Coffs Harbour NSW We have been slack with our blog over the past month or so, mainly as the time has just slipped away. We are now in Coffs Harbour, New South Wales where the rain is torrential outside and has prompted us to do this update. Over the past month we have visited Airlie Beach, Hervey Bay and Noosa (which we loved and could live there no problems) then spent a short time in Brisbane and three days in the national park at Tamborine Mountain . From...

Glen Innes, NSW After Coonabarabran our next stop was Tamworth for an overnight stay en-route to the Australian Celtic Festival in Glen Innes. In Tamworth we visited the "Walk a Country Mile" interpretive centre exhibiting the history of Australian country music.Unfortunately we then had problems with our car alarm and immobilizer so spent the afternoon with a visit from the NRMA and a new battery installation! We stayed a week in Glen Innes which all...

Coonabarabran, NSW We then headed north through Dubbo to Coonabarabran for the Easter and Anzac Day holidays. We spent time visiting the largest optical astronomy research centre in Australia at Siding Springs Observatory and trekking in Warrumbungle National Park. The Coonabarabran area is known as the "Astronomy Capital of Australia" as it has an average of 70% clear nights during the year and is well away from light pollution from the busy east coa...

Katoomba, NSW After our overnight stay in Parkes we moved east to Molong, a small rural town some 30km north of Orange which allowed us to travel to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains for a day to catch up with Dave's cousin Claire and her husband David who are living for two years in Sydney. It was great to catch up with them as we had not seen them since we attended their wedding in the UK in December 2010. Katoomba and the Blue Mountains were very picturesque and...

Parkes, NSW We headed north from Griffith to Parkes, home of the CSIRO Observatory which is one of the world's leading astronomy research facilities. The radio telescope has a 64 metre "dish" and is quite spectacular on approach to the facility as the surrounding landscape is so flat. The telescope featured in the Australian movie "The Dish" and has also played an important part in several NASA space missions. The Observatory had a very in...