am armed with coffee and packed lunch- typical Grey Nomads. Driving north, skirting the range on our right, we were surprised at the variety of previously unseen (by us) birds- lovely grass parrots and brown woodswallows among others. We tried out the shortest (dirt) road to Baradine but after a short distance decided no, we wouldn’t take the caravan that way when we leave.
On to the National Park, where we met a quite unhelpful person at the Visitor’s Centre- we seemed to be interrupting her peace. There was an interesting range of souvenirs, better than we’ve seen in other NP centres. We did a short walk there, highlighted by seeing dozens of tiny finches in a kurrajong tree, and were very close to a very large old man kangaroo.
At Canyon Picnic Grounds we took another walk. This time we came upon a mother wallaby with a joey almost as big as she is- he was having a drink of milk, while we stood and watched. We approached quite closely- I think she felt safe because there was a creek between us, but there were stepping stones which we could have covered very quickly. We didn’t, of course, preferring to sit and watch the two of them for quite a while, at least 10 minutes before we decided to get moving again. When we were halfway across, the two of them hopped a little distance away, then stopped again. We continued on to the picnic grounds for lunch before driving further to another short walk, which led to a splendid lookout, altitude about 700 m, with lovely clear views over the unusual formations of this range, with stacks of rock (Chris says they’re called volcanic plugs) poking out of the mountains here and there. The tallest of these is named (?) Spire, but the most famous is the Breadknife.
We visited the Siding Spring Observatory (alt over 1100 metres) where we saw astronomy displays before entering the viewing area of the huge telescope, which is not open to the public at night. It’s enormous, 9 stories high. Good lookout too.
We’d booked in to a private observatory for the night time viewing so had many hours to fill before it was time to arrive. We visited Crystal Kingdom, which displays a good range of fossils, the most colourful I’ve seen, crystals, and some diprotodon bones. The owner, who runs a crystal shop as well, gave us a big welcome but like a few other elderly and obviously lonely people we’ve come across in the last few days, she went on and on to the point of tediousness.
Coona is a largish town with nearly 3000 residents, some very nice parks, a couple of hotels but not much in the way of shops or restaurants, apart from Chinese. We eventually stumbled on the bowling club (after driving around the back streets looking for it or something like it) and had a meal there, not much to write home about but Chris said they really knew how to cook chips. (They have yet to learn about zucchini- I think they belong to the “Cook vegies until there’s no fight left” school. Ah, Aussie country cookin, how I’ve missed it- not..
Finally it was time to drive to the little observatory for our viewing. At $20 a head for adults, it was well worthwhile. The owner, Peter Starr (his real name, he assured us) used to manage Siding Springs and he made the whole thing very interesting. He has a number of different telescopes and we looked at different things in each as time went on and the sky changed. We saw craters on the moon as clearly as teenagers see zits on their faces, saw the rings around Saturn and some of Jupiter’s moons. We even looked at distant galaxies far beyond our own, though I have to admit I thought all those looked the same. We were there from 7.30 till after 10 and he was still showing people things when we left. If you have an SLR camera he even shows you how to take photos of the telescopic images. Amazing, but we still had 56 kilometres to drive back to Toorawheenah. We were very glad to be reminded it was the end of daylight saving that night! Extra hour’s sleep, yes please!
A young family and another grey nomad couple joined us for the evening, the young girls and their parents were very polite and pleasant but the older pair were verbose bores who wanted to impress everyone- they had a Honda Jazz as well as a Prado and a campervan, and they had been everywhere, knew everything. We kept quiet until the end when we got into our Prado and drove off to our caravan.
And the police? Apparently the caravan park owners panicked when we weren’t back by dark. We’d left a couple of towels hanging outside the van so they were SURE we’d be back- we’d forgotten they were there. We had no intention of returning before dark but had not thought to tell the owners where we were going. So they called the police! Of course nothing could be done till next day, and we were safe and sound.
Sunday April 1, Tooraweenah-Coonamble, Gulargumbone, Gilgandra.
Plains, country towns, gimmicks. Forgot to note kms.
The very friendly, very helpful but over talkative caravan park manager knocked on our door to tell us about calling the police last night. Chris had chatted to her husband about roads in the Pilliga, where we intend to go tomorrow, and he thought something had happened to us there. Nice of them to be concerned but we were simply out of mobile phone contact because of the mountains. I think she doesn’t have enough to do.
We drove to Coonamble, a fairly ordinary town of 2,200 souls, not very prosperous. They had a big fire there in 1929 which destroyed all the important buildings, so nothing older than 1929 in town. A couple of big pubs, one of them very ratty looking, a few cafes and so on, IGA and Spar supermarkets, not much else except a few nice parks and good street trees. The newsagent sells everything from papers to handbags and clothing, with lots of other things in between, a very large shop filled with different items.
On to Gulargumbone which uses galahs for its gimmick. (Every small town has to have a gimmick to try to attract people- in Coonamble it’s a Nickname Hall of Fame- various townsfolk-all male that we saw- caricatured with their nicknames explained, along the main street). Coonabarabran’s the Astronomy Capital of Australia because of its clear skies and the presence of so many telescopes, including Siding Spring.
Gular’s galahs are made of corrugated iron cut to look like galahs- in flight, at rest, even upside down hanging from wires- very well done and true to life. Not much else to say about the place except its population is 500 and falling, and the townsfolk are very proud of their town, and very friendly. We met some of them at the local park, where they’d brought the fire engine to hose out the public toilets, as you do. Pity they didn’t bring some Jif to clean the basin. Nice park where the table's made from some sort of wheel and the seats are old tractor seats.
On we went to Gilgandra, forming a triangle tour back to Toorawheena, most of the time in sight of the Warrumbungles, which form a backdrop to the plains wherever you go. We’d been to Gil before so didn’t spend much time there. About the same size as Coona and Coonamble, it’s well situated for highways and is much more prosperous, even boasting a Target store.
Our mobile phones have been in and out of range, mostly out, so we’ve not been easy to contact, and I haven’t been able to upload to the blog yet, but hopefully this will change tomorrow.
Tooraweenah to Baradine via Coona. 1106 kms total.
Aboriginal Art, Sculptures in the scrub, Sandstone caves.
We drove via Coona to reach Baradine, a small town which lost its livelihood (timber) when National Parks took over the former State Forest and bought up private holdings. Their gimmick is another metal sculpture of a black cockatoo, which has startling red stripes on its tail. I hope we see one! A very helpful ranger at the Pilliga Discovery Centre in town suggested places to visit. Sculptures in the Scrub- five inspiring sculptures modelled by Aboriginal artists and place on a clifftop overlooking a gorge, about 20 kms from town. BBQs, toilets and campground there are free. Each artist used a different method to show his idea of the place- my favourite is a wonderful bronze of a man and his little boy, called “First Lesson.” It depicts the man standing on a cliff overlooking the gorge, and pointing out to the child various food supplies below. It’s ideally situated, looking just as great from below as it does from above. If you do the gorge walk first, it's a very steep ascent to the clifftop statues.
We also visited sandstone caves beautifully carved by Mother Nature, with amazing colours and textures. There are some aboriginal carvings there, but the colours were the highlight for me. These caves are just off the Newell Hway between Coona and Narrabri, but they are not signposted. Visit one of the Tourist Info places for details- there’s a reason for this. Wonderful place for kids to explore.
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