The Rare Species "revisted"

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Day 69

This morning was scorching, all the windows were open on the trailer, I lay there somewhat comforted that I didn’t have to go to work, and could just enjoy the peace that we have been afforded. Still, I know that feeling wont last forever.

Those thoughts of work have been periodically creeping in and out of my head, possibly on the level of worrying about it. Would we be able to find the sort of jobs we had back in the UK, with the levels of pay? I don’t know at this stage, but as we are entering deeper in to our adventure, travelling South and those thoughts, though real need to be set aside so we can truly enjoy our travels.

We had every intention of staying another night at Narrabri, as it was a great site, nothing fancy, but nice and quiet, the showers and toilets were beautifully clean and it had a nice distance in to the quaint town.

But today was “D Day” in our existence, the day hopefully we get the laptop fixed. It seemed an impossible task, getting an engineer to fix it, back to the way it was, in this vast country, where communication is hit or miss.

We had sent Wayne Walters (Dell Engineer) a couple of texts the day before, asking if they had the parts and if so were they likely to be fitted, but had no answer. We were just having our breakfast, loosely planning our day’s events, when a text message is received.

“PARTS ARE IN”

Excellent, I text back, then receive another message that he can meet us, in “Gunnedah”, I look at the map, it would mean driving the distance to Birmingham then back again, just as a day out to get the laptop fixed, still if he said Brisbane, then Brisbane it would have to be, it is that important for us to get the laptop working again.

Caroline wanted to go to the Australian Museum of Cotton in the town, and I had promised her we would, zzzzzzzz! Still a promise is a promise, I’m sure she feels that way when I talk motorbikes.

We have to look at things logically, if we stay here and travel to get the machine fixed its just a waste of diesel, so the smart thing is we pack up everything, hitch up and move south again.

Wayne phones, I advise him that we will meet him in Gunnedah, I have to think of a location that you can’t miss, I ask him if there is a MacDonald’s in Gunnedah and there is, It’s a no brainer. So we arrange to meet at 2.00pm Macdonald’s Gunnedah.

Everything is packed away, I am sneakily getting suspicious of Caroline as I think she is getting cheesed off with, the constant packing and unpacking of all the gear, still we decided on this adventure, and it has been a little manic lately.

The Australian Museum of Cotton is back in town near the cinema; it cost us $16.00 each to get in. Maybe my thoughts of it being so boring is unfounded, it looks on the surface quite hands on.

We walk around the exhibits, I never understood that cotton was introduced into Australia, by the original settlers and they are the worlds 3rd largest producer of cotton. Obviously water is one of the main factors in Australia and they need huge amounts of water to grow cotton, so technology has developed best management practices where the soil is monitored for its moisture content and if it is in need of water. They put in ‘an order’ with the water authority, who control the water and they are given as much as they need (only after the town water and levels in nearby creeks, dams are taken into consideration), not just deluge it but carefully monitor electronically how much water and where, so non of it is wasted.

Satellite technology is used for levelling the ground before the crop is planted, so it has just enough of a run off and weather technology is used for the direction of winds, as winds can dry the crop out.

I have to say it was astounding. Very interesting, and so important as such a simple resource like water, that we all take for granted, is not wasted.

There is another exhibit that has caught our eye, its interactive. As the cotton crop is at the mercy of bugs etc, its main destructive predator is a caterpillar, so this exhibit, allows you a financial budget, there are 5 types of bugs and 5 methods of managing it.

The crop goes through its stages of development and at the end it tells you how well you managed your farm and if you did so within budget.

Our first go was relatively successful, we had a yield of one bale of cotton per hectare, and our farm and came well within budget and was in good shape.

Caroline’s determination kicked in, one bale was not good enough for her, she wanted to try again, and be more successful, I wandered off to look at a Huge John Deere Tractor, cotton collector (Mans Stuff).

I have to say I could have spent another couple of hours there it was that good, but we needed to get going as our 2.00pm deadline was getting closer.

Back on the road again, air conditioning at full blast, it must be 40 degree’s outside. The road is empty apart from the odd road train. We hit Gunnedah at around 1.40, straight in to Maccy D’s, managing to park the truck and the trailer, result.

Wayne turns up and in a flash, we have the laptop in bits, and I do mean bits. Its having a new motherboard, which has the graphics card already embedded in to it, though Wayne has already fitted a new screen.

Two hours later, it’s done, booted back up, and we have already logged on to make sure she is working. All systems are A OK. We thank Wayne, honestly he has done a fantastic job, I felt he really went the extra mile.

We pull out of the car park doing our best not to rip the front end of someone’s car off with the trailer, as their parking is atrocious, on wards to Coonabarabran.

The journey is glorious, nearly as straight as a die, you can see the road in front of you for miles and no traffic. Every 10 or 20 klicks I keep seeing these Earth like models on the side of the road, but don’t stop, as there is no where to turn round, we are just heading up the hill and I say to Caroline, I have got a great name for yesterdays blog, “Just like Buses” referring to the amount of Kangaroo’s we are seeing, you don’t see one for ages then you see loads, “Just Like Buses” we are laughing about this and as we go just over the brow of the hill, there is a large dead grey Kangaroo right in the middle of the road. It’s beautiful body just lying there as if it’s asleep.

These Earth like models are on the World’s largest solar system drive and is a model of our real solar system but 38 million times smaller. The 3 dimensional planet models on the billboards have been scaled both in size and distance and are located on roadsides at RTA rest areas and visitor information centres along the 5 main roads that link Siding Springs Observatory to the regional towns of Dubbo, Tamworth, Gulgon, Moree and Merriwa. Local experts say that June and July are the best times of year for star gazing in this area due to the clarity of the atmosphere.

We are off stargazing tomorrow night at a private observatory belonging to Peter Starr (no kidding that is his real name!). Andy telephoned to book us in.

An easy night for us, but aren’t all nights an easy night.

Until tomorrow.

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Photos

Trucks Galore
This is just a normal view of the road.

Traffic Jam
You don't see many of these, the traffic is held up by a train crossing the main road.

What a Whoppa!
This is a Whoppa bearing down on us as seen in the rear view mirror.

Mile after Mile
or should we say Kilometre... the road seems to go on for ever and we are told that there are some longer and more boring than this!