Starting to Head North

Once Mick had finished his bowls it was time to head north on our latest adventure.  When we travel with the caravan, we generally have a rough plan of where and when we will go.  This is always subject to change.

The first day was wet, so we didn't stop and look at things as much as usual.  Not only that, it was all places we knew quite well - Forbes, Parkes, Narromine and then onto Gilgandra. 

While walking up the street in Parkes we had a chuckle at this fun creation.

We did call in at the butcher's at Narromine to buy some meat for tea and were surprised at the beautiful tiles.

It turns out that the Butcher's shop was opened in 1902 and the tiles were imported from England.  The cow tiles look like new.

The current butcher is only a young fellow, who has been working there since he was an apprentice and now owns it.

We free camped at Gilgandra and it rained gently all night. The following morning we went for a walk and noticed this fun mural.

Then it was time to venture further north.  There is a little village off to the side of the road, Armatree, which we've never been to see.  This was our opportunity.  It is famous for its pub and we noticed that there is good camping areas to its rear.  We may look at camping there in the future.  There was a rather new sculpture in the park, which we had to take a photo of. 

From there it was on to Coonamble, where we enjoyed catching up with Chooky and Mr Chooky for morning tea.  Of course, with all the chatter, we forgot to take a photo.

Plan A of our trip was to camp at the Pilliga Bore Baths for a couple of nights, but due to the rain, that wasn't going to be a terribly smart idea, as the ground tends to get rather sticky and boggy when wet.  Therefore, we went to Plan B, that was to travel on to Narrabri and have a couple of nights there instead.

So, what to do while there?  The obvious choice was to drive out ot Mt Kaputar, the highest point in the area, from where you can see 10% of New South Wales on a good day.

We headed off nice and early.  As you can see, the top of the mount was shrouded in mist when we left, but we hoped it would clear by the time we got there, as it is 52kms east of Narrabri.

As we got closer the trees created a lovely tunnel.

Once you enter the National Park the road turns to gravel.  There are various rock formations along the way.

As you start to climb, the road returns to bitumen and is narrow, windy and steep.  We passed a sign saying we were at 914 metres above sea level and then kept climbing.  The summit is at 1,510 metres above sea level.

One spot had a lovely collection of grass trees beside the road.

By the time we were nearing the summit, we realised that we were not going to see anything, as we had entered that layer of low cloud.  It was all rather moody.  We made the decision to turn around and return to Narrabri.

We had visited the summit back in 2014.  You can read my blog post from the time here.  The photo of the two of us in my blog header is the one we took of ourselves at the summit on that day.

We did manage to snap this photo of the view once we returned below the clouds.

So, what to do next?

We had heard of a place called Lake Yarrie, to the south west of Narrabri, so headed out there.  It is only a small, shallow lake, but such a pretty setting.  The water level is currently quite low, but at times people take their boats out on it.

It has camping sites all around the lake, and even power for some of them.  We enjoyed our picnic lunch there and had a nice walk around.  Another potential camp site for future reference.

On the way back to town we did our final touristy thing, visiting the Australia Telescope.  As you enter, on several signs, they instruct you to turn off your phone, wifi and bluetooth.

They say this set up is like the Parkes Telescope x 6.  There are six dishes.  (You can't fit them all in the photo.) One is fixed and is 5kms away from the centre.  The other five are close together and on tracks.  They can be positioned up to 3km apart.  The array of the six smaller dishes creates the same effectiveness as a 6km diametre dish. It is so sensitive that they say they could pick up a mobile phone call on Pluto.

It was all very interesting, but way above my understanding.

Oh, and as we returned to Narrabri, we noticed that it was as clear as a bell over Mt Kaputar.  We should have waited till after lunch to venture out there.  Oh well, there will be another time.

And that completed the next couple of days of our trip.  More soon.