Today is another big one, around 500km from Brewarrina to Narrabri and not planned. We have changed our route home on numerous occasions so no more changes now.

Known as the heart of the North West (NSW) we head for Narrabri and into a head wind most of the way, roads were straight but this Kamilaroi Highway would have to be the most uneven of all highways travelled in this trip. It wasn't uncomfortable, but it demanded more attention.   Big road trains continued to whistle past us, the indescribably huge cotton fields opened up on either side of us, with hundreds of huge cotton bales, yellow shrink-wrapped, lined up on properties, awaiting the trucks to cart them off, six at a time, to the gin.

Harvesting has just finished, and we have seen a few of these massive harvesters out in the fields.   The ground is now being prepared for dormancy and then planting in September for the new season.

A town of some 7,500 people it is watched over by the Nandewar Ranges and the magnificent Mt Kaputar National Park.   Millions of years ago, volcanic eruption created the ranges and left a rich, fertile land with rivers and underground artesian waters.   The massive fields of wheat, barley, canola, oats etc are proof of the richness and fertility of this region.   A regular cereal bowl of industry that can feed and clothe us!

A nice town and a nice, spacious caravan park with grass underfoot – always a plus.   We didn't get here till later in the day so we just kicked back and got photos and blogs up to date.

Friday we drove out to the CSIRO Australia Telescope Compact Array about 30km from town.   Known as ATCA (oh no, I thought I had gotten away from acronyms) it is a set of six 22 metre diameter dishes, used for radio astronomy.   This facility also operates the Parkes radio telescope (remember the movie The Dish), the Mopra scope and is development the Pathfinder scope in WA.

These telescopes are not used to look through.   Instead, pictures are created using the radio waves received from space, then turns them into pictures.

These 6 scopes are housed on a 3km track, one dish being permanently fixed, with the other 5 able to move along the track, east/west, to form different configurations.    Together, these dishes simulate a single dish 6km in diameter!

They are individually plugged into small 'stations' along the track, which feeds the data through fibre optic cable to the control room processor, where the signals are collated and transformed into pictures.    Easy!   Yeah right!   Amazing technology and amazing structures. These 6 scopes are active 24x7 and, when the one at Parkes and Mopra are linked into the array, all 8 scopes simulate a single dish measuring 320km in diameter!    How incredible is that?

A lot of this space stuff is way over my head (pun intended) but this I can understand, and this I marvel at!

After our shot of space education we drove a further 6m to Yarrie Lake.   This is a natural phenomenon baffling locals and visitors for years apparently!   The lake is a perfectly circular ‘dish’ shape 3km in diameter, and when full, about 2 metres deep in the centre.   Not proven, it is thought a meteor created this dish millions of years ago.   No sign of the meteor exists today.   Maybe it bounced away and is holed up in the mountain ranges somewhere.

Back to camp for lunch and then a 52km drive to Mt Kaputar National Park and a drive to the summit of the old volcano of Mt Kaputar in the Nandewar Ranges.

Driving on the plains toward to ranges was pretty awesome with giant volcanic plugs visible at the top of numerous mountains.   The entire volcanic area is really picturesque, with huge rock formations of varying colours and shapes.

The drive up the summit had equally spectacular lookouts with the green bush clad valleys below displaying a blue smokey haze.    Truly a treat for the eyes and imagination, back millions of years ago to the time when lava catapulted skyward in the first eruptions and then over time, many more eruptions creating layer upon layer of rock.

We reached the summit and found another vehicle already there with a couple sitting at a table having their afternoon cuppa.   Several flights of metal stairs (60 stairss) stretched upward, taking us to the viewing platform.   We stepped onto the first step when Bill spotted a small rock wallaby/wallaroo, having his own afternoon tea, not 2 metres from the couple, who were totally oblivious to this little fella.   They soon realised, when we started taking photos though!

The view at the top, 1512 metres above sea level, was great –  let the photos speak for themselves.I will

It’s getting on for drink o’clock so back to camp after a wonderful day of education, natural monuments and a veritable eye-fest!