Dubbo: the edge of the Outback
Friday, October 28th - Departed Leeton around 10:30am and headed northeast towards Dubbo. The road was a two lane highway with a speed limit of 110 km/h with few cars on it, that went fairly straight through a savanna of eucalypts and farmland, punctuated with small freestanding mountainlets.
After three and a half hours I arrived at the turnoff for "The Dish," and just a few kilometers later the Dish itself was looming up ahead like a giant mushroom. The Dish is huge. Wikipedia says its 64m / 210 ft but I think that's the diameter. The "stem" supporting it is clearly at least three stories tall and dwarfed by the rest. Leaving the parking lot one encounters signs admonishing one to put their phone on airplane mode or turn it off, and there are such signs throughout the public areas, because The Dish is a radio-telescope and they want to minimize interference.
The Dish was featured in the movie The Dish, which I haven't seen, I already wanted to but now I feel I really ought to.
There was a gift shop and small but informative museum section, a small 3D movie theatre that played short films about the telescope, an outdoor viewing area and a small cafe that served indifferent food. I was rather pleasantly surprised while gawking at the telescope to find it suddenly commence moving! Slowly the hole thing rotated around about 30 degrees with a whirring noise and then settled down quietly on its new location.
When I went to sign the guest book I noted that the two people before me had my mom's maiden name, Ransom, which is also my middle name, but I hadn't seen who had signed it! It amused me though because that side of the family is all quite rather into astronomy and science and such (my grandfather had had a fairly big telescope, like bigger than any random civilian usually has, mounted in its own dome housing in his workshop.) So just to be cheeky I signed with my full name, but of course I'm sure they never came back and looked at it.
From thence it was about an hour and a half onward to Dubbo. Checked in to the motel. This one is fairly nice, except that the only window is a floor to ceiling window with curtains and a solid blind that comes down from the top. I'm on the second floor (at my request), but unless I have the window completely closed everyone in the parking lot can see almost the entirety of the room which is a bit uncomfortable. But I don't like having the window completely closed like I'm in a tomb. Ah well I'm only here for the weekend.
By a complete coincidence my team leader from the beginning of the week, big Dave, happened to be in Dubbo with his wife. He hadn't been with us for the last two days of teh week because he had to attend a wedding, which turned out to be in Dubbo (another beekeeper, "we buried him with his hive tool and smoker and a sprig of mallee flowers on the coffin"). So he and his wife invited me to dinner at their hotel's restaurant, so that was fun. Come all this way and have friends to go to dinner with!
Saturday, October 28th - In the morning I was walking along the downtown area when I came upon the Old Gaol (jail), which had been recommended as something to go see, and so I went in. It was something like 23 roo bucks admission, but the jail was very well maintained with good informative displays.
As I was leaving I asked the girl at reception what else there is to do. Everyone always recommends the apparently big zoo here with big open areas you can drive or even walk through with animals, but I gather its African savanna animals that are the big focus and draw here and well I've seen them in their natural environment plenty of times, I didn't come to Dubbo to see what I can see in Africa.
The girl recommended a Royal Flying Doctors Service museum which sounded good. When I got back to my room I looked up the caves I also wanted to go to, and I could make it to them if I left just then but with only a few minutes to spare for the next tour so that was chancy. So I booked at 2pm tour and proceeded to the Royal Flying Doctors Service museum.
Because Australia has a vast vast expanse of sparsely populated area, many people live very very far from any medical services. Therefore in 1928 the Royal Flying Doctor's Service was inaugurated, they operate small medivac equipped planes with doctors and flight nurses staged at currently 23 bases operating 67 aircraft. The museum (also $23) had lots of display screens like a high tech control center, displaying various information or videos or with interactive displays on them. Altogether it was very well put together.
