Blogs from Parkes, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania

Setting moon and rising sun, blue sky above. It was to be an early start to what would be another big day of driving through the Riverina to NSW/Vic border at Tocumwal. Driving south along the Newell Highway the dramatic effects of the prevalent drought is really biting into the landscape. Months of low rainfall has seen the precious top soil of the dry dusty paddocks being blown on the hot westerly winds. The answer my friend is blowing in the wind, meaning new methods of dry farming need to be implemented. Crop and stock selections more resistant to drought impact need to be considered. Emu and Kangaroos have withstood drought for millennia in this dry brown land, they could be farmed with the appropriate infrastructure. Native grasses such as Kangaroo grass can be harvested for ... read more

From Tamworth we drove to Dubbo and then on to West Wyalong, but on the way we stopped off near Parks to visit the Parks Radio Telescope. We had driven past on a few other occasions and seen the big dish in the distance but this time we decided that an actual visit was called for. We really had no expectations of what to expect; would we stop by a high security fence for a photo or would there be more? The sign said ‘visitor centre’ so that sounded promising. We left the caravan in a huge car-park and entered the landscaped grounds. Immediately we were diverted to educational science displays in the gardens. Of particular interest were two parabolic dishes located about 200 metres apart. The sign said they were whispering dishes so Joan trotted ... read more

30TH September 2012, Departed the Stein's house about 12 noon (a little later than planned). It was hard saying goodbye as we were having such a great time. Kylie baked me a scrumptious baked cheesecake for my upcoming birthday. Arrived at Parkes at 4pm, just in time before they closed at 5pm. "The Dish" was amazing to see. The girls had fun exploring the wonders of the satelite. Headed off to Dubbo to spend the night and visit the zoo the following day. Onroute to Dubbo, about half an hour into the trip Daniel says, "I think I lost a wheel!" "What do you mean you lost a wheel?" I said. Shortly after those words, we saw the tyre steadily rolling past us at 90 km, up a hill. Pulled over as safely as we could, ... read more

Blog Day 1068 Citizenship Countdown 32 Days We were ready to go, today was Friday 7th October the long weekend was here and we both had a week off ahead of us. The truck was packed, and the TVAN we had hired was down in the garage waiting to be hitched up and towed with us. We were heading up to Parkes for the 50th Anniversary of the Parkes Radio Telescope, (The Dish), regular readers will know that we have been to the dish before and it had become a bit of an icon for us, we have been looking forward to this particular weekend for ages and with Les and Sue Briggs’s, enthusiasm had put together an ACT 4 wheel drive club trip, to attend this special weekend. Our arrangement was to meet at the ... read more

DAY 77 (Week 11) We left Dubbo this morning, and had the option to go to Dubbo jail and have a look around, then on to have our challenge match of mini golf. We decided to skip the jail as we do need to ensure that we work within the budget we have set ourselves, it is easy to get carried away, so instead headed straight out of town to the mini golf course that is sited on the same piece of land as Dubbo Observatory, the tourist brochure said both were open, Friday Saturday and Sunday every week. We were both psyched resorting to our usual tactics of abuse and intimidation, neither was going to show any weakness, neither was prepared to loose. We arrived at the mini golf course and it was closed! I ... read more