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Central NSW & The Blue MountainsMay 23, 2010
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Dubbo Jail
Dubbo Museum
"The Dish"
| Sunday in Dubbo was a quiet day hanging out with visits to the Old Jail and the regional Cultural Centre. Both were surprisingly interesting despite being located in a small provincial town of about 40k people. I also took the chance to catch Russell Crowe's attempt at an Irish accent in Robin Hood (just don't tell him that !) but all this was just preparation for my real date with an Aussie movie star on Monday. Unfortunately, it wasn't Naomi Watts, Cate Blanchett or Nicole Kidman but the CSIRO Radio Telescope in Parkes, New South Wales (NSW), about 100km south of Dubbo. CSIRO was the star of the Australian movie "The Dish" alongside fellow actor Sam Neill, a comedy about the Australian's role in transmitting the TV images from the first NASA Moon Landings. As with all Hollywood movies, it was loosely based on fact but "The Dish" proved well worth a visit as it is still one of the leading radio telescopes in the Southern Hemisphere and has been instrumental in the discovery of many pulsars, thousand of galaxies and other celestial bodies (although not Naomi Watts). On the way back, I took the opportunity to drop into an old Open Cut mine near Peak Hill, where it was possible to hike around the mine. Mining is a big industry in Australia and the open cut technique give a real impression of the destructive power of the mining industry. Tuesday was a travel day, with a 350km trip south east to Katoomba but fortunately, there were some interesting stop offs on the way. First up, were the Wellington caves, a group of impressive underground caves with some enormous stalagmites and stalagtites. Next up, was Bathurst which is most famous in Australia as the home of Motor Racing, and the Mt Panorama Circuit that is used for the Bathurst 1000km sports car race. After a visit to the museum, I took the opportunity to drive the 6.5km track which is impressively laid out on the side of a 200m high hill. The corners are heavily cambered with many sharp altitude drops which means that it requires some skill to keep your car on the track even at the 60km speed limit imposed for tourists. It is therefore quite easy to imagine the thrills and spills of a real race where cars are hitting 3 and 4 times that speed. From Bathourst, it was a final 100km uphill through some attractive NSW countryside to Katoomba just over the top of the Blue Mountain range that separates Sydney from the rest of NSW. The YHA hostel in Katoomba was located in an attractive Art Deco building at the end of the main street and just 500m from Echo Point, the location of a spectacular viewing point. The Blue Mountains could probably better be described as the Blue Cliffs as the upper plateau drops spectacularly between 200 and 500m to the valley below. The sandstone cliffs provide some fantastic views of the valleys below and of various waterfalls that rumble off the edge of the cliffs. My first day hiking involved a 3 hour hike along the Prince Henry Cliff Walk which provided excellent views of the Jamison valley below and the Three Sisters rock formations on the side of the cliff. With a 200m drop on your left hand side for most of the trip it proved to be an excellent walk. On Thursday, I headed inland about 10km to Blackheath and Govett's Leap a high waterfall that again dropped over 200m into the Grand Canyon valley below. Unfortunately, the Grand Canyon walk was closed for repair so I took the 3 hour cliffside walk to Pulpit Rock which provided excellent views of the valley. The already fantastic view was improved by the fact that a network of stairs took you onto the edge of the "pulpit" for great 280 degree views around the valley. Friday, I headed to Wentworth Falls to view the falls and then hiked the "National Pass" walk which turned out to be even more spectacular than the previous two. On reaching the falls, a very narrow & steep stairs took you to the bottom of the falls and then proceeded to run along ledges half way down the 200m cliff for the next hour and a half. In most places, the ledges were only as broad as the path and in some places, they had to be hacked into the cliff so that you could continue. As you can imagine, it was a particularly amazing walk, made even better that the very steep path upwards meandered along the side of another waterfall. Definitely, worth a visit if you ever make it to Australia. On Saturday, it was a chance to catch up with cousin Rhona and her husband Daniel and children Melody and Layla who live in Lapstone at the bottom of the Blue Mountains, having moved out from Sydney about a year ago. Rhona had found out about my travels via my brother and was keen to meet up now she lives in Australia. The initial meeting was quite interesting, as the last time we met, Rhona was too small to remember ! Fortunately, she recognised my from a blog photo and took me to their nice house in the leafy suburbs of Lapstone. Rhona has been busy researching our family tree on my mothers side and was able to fill me in on the background and latest family status of both her direct family but also many of the cousins that I didn't know I had. Being in Australia, Daniel fired up the BBQ and informed me about the background of the days big AFL game between Fremantle (from Western Australia where he is originally from) and the Sydney Swans which Fremantle won easily. To wrap up the day, Melody and Layla also gave me a recital of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" on the violin, a piece that Melody had previously played in the Sydney Opera House of all places !! All in all a very pleasant day. And so onto Sydney where I have booked myself into a hostel with roof top views of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. More news on my adventures there in my next blog ! |
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