Australia - Land of Kangaroos, Cockatoos and Astronomers by Günther Eichhorn

Sydney is a pretty nice city as far as cities go. The Sydney Opera is of course a must-see. It is a very impressive structure. It is located near the wharf at the northern end of downtown Sydney, called Circular Quay. Just across from the opera is the area called "The Rocks", with nice shops. On top of the hill in the center of The Rocks is the historic Sydney Observatory, dating from the mid-19^th century. To the south-west of The Rocks is Darling Harbour, the center of activities with the Aquarium, the Maritime Museum, and endless numbers of shops and restaurants, as well as the Conference Center. The Aquarium is certainly worth a visit. One attraction there is the shark exhibit where you walk through a tunnel with a transparent roof and watch the sharks from below.

To the north of downtown Sydney is the Sydney Zoo. You can reach it by ferry from Circular Quay. It is a nice zoo, unfortunately they were in the middle of a big construction/renovation project, so several, exhibits were closed. They naturally put a lot of emphasis on Australian fauna, so you get to see all the Australian animals like emu, kangaroo, echidna, platypus, koala, dingo, etc.

On the weekend during the two-week conference I rented a car and drove to Parkes, about 360km west of Sydney. It is a very scenic route through the Blue Mountains. The area around Parkes itself is not very scenic, just mostly flat farm and ranch land. The main attraction in Parkes is the Parkes Observatory with the 64 m diameter Radio Telescope. This is a very important part of astronomy research in Australian and world-wide.

The main reason I drove to Parkes was to get checked out in the airplane that I planned to rent at Australian Flying Adventures in Parkes, NSW (YPKS). This company just started business. They want to organize trips for visitors from overseas. These can be trips like mine, where the visitor gets checked out and then flies alone, to trips with a pilot provided by them. Since I was one of their first customers, they were very interested in helping me with everything to make the trip as smooth as possible. In general that worked very well. One of them for instance came with me to the Australian aviation authority CASA to help me get my pilots license validated for Australia. One major problem for me was to get to Parkes after the conference, and then back to Sydney for my return flight. There is a local commuter airline that flies between Sydney and Parkes, but they didn't have flights available at the times I needed them. I looked into renting a car one-way, but they wanted exorbitant money for that (about US$330 for one trip, adding up to US$660 for the two trips). I ended up taking the train about half-way to Parkes to Lithgow, where the people from Parkes picked me up and drove me to Parkes, the same in reverse for the return trip. Before and during the trip they were very helpful with making sure I had all the maps and with providing weather briefings. There were just three glitches. The first checkout was not done by an appropriately authorized flight instructor, so I had to go through a second checkout. The second was that one of the fuel credit cards that they gave me had expired, so I had to use my own credit card a couple of times. The third was the fact that the installed GPS unit in the airplane didn't have a connection to aircraft power. It worked on its own batteries for 3/4 of the trip. For the last quarter I had to rely on good old dead reckoning and pilotage. It was actually fun to go back to the old ways of flying     The airplane was otherwise in good shape, and I had no other problems. Overall it was a very good experience.

My destination in the north was Whitsunday Airport (YSHR) in Shute Harbour at the Whitsunday Islands in Queensland. It took 1 ½ days to get there, with an overnight stop in Gladstone, Queensland. I had been provided with information about the special procedures used to fly into that airport, so I had no problems flying into YSHR. It is a gravel and grass strip that is quite well maintained and very busy.

I stayed in Airlie Beach, next to Shute Harbour for three full days. On the first two days I took a scuba diving trip to the Great Barrier Reef with FantaSea. They seem to be one of the largest operators in that area. the tours were very well organized. They have a floating platform called Reefworld permanently anchored next to the outer reef. The day trips go out to the reef in the morning. The boat trip takes about three hours on a pretty fast large catamaran. You stay on the platform for about four hours, enough for two dives. They also have a boat with underwater windows that makes 20 minute excursions to the reef. The view out the underwater windows is spectacular, they get real close to the reef. The picture of the sea turtle for instance was taken from this boat.

On the third day I took a whale watching tour with the same tour operator. It was quite spectacular. At one time we were watch a pod of six whales playing around real close to the ship. It was awesome. Whales are HUGE creatures. On this trip I also saw a few dolphins, but only in the distance.

The next day I flew back south to Hervey Bay, not quite halfway to Parkes. This is supposedly the Whale Watching capital of the World. And indeed, the whale watching there was spectacular. I stayed there for two nights and went on one whale watching trip. This was a much smaller boat, so we were much closer to the whales. At one time, one of the whales stuck his head vertically out of the water, about 3-4 m from the boat. What an awesome sight!

Whales are very curious creatures. They come very close to the boat to do people watching. They really visit the boats to observe the people. It was quite clear that they do that when a second boat came up to ours after we had been watching the whales for about 15 minutes. The whales had been playing around our boat the whole time. When the other boat showed up, the whales immediately swam over to the newly arrived boat and started swimming around it.

From Hervey Bay it was back to Parkes on the day before my return flight left from Sydney. On that part of the flight I flew over the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA), at the Narrabri Observatory, an array of six 22m radio telescope antennas. It is located about 25km west of the town of Narrabri in rural New South Wales (about 500km north-west of Sydney). From there I flew to the Siding Springs Observatory, one the most important astronomical observatories in Australia. It is located about 450 km northwest of Sydney in the Warrumbungle Mountains in the central west region of New South Wales, near Coonabarabran. I had a spectacular view of the observatory domes from my plane. From there I flew past the large radio telescope at the Parkes Observatory. It is located about 25 km north of Parkes. The large dish is fully steerable and has a diameter of 64m.

