Day3: Narrabri to Lightning Ridge (with detour)
On our drive to Lightning Ridge today, we have opted to go out of our way a little ( following the dark blue route) to see the CSIRO Australia Telescope Compact Array. It is located near Wee Waa and about 25km West of Narrabri. Or that was our intention, signposting wasn' the best, and we eventually found our way there covering a bit more distance than planned. The lessen in all of this was, if you rely on your mobile phone for navigation, you are in deep trouble. Reception here is apalling, all you get is messages that Telstra is upgrading but still happy to charge you for what they don't deliver, but they appear to still be the best alternative.
It is also called the Paul Wild Observatory which added a little further confusion.
Quite unlike the Parkes Radio Telescope, the compact array is a group of 6 dishes, one fixed and the other five mounted on a 3 km long railway track so they can be moved into various positions relative to each other, and then all six dishes act as one telescope (simulating a disk 6km in diameter) providing incredible reach and sensitivity.
The location is well off the beaten track down a narrow, one lane road where all of a sudden you arrive at a modest visitors centre (which was unmanned). The dishes were undergoing maintenance and there was no power in any of the visitor facilities. There was light rainfall when we arrived so it all looked a bit gloomy.
Arrival at the visitors carpark (it was not crowded)
Maintenance work under way
Looking down the rail track in one direction
Unfortunately, because there was no power, the audiovisual stations in the visitor centre were not working, and it was a bit dark inside, however the alarm that was signalling a power failure was working well.
We moved on through Wee Waa which I last visited in 1969 with a mate working on the cotton farms at the end of year 6. It was not a particularly safe place at night then, perhaps it has improved.
This is cotton country and you can tell by the balls of cotton lining the roadside that get blown off the ends of the cotton bales being transported to the Gin. Harvest is under way at the moment so we see quite a few laden trucks and lots of bales in the fields waiting to be loaded. I have driven on better roads, and it is clear that whilst some maintenance is now being done, it is long overdue.
Originally we had planned to pull over in a rest area to make some lunch in the van. Sadly, rest areas are not part the rural road planning in this area, so on we went.
Some ominous cloud cover is forming, and there is some talk of rain, but so far only a few light showers have been experienced.
A welcome sign on the road into town
Our home for the next 3 days is the appropriately named BIG 4 Opal Holiday Park, a little out of town and within walking distance of the Artesian Bore baths. We settle in, have lunch and then drive back into town to the Tourist Information Centre.
You need a pile driver to get the tent pegs in
At the tourist information centre, which looks very new, we collected some brochures and ideas, admired the artistic endeavours of a local sculptor who had obviously given up golf, and headed back to the park getting a diesel top up on the way. Cheapest diesel price here is $2.49/litre.
BBQ chicken kebabs and fried rice for dinner from the van kitchen, and red wine to wash it down with should put us in good stead for tomorrow.
We have booked a full day tour of the opal fields and the pubs associated with them. It should be a good day out. Things are pretty quiet here tourism wise, and when I tried to book this tour weeks ago, they could not confirm the booking as they had insufficient numbers to run the tour. A phone call yesterday finally confirmed they had enough people, we were told they needed 8.
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