Longreach Trip - Day 7 - Inland Northern NSW and Warrumbungle NP
The penultimate day of our trip had us starting in Queensland not far from the NSW border. Yesterday we had finished up in St George. The morning was yet again quite cold and we rolled out of the hotel at 6:30AM. Our breakfast stop was the bakery in Dirrenbandi, about an hour away.
We we drove south, we were greeted with a very impressive full moon. The countryside was pretty similar to yesterday. Very flat, with medium sized trees and some bush areas. Some parts had no undergrowth at all, just medium sized trees. I don't know if this was because of flooding or fire or some other reason.
The bakery at Dirrenbandi had some quite interesting Russian pastries and sweets for sale. After breakfast, we crossed the border and continued on towards Lightening Ridge. Of course being in NSW we were greeted with a speed camera warning sign and worse roads. The scenery was much the same, the vegetation mostly bushes and small trees.
We stopped for about an hour at Lightening Ridge to refuel and and look around. I was a bit surprised that given the driving was quite easy, my car had the worst fuel economy of the trip at 16l/100km. Lightening ridge was full of Opal stores, and we went into a couple to look around. There were also mine tours, but you needed more time to do those. Having heard it was a really interesting, place, it was a bit disappointing.
After we left Lightening ridge, we drove another hour or so to Walgett. We did a brief stop here to take a few photos in front of a water tower mural. After Walgett, the vegetation started to get thicker and the farms were more about crops than cattle. During the drive I passed 4,000km for the trip, and over 20,000km since purchasing the 560SEL We continued on to our lunch stop at Coonamble.
Continuing the trend from breakfast, our lunch cafe had some quite interesting desserts for sale, various bars and brownies plus Lebanese style desserts. Walking around Coonable, it was clear that the town had gone through some kind of boom from 1928-1930 as nearly all the buildings in the main street harked from that era. However, many of them were either for lease or boarded up. It felt like a town that had fallen on hard times. I parked in front of a magnificent art deco cafe location, complete with art deco mirrors, windows, bar and booths for customers. It was for lease, as were so many of the stores.
After lunch, we headed out of the town to wars Warrumbungle National Park. As we headed out of town it became apparent that I had missed a 20km section of unsealed road. We were lucky it was pretty smooth and the weather was good.
As we got closer to Warrumbungle national park, we could see the the totally flat country give way to to what looked like a mountainous region. Sticking up from the top of it and very apparent was the siding springs telescope.
Once we finished the unsealed section, the road up through Warrumbungle national park was quite good. We stopped at Whitegum lookout, where there were amazing views of the scenery below. I didn't know that Warrumbungle national park is an old volcanic formation from millions of years ago. Its quite apparent when you are there to see it.
After admiring the view, we drove the short distance to Siding springs telescope to see the Telescope up close. We didn't do the whole tour, but the views from this area were quite good too. In addition, they had a 'virtual solar system' there there is a too scale map of the solar system based on distances. The Sun is at the telescope parking lot. Mercury is just outside the carpet. Venus is halfway down the hill to the main road, a couple of kilometers away. Earth is almost at the main road, and Mars is a little way down it. Then it is about 20km before you hit the to scale model of Jupiter. We'll see the rest of the planets tomorrow.
We refueled and checked into our hotel. Yet again, I had 16l/100km from my 560SEL. I find it quite odd as this has been an easy day of driving. In the day, we have covered 538km.
After a short break we went for our final dinner of the trip. Walking along in the town, it was an amazing contrast between Coonamble and Coonabarabran. Sadly Coonamble seemed like it was dying where Coonabarabran was a busy and vibrant town. The populations are pretty similar. I guess Coonabarabran has the activity for the telescope as well as tourism for Warrumbungle national park to give the local economy a boost.
Our final dinner was a succulent Chinese meal at a local restaurant. It has superb over the top decor that reminded me of restaurants in the 80s. Apparently it had been imported from Hong Kong. In any case the food was excellent, and it reminded me of the meal we ate in Leeton two years ago on the Concours Run.
