Just thought I'd share some photos of my recent Christmas roadtrip with my wife and 2-yr old. It's the first real long drive my car has ever done and only a little planning was made via google maps one or two evenings. Booking the motels were easy because we did the roadtrip before the Christmas holidays (Dec 14-21). Since I was the one who planned on where to go, we went mostly to geeky places like observatories and radio telescopes to satisfy my science fix (oh, and a racetrack for my gearhead fix) during the first half of the trip and later just went waterfall hopping for the usual nature fix. We did this solar system drive that was kinda geeky but fun! Imagine hurtling through space in a scaled solar system, planet hopping at faster than the speed of light (ie 60mph) on a Prius which kinda does resemble a Starfleet Shuttlecraft! I tried to take photos of the car whenever I can so here they are: The 1,400-mile route At Mt Panorama Racing Circuit At the Parkes radio telescope (car at carpark unfortunately) Going to Mt. Kaputar (background) to see the Sawn Rocks Doing the solar system drive and posing before the planets (Pluto also has a billboard but not classified as a planet). Welcome sign at Coonabarabran - the astronomy capital of Australia. At this point, the Sun (Siding Spring Observatory) is just less than a mile away up the hill. New leaves on the burnt trees start to regenerate again after a huge bushfire nearly damaged the observatory a year ago. Didn't get a chance to shoot the car with Mercury as it was already raining. The "Sun" After doing the Solar System Drive, we set off to Narrabri, another site for an equally awesome telescope - Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). It's an array of six identical radio telescopes. Since my two Starfleet crews were exhausted from our voyage, I just went alone to the ATCA later that evening to take some night scapes. And one selfie for the road... Energize! A few interesting numbers about the trip: 2,265 kms (1,407 miles) covered Saturday to Saturday. Approx 32 hours driving on the road. Exactly $700 spent in accommodation for 7 nights. Only 97.05 liters (25.64 gal) of petrol (98 octane) was consumed for the entire trip. That equates to 4.28 liters/100km or 54.95 MPG on full load and A/C on all the time. 1,350m (4,429ft) maximum elevation and 0m minimum elevation. 48 road kills counted (or about 1 per 29 miles covered) - mostly kangaroos, wombats, possums, and a cat. 1,000+ insects (large and small) splattered on the front end of the car 1 windscreen chip / crack from a stone coming from a big rig 200,000,000 - number of times The Wiggles albums and Classic Nursery Rhymes MP3 CDs were played
Nice post! I'm so glad my kids have outgrown the Wiggles...now it's just Kid Bopz on the radio all the time!
Great trip report! That must be the same racetrack that a friend of mine was one on his visit to Oz. I love how it's used as a roadway. Are those stock taillight lenses for the Australian market? They look great with the red sections on the top and bottom. Here, the lenses are clear over the entire cluster.
Agent J, Thank you for the pictures. Car looks really beautiful. It does me good to see hot weather and clear roads. It was 9 degrees F below zero driving to work a couple of days last week and it's sleeting or snowing all the time here. Have to be patient. Don't get me wrong - snowshowing is fun...... But summer really is nice! cliff in Vermont
Thanks man! I think I'll have a look at that Kid Bopz for variety! Thanks, bisco! Thanks, tanglefoot! Yep, it could be this one as this is used as a public road when it's not being used for races. It's a really nice circuit. The downhill twisty sections are just insanely scary, steep and narrow in real life. Much like that corkscrew in Laguna Seca 4-5x in succession! Regarding the tail lights, I had them tinted red and smoked by a local guy who makes custom spray paints. Thanks, Cliff! My heart goes out to you guys over there who had to endure that freak cold snap. I can't even stand a walk-in freezer for a few minutes! I've always loved the idea of a cold/white Christmas than a warm one, but what you guys experienced for an extended period was insane!
Great writeup and photos! That fire near the observatory was very scary - I was following it on the news as it happened.
That solar system drive looks very cool. We visited the Green Bank radio telescope in VW here in the states a couple of years ago. It was very cool. It's the world's largest movable, I think, and sits in a national "radio silent" zone which meant little cell phone coverage. They use old diesels on the property because new diesel vehicles have computers that generate interference and spark ignition does as well. They had 60s diesel Suburbans, a couple diesel Checker Marathon wagons, some Diesel Ram trucks, a Diesel 80s VW pickup and the tour bus was an mid 80s diesel. Couldn't take any pictures on the tour or even have cameras or phones turned on for fear of interference.
Wow, looks like they're really serious about interference. In the radio telescopes I went to, they only asked to turn off mobile phones.
They are looking for faint, very distant signals. It's a 100 meter telescope. It wouldn't take much to mess with the signals they are looking for. Here's an article on the radio quiet zone. Here's the Green Bank Wikipedia page and its web site.
Consider giving Casper Babypants a listen. He is the lead singer from The Presidents of the United States of America. Good stuff.
Fantastic. We stop at Parkes every time we go to QLD, I guess it's the nerd in me. We just went from Melbourne to Mt Gambier and back 1002km in our v and averaged 4.9l/100km (48 mpg). I could have done better if I left cruise off during the long steep accents were the bar graph maxed out (15 l/100km instantaneous). We went half way there last year and got 4.6 l/100km (51 mpg) .
thats a nice scenic route to take going to qld. lots to see. speaking of Parkes, it got me wanting to see a movie about it -- "The Dish". i hope it's still available to rent, otherwise i'll have to look for it online. : )
The movie is readily available. You have to drive through Parkes to go from Melbourne to Brisbane. The coastal route would add many hours.
