I Love a Sunburnt Country

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Geo: -31.2734, 149.277

Left Tamworth at 9am and arrived in Coonabarabran at 11.30am. There were long streches of sweeping plains, growing wheat and canola. Then we had big streches of the Warrunbungle Ranges to cross through, the different landscapes were lovely, but I felt tired when we arrived in Coonabarabran, had spent most of the time with my foot flat to the floor, so we rested for a while after setting up in the Caravan Park. Nice shady quite park, clean and pretty laid back, suits us fine.

Mick has been having trouble starting the ute and needs new glow plugs for it, so rang Dubbo, Mitsubishi, to see if they could put them in tomorrow for us. They will be $102 each and he needs a set of four, but they did not have any in stock, so Mick was referred to Regional Auto Spares, West Dubbo, $95.50 a set and they have them in stock. We will get them tomorrow, luckily they had a set in stock.

We did some shopping at Woolworths, always seems to be one every where we stop, it's good because I can use my rewards card and get discounts on our fuel. We then had lunch, came back to the park and walked over to the Crystal Museum across the road. What a fascinating place, a room full of ancient fossils found in this area and really good descriptions on how they formed and what had caused them to become crystals.

The Diatomaceious Earth Deposits:- About 14 million years ago many large freshwater lakes covered this area.

Kate thought the girls would be interrested in this, they would have loved the jewellery in the next room as well. None of the jewellery was made from local crystals so I did not bother getting anything, it was tempting though.

Top temperature today 26.8o, this park has plenty of shade and a nice breeze so is quite comfortable and we have the amenities close by.

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Photos

Our parking spot for tonight
Had the pick of spots, school holidays has not affected us here, $28 for the night. Not bad.

Inside the Crystal Kingdom
Fascinating place, really interresting information

A fossile fish
This is a fish fossile from one of those lakes 14 million years ago

Information on the Diatomaceous Earth Deposits
Hard to believe this area today used to be a lake

Opalised Wood and Petrified Wood
Some interresting pieces of wood, certainly not for the fire.

Prehnite
Usually not found with fingers any bigger than 2cm except around this area