Day 14: Coonabarabran and the Warrumbungles
Early to bed and early to rise is all very well, but I wasn't inclined to stick my nose out of the covers around the usual four-thirty or five due to the likely temperature outside.
The sky was, however, lightening when I decided to risk it around six, and while the track pants and top helped ward off the chill things weren't as bad as they could have been thanks to a remarkably well insulated structure and I had a good hour's tapping out of the way when Madam returned from the early morning photo excursion.
With the iPad on to charge, showers were taken and cups of tea consumed. The premises are light on for tea and coffee, so intending visitors are advised to bring their own. Actually, given the almost invariable presence of Nescafe Blend 43 or International Roast you're probably best off carrying your own if you're after a decent heart starter rather than an initial surge of not too tasty caffeine.
In any case, just after eight we were on the rod, planning a visit to the hat shop in Coonabarabran, something for breakfast and lunch from the bakery and a day exploring the Warrumbungles.
The hat shop, to be frank, was a disappointment, but at least we gave it a go, and Madam's croissant and my meat pie from the Bakery were enough to keep us going in the interim.
I'd been in favour of consuming them in the car in the main street, based largely on the theory that I might have an excuse to head back to the Bakery for a resupply if I was still peckish, but I was overruled and we ate beside the Information Centre, which had decided to open earlier than the advertised nine o'clock, so we were able to get a couple of handy pointers about suitable walks in the Warrumbungles.
And, for visitors to the area, some pointers are pretty close to an essential commodity.
The Warrumbungles National Park leaflet identifies a dozen walks, varying from 7-8 hours to a mere forty minutes, and making a selection straight off the brochure wouldn't be too difficult, based on the reported time required and the designated degree of difficulty, but it's handy to have an idea of what you're likely to be seeing along the way.
Information Centre Lady pointed us to three walks and a fourth site that had good views but didn't involve a great deal of walking.
Easily the best of them, and the one I'd recommend if you're just passing through and only have time for one, is the Whitegum Lookout, a return trip of around a kilometre along a sealed path that leads to a vantage point looking across the most noted features of the Warrumbungles, complete with a pictorial representation of what you're looking at that delivers convenient labels and a brief descriptive text.
While White gum might be fine as a single stop, you'd be missing quite a bit if you kept it at that (and, of course, we missed quite a bit by opting for a single day in the area).
Our next stop was the Visitors Centre, where we paid the fees and had a look at the interpretive material before completing the loop of the Gurianawa Track, and easy loop from the Centre back to the car park that offers a variety of views and assorted items of interest along the way. Actually, it's that variety of views, with the different features exposed as you look at things from a different perspective, that makes the exercise worthwhile.
Gurianawa takes you along another sealed track, and, for me, the highlight came right towards the end, just after I'd crossed a bridge and paused to read one of the interpretive panels, waiting for Madam to come into view.
Given the fact that photographers invariably take longer to traverse a walking track than the rest of us I tend to wander along at a slow meander, usually with the iPod playing away, pausing where I can find something to gaze at and waiting till I can spot Madam in the distance before meandering on.
Those little information panels are invariably useful places to pause and I was just about to start reading about whatever it was when my arrival sparked a flurry of activity from three nearby kangaroos.
My arrival on the scene might not, of course, have been the actual cause of the movement. It might have been something else, but the movement was towards the curve that took the trail back towards the car park, so I had took the time to watch the three of them grazing, noting how well the grey fur blended with the vegetation, and pointing towards the group when the photographer hove into view.
Back in the car park we demolished the chicken and salad rolls bought at the Bakery before heading on to the third recommended location, the service trail than ran away from Camp Blackman that gives a panoramic view of the same section of the range visible from Whitegum Lookout, from, of course, a slightly different perspective, before heading over to the Canyon Parking Area for a ramble along the nature walking trail, which was a pleasant enough, if not overly scenic stroll, until a slight complication set in.
Madam later claimed to recall something about heading back along the road, something I seemed to have missed, since after the second crossing of the creek the information panel visible from the stepping stones seemed only scrutinisable from the creek, and would have involved some degree of levitation.
Now, there may well have been a trail that led back along the opposite bank, but if such a beast existed we missed it and, having forgotten references to roads, found ourselves climbing a trail that led to a vaguely defined hilltop end with no clear way forward, so it was a case of back down and along the road back to the car park.
That was about enough bushwalking for one day, so from there we retraced our tracks as far as the turnoff to Siding Springs Observatory, making the ascent to the ANU astronomical outpost and taking a turn through the associated museum that was far short of what you'd need to grasp a firm understanding of what was on display.
There was a choice of the lift or four flights of steps if you wanted a squiz at the actual telescope, so we took the easy way up and the pedestrian descent, which brought us back to the vehicle at the right time to head back to the Poet's Cottage before the afternoon sun became an issue.
The way out that morning definitely seemed faster than the way in the previous evening, and even without the afternoon sun factor the afternoon return seemed quicker again. once back, the first priority was settling the bill, since we were looking at an early start Saturday morning, and with the financial issues settled, there was a good hour and a half for photographic frolics around the property and continued trapping of the travelogue before starting dinner preparations around five thirty.
Dinner involved one of the LHoC favourites, a pasta dish with tuna, olives, capers and garlic, which mightn't have been the optimum match for a Leeuwin Estate Art Series Riesling, but that was all we had in the white wine line, so it had to do.
Polish off the rest of the Pfeiffers VP after that, and we were heading into the attic to push up Zs shortly after eight, ready for a reasonably early start on the morrow.