The drive to Narrabri is pretty flat. Not far to the east is a range of hills which include Mount Kaputar. Sarah had told us we must visit this National Park which includes the Sawn Rocks, a cliff of hexagonal granite columns and Mount Kaputar which has a view which, they say, spans one tenth of New South. Wales. Unfortunately, the roads in are all fairly long and are all unsealed so we elected to admire it from a distance.
We had heard that there was good bush camping at Yarrie Lake a few miles west of Narrabri on the Wee Waa road. We decided to visit the Australia (Radio Astronomy) Observatory first. This was a good decision because we discovered that Yarrie Lake is on this road, not on the Wee Waa road.
The Observatory is pretty impressive. It is set in a large piece of real estate 25 km (15 miles) from the town in very pretty bushland. In the sixties a 3km (2 mile) diameter radio heliostat (for observations of the Sun) was built here by CSIRO. Subsequently, various instruments have been constructed on the site, the biggest of which was the Compact Array. This is five 22 metre(75 ft) diameter dishes mounted on a 3 km ( 2 mile) stretch of 9 metre (30 ft) gauge railway track so the dishes can be set up with various separations depending on the task. The telescope is in use 24 hours a day and as one sits in the picnic area one occasionally hears the drive begin to whir as a new target for observation is selected.
This instrument is still one of the most important in the world because of view of the southern sky but also because of its technology. It is now part of the Australia Telescope which includes dishes at Coonabarabran 120 km (80 miles) south and at Parkes 300 km (200 miles) south of here and therefore has a very large baseline. This instrument also co-operates with instruments in Japan and in far earth orbit for very high resolution observations.
As we left the telescope the Grey Kangaroos were up and about. We drove on to Yarrie Lake 10 km (6 miles) away down a dirt road. This is a fine place to camp as the lake is set in pristine bushland and the light has that liquid quality which is missing from all urban skies.
We had a very pleasant evening and went to bed well contented.