Australia - Part 9

Canberra

We left Parkes after breakfast and began a journey toward Canberra. Only two days remained in our Australia tour. Sinus and bronchial congestion continued to plague me along with intermittent coughing and fatigue. 

Our first stop was an interesting fossil fish museum in Canowindra. The fossils were from Late Devonian times, more than 360 million years ago. According to museum posters, the fossils all come from one layer of rock first discovered in 1956 during road construction. Apparently, a large pool of water dried up killing the fishes. Many of them were placoderms, or armored fishes.

Fossils were jumbled together. Adjacent posters identified the species present. The next set of images show some of the rock slabs and their accompanying informative posters. If you click on the posters to enlarge them, they will be easier to read.

The next display speculated about the cause of the fossils' appearance.

This next slab had a well preserved rear section with tail fins clearly visible.

I purchased two agate slices in the museum shop to add to my rock collection. Then we boarded our bus and continued toward Canberra. My energy level continued dropping. I wanted to sleep.

Eventually, we stopped at a winery for a large lunch. After eating, C went to a wine tasting while I walked, coughing, slowly around the grounds in nice, sunny, spring weather. I was amused to see kids tossing a rugby ball between them and carrying cricket bats. Slow walking in warm sunshine made me drowsy. I came upon this extremely nasty tree with hard, spiky, thorn-like leaves on every surface.

After lunch we drove on and finally arrived in Canberra, Australia's capital city, where it was cold and windy. Before going to our hotel we had a brief bus tour of parks, embassies, and government buildings. Our evening was free to roam and find dinner on our own. Normally, I would have been eager to walk around and explore the city near our hotel, but I had no energy. C went walking alone. She found most places closed for a national holiday. I skipped dinner in the evening, eating only some cheez-its and cookies. I went to bed early and slept 10 to 11 hours. I really needed it.

In the morning I felt a little better, but wasn't sure how long I would last in the coming day. Another wonderful hotel breakfast buffet helped perk me up. Our first stop after breakfast was the Australian National Museum. A dinosaur named Muttaburrasaurus was mounted in the museum lobby. It lived in Australia 100 to 110 million years ago. The fossilized bones were discovered in 1963.

The museum had many excellent exhibits explaining disastrous consequences of invasive species in Australia. I also enjoyed the astounding video of an amazing, clunky, heavy jeep used to capture water buffalo. The driver, looking like Crocodile Dundee, would drive the jeep next to a running buffalo. Then a big mechanical claw could reach out from the side of the jeep and wrap around the buffalo's neck.

Examples of beautifully preserved antique scientific equipment were also on display. The next picture shows a 6-inch refractor from the 1880's once used in Australia by someone named W.J. Macdonnell. He paid 250 pounds for it at the time. According to the museum label, this is equivalent to about $30,000 today.

After our time in the National Museum we drove about 25 miles southwest to the Canberra Deep Space Complex. This collection of radio dishes is one member of NASA's Deep Space Network which communicates with interplanetary spacecraft. The three network members are spread around the world at locations roughly 120 longitude degrees apart. In addition to the Canberra Complex, another is located in Spain about 37 miles west of Madrid at Robledo de Chavela, and another, the Goldstone Complex, is located about 45 miles northeast of Barstow, California, USA. These radio dishes receive signals from Voyager 1, the Mars Curiosity Rover, and the Juno Jupiter mission, among others.

After a security check at the entrance we drove to one end of the complex to see this panoramic view. (Click on the panorama to get a better, larger view.)

Directly behind us at the site shown in the previous panorama was this dish.

We next stopped at an old, non-operating historical dish once used to transmit data from the Apollo 11 moon mission. All the while it was cold, windy, and spitting rain. I was coughing, weak, and sleepy, so I stayed on bus while the rest of the group braved the weather outside to hear a talk about the historic dish. We then moved on to visit the control room where signals from active spacecraft were being received in real time.

We passed this beautiful large dish silhouetted against dark clouds on the way back to our bus after the tour.

We left the Canberra Deep Space Complex and drove back toward Canberra with a stop at Mount Stromlo Observatory on the way. A group of large kangaroos watched us pass on the drive up the mountain road. Once again, it was impossible to get photos from the moving bus.

Brutal, cold, windy, weather greeted us at the mountaintop along with pelting rain. Although Mount Stromlo Observatory was largely ruined by a wildfire in 2003, some modern domes still exist there.

This large dome was full of junk and apparently unused.

Ruined, rusting equipment lay around.

The next image shows one of the ruined domes.

I was glad to return to the warm bus after my brief picture taking expedition outside.

We then drove back to our Canberra hotel. In the evening our tour group shared a final dinner at a local restaurant. Once again, it was hard for me to hear conversation in the noisy room. We would all be going our separate ways the next day, so there were many farewells.

Next morning we had our last magnificent hotel breakfast buffet and boarded a bus for the long 4-hour drive to Sydney airport where the usual airport/airplane madness began. I had a westward facing window seat on the first flight from Sydney to Brisbane and was able to capture some nice sunset pictures over a span of 28 minutes. The next 6 images show sunset and the gradual appearance of Venus and Mercury as twilight deepened. Venus is brighter and closer to the horizon. Mercury is dimmer and above Venus.

When finally seated on our second flight from Brisbane to Los Angeles it had been 12 hours since we left the hotel in Canberra. Now we flew over the Pacific to Los Angeles. As wheels touched down in LA 24 hours and 50 minutes had elapsed since leaving Canberra. A long 8-hour layover was endured in LA. Then, after 32 hours of elapsed travel time, we lifted off from LA on our third flight to Philadelphia. Five hours later we arrived in Philadelphia with one last flight remaining. A mercifully short fourth flight then took us to the Newport News Airport and final release from airport hell. By the time we drove home we had been traveling for 41 hours since leaving Canberra!

My desire to see the southern sky on this trip was only partially satisfied. On the plus side, I identified eight new constellations by direct sight overhead and found even more indirectly later in images I captured. I also saw nine new celestial objects, three of these through telescopes. But there was so much more unseen! My biggest disappointment was inability to see the Milky Way high overhead in a dark sky. Clouds were partly to blame. We had some rotten luck with clouds. The tour was scheduled during a waxing Moon which added its increasing glare as the days passed. The glaring Moon was also unfortunately located in the middle of the brightest central portion of the Milky Way.

Now we are back in Virginia with familiar trees, birds, insects, animals, constellations, and driving customs. Our visit to Australia was wonderful and full of new unforgettable experiences! It was a privilege to see the different world in Australia!