And suddenly if I left just then I'd only get to the caves 13 minutes before the new tour time! I rushed out the door and leapt into the car. Scrupulously followed the speed limits of course because Australia is aswarm with hidden speeding radars. I'm very nervous because just coming in to Wellington, right where the speed limit went from 80 to 60 I looked up and saw one of the radar cars and I'm not sure if I'd entirely slowed down in time yet. They're devilish like that.
The Wellington Caves are a complex of approximately a lot of caves in the vicinity of extensive limestone geology. As our tour group of about half a dozen of us walked up from the main building I marveled at the number of large holes in the ground, now covered with gratings, that just disappeared into the darkness below. A startled kangaroo bounded off and I wondered how they avoid accidentally just jumping right in to a huge hole in the ground.
But apparently they don't entirely avoid that, and some of the first fossils of extinct Australian megafauna have been found here. Notably the Diprotodon, giant goannas, giant kangaroos, and marsupial lions. And I'm not makign any of those up!
The first cave tour was the "Gaden Cave" that had a lot of interesting crystals and shapes of stalagtites, including one referred to as "cave bacon." Our guide for this tour was a nice youngish fellow who when he learned I was a beekeeper had lots of questions about bees.
The second tour I signed up for started right after that one finished, it was the bigger "Cathedral Cave" and the group was much bigger. The tourguide of this group was a woman with the demeanor of generic overbearing primary school teacher. Cheerfully calling out fun facts but I feel like she was enjoying hearing her own voice more than anything else. But anyway the cave was fun, this one was more extensive and the centrepiece of it was a beautiful flow of crystals down from the ceiling of a very large chamber.
Nearly everyone else on both tours were family groups but there was one fellow who seemed to be by himself, a fellow of his late twenties or so of sub-saharan-african appearance, though my assumption would always be that any such person is just a normal Australian even so. But because he was by himself I tried to strike up a conversation with him in the cave but he just laughed at my comment, but I found myself exiting next to him and said something again, this time he responded and I found he had a thick accent, so I asked him where he was from. Turns out he was from South Africa, had been here two months now, was on a working visa, is a veterinarian.
Returning home I got a scare from that radar car again. I really hope I didn't get any tickets. I try really really hard not to speed at all here but they try really really hard to catch you in a slip up because it's seen as good revenue generating for the authorities.
Sunday, October 29th - Today I drove to the town of Nyngan about an hour and a half away solely because it's the closest town that seems to be indisputably in "the Outback" and I've never in ten years now of roving Australia been to the Outback.
The drive was to the northwest, and the landscape was very flat. At first there were a lot of trees, then there were fewer trees but it was still more a savanna verging on woodland than plains. A number of roadkill kangaroos on the road, reminding me to be on the constant lookout for live ones, though they're usually only active at dusk. Did see a family of emus running across the road just ahead. Not very many cars on the road.
Nyngan was a small town but it seemed to have a steady stream of other tourists (by which I mean there was usually one or two other cars at any given time) arriving at the central square. Families taking photos with the "big bogan" statue. I went to the museum which was very extensive and had a lot of stuff from the previous 140 years of the town in the old train station. Though it wasn't really in a coherent chronological order. I took a picture of the "Big Bogan" myself, dipped a toe in the nearby Bogan River and crossed the bridge to the other side in case anyone might in the future say the Outback begins across the Bogan or something. Found a "Welcome to the Outback" sign and took a selfie in front of it, and headed back to Dubbo.
Looking for somewhere to eat today I noticed a place that had a way higher rating on google than anywhere else, at 4.7. It was this cute little Italian place with a chic open air eating area wih red brick decor, strings of lights (though I was there at 5pm and it was still bright as afternoon out), and a burbling fountain. I was the only one there when I arrived in fact but I'd imagine it gets pretty happening later in the evenings, it seems like a really nice place. Had some delicious pasta. So if you find yourself in Dubbo I recommend you eat at "Down the Lane"
Tomorrow I'm off again, to Kempsey on the coast, about a seven hour drive from here!