Australia - Part 7

Near Siding Spring

After our first night and morning at Siding Spring Observatory we left the mountaintop for visits to nearby attractions. First, we went for lunch at Pillaga Pottery, a quaint, charming, isolated compound far off the main road. To get there we drove about 10 kilometers on a rough, washboard dirt road which gave our bus a terrific shaking. The next picture shows the view from my seat as we drove along. 

I suddenly saw movement on the road ahead. It was a goanna lizard scurrying across the road from left to right. My hasty photo through the smeared windshield barely shows the creature in this enlarged image.

I was on the wrong side of the bus to see the lizard's escape. One member of our tour, I don't know who, was on the right side and took the next two good images. The goanna ran under a fence and began climbing a tree.

You can see the lizard better in the next two cropped and enlarged pictures.

At last we arrived at Pillaga Pottery where we had really excellent thin crust pizza served in the rustic cafe dining room.

The pottery shop adjacent to the cafe had beautiful items for sale.

After lunch we traveled on to visit naturally eroded sandstone cliffs and caves where aborigines resided long ago. An expert guide led us on a hike around the colorful stone. 

This hike was the low point of the trip for me - but not because the sandstone was uninteresting, or the tour guide boring. It was because my lingering sore throat, congestion, and overall fatigue made walking along the hot and dusty trail an unpleasant chore .

There was another source of misery. All along the trail swarms of incredibly persistent, irritating, small flies plagued us. Insect repellent was ineffective. Flies were landing on my face, crawling near my eyes, buzzing in my ears, and attempting to go up my nose. The only escape was to hold a jacket wrapped completely around my head and neck. I left the smallest possible opening in front of my eyes so I could navigate the hiking trail. Needless to say, I was soaked with sweat from the heat/jacket combination. I thought the hike would never end. The next picture shows the back of my jacket with 24 flies just waiting to bug me!

Even more disturbing is this picture of another member of our group as we returned to our bus. I count 66 flies hitching a ride on his back!

Eventually, mercifully, the hike was over. I and my soaked t-shirt made a beeline for the air conditioned bus and spent time there revenge killing flies who followed us onto the bus.

We next drove to the visitor center at Warrumbungle National Park for dinner. I finally saw a number of wild kangaroos along the way. When we got off the bus several wild kangaroos were watching us just a few feet away. They hopped away when we approached closer.

We ate dinner outside the visitor center. Thank goodness the nasty flies disappeared at sunset. Before complete darkness set in we had this view of several kangaroos grazing as we sat at the dinner table. These kangaroos were not within a fenced enclosure. The foreground fence was erected to keep kangaroos from eating vegetation close to the visitor center.

Warrumbungle National Park has been designated as an International Dark Sky Park, the first of its kind in the southern hemisphere. During dinner we could see some brighter stars overhead, but lots of clouds, light from the visitor center, and moonlight made serious observing impossible.

After dinner we returned to the mountaintop at Siding Spring Observatory. On the drive up the mountain lots of kangaroos were visible in headlights along the roadside. This was to be our last night at the Astronomer's Lodge.