My hosts brought me back to Lithgow, where I stayed overnight and then took the train back into Sydney for my return flight to the USA.

Australia is a very interesting country. Unfortunately I didn't see enough of it, it would take much more time than I had available. People are generally very friendly. The food is usually very good, as is the beer. One interesting fact is that Fosters beer, so famous in the USA for being the typical Australian beer, is hardly seen in Australia. Is is mostly exported. The most common beer in the area that I visited was Victoria Bitter (called VB for short). Abbreviating words is a happy pastime of the Australians. And they like to use cutesy abbreviations. For instance the Cockatoos are called "Cockies". This also works in aviation, for instance Coolangatta Tower's call sign is "Coolie Tower", Rockhampton Approach is "Rocky Approach", and Bundaberg MBZ is "Bundy MBZ".

Altogether a very enjoyable trip, especially since I got to do a lot of flying. Try it yourself, you'll like it.

All pictures are © Günther Eichhorn

Sydney
Skyline of Sydney across Darling Harbour at sunrise. (340k)	Skyline of Sydney across Darling Harbour. (427k)	Skyline of Sydney across Darling Harbour at sunset. (376k)	Skyline of Sydney across Darling Harbour at night. (489k)	The Harbour Bridge in Sydney. You can go on a walking tour along the arch all the way to the top. (335k)
View of downtown Sydney from the zoo with the Sydney Opera on the right. (442k)	Closer view of Sydney Opera View. Sydney Observatory is on the hill to the right of the Opera. (348k)	The Sydney Opera. (366k)
Australia's East Coast
This is the Cessna 172 that I rented from Australian Flying Adventures in Parkes, NSW (YPKS), to fly north to the Great Barrier Reef. (455k)	View of the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, a very scenic mountain range. (293k)	The Outback, somewhere north of Parkes. It is mostly sheep and cattle country. (441k)	East Australian coast near Brisbane. (329k)	Island on the east coast, north of Rockhampton. (296k)
One of the Whitsunday Islands. (315k)	Sailing in the Whitsundays. (512k)	Cruising in the Whitsundays (427k)	One of the catamarans of FantaSea, the operator of the tour boats to the reef and whale watching. (400k)	There were lots of wild fires. The east coast of Australia had a bad drought in 2002/2003 and suffered significant wild fires. One of the major astronomical observatories, Mt. Stromlo was destroyed by a wildfire. (340k)
This was not a wildfire. It was a dust cloud blown up by a car driving down a dirt road. (314k)
Wildlife
An Emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae) in the Sydney Zoo. (483k)	A short-beaked Echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus), or spiny ant eater. (433k)	Kangaroos in the Sydney zoo (they may be Wallabys, I don't remember). (403k)	A Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) in the zoo. At the conference banquet of the IAU General Assembly they had a koala and a baby kangaroo that people could pet. It was quite interesting to see some of the native animals close-up. (377k)	Stonefish. This and the following three pictures were taken in the Sydney aquarium. (314k)
Cuttlefish, a relative of the octopus and the squid. (306k)	Leafy sea dragon, a relative of the seahorse. (337k)	Shark. (215k)	An Emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae) in the wild. (396k)	Kangaroos on a meadow in the evening light. (412k)
Road sign warning of kangaroo crossing. This is really a problem, I saw many road-kill kangaroos. (293k)	A flock of Sulphur Crested Cockatoos. They are very common birds. I saw large flocks of hundreds of birds when I was flying over the outback. (308k)	Sulphur Crested Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita). (394k)	A pigeon looking bird. Notice the tuft of feathers on its head. (229k)	Australasian Pelican (Pelecanus conspicillatus). (368k)
Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo gigas). I tried to get close for about 15 min, but he didn't want to let me get too close. (605k)	Galah (Rose-breasted) Cockatoo (Cacatua roseicapilla). (455k)	Eastern Rosella Parakeet (Platycerus eximius). (290k)	Closeup scan of the previous picture of an Eastern Rosella Parakeet. (168k)	Crimson Rosella Parakeet (Platycerus elegans). (439k)
Closeup scan of the previous picture of a Crimson Rosella Parakeet. (431k)
The Great Barrier Reef
Pontoon, permanently anchored next to the reef was the base station for the scuba dives. (347k)	Coral (389k)	Coral (394k)	Coral (558k)	Coral and fish (609k)
Coral and fish (400k)	It is not hard to figure out the name of this type of corral, the so-called Brain Coral. (352k)	Coral and fish (372k)	Coral and fish (518k)	Parrotfish (316k)
Sea Turtle (257k)	Angelfish (358k)	Staghorn coral. (455k)	Tube (381k)	A school of fish, acting like one organism. It looked like they were flowing around the larger fish, always keeping a minimum distance. (280k)
Astronomical Observatories in Australia
Sydney Observatory. It is located in the center of Sydney. It is used only for public educational viewing, not for research, since the light pollution prevents any serious observations. (376k)		View of Siding Springs Observatory from the air. This is one of the most important astronomical observatories in Australia. It is located about 450 km northwest of Sydney in the Warrumbungle Mountains in the central west region of New South Wales, near Coonabarabran. The large square dome houses the 2.3m Telescope. (371k)		Another view of Siding Springs with the 3.9m Anglo-Australian Telescope. (391k)
The large radio telescope at the Parkes Observatory, view from the air. It is located about 25 km north of Parkes. The large dish is fully steerable and has a diameter of 64m. (344k)		The Parkes Radio Telescope from the ground. (387k)	The Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA), at the Narrabri Observatory, an array of six 22m antennas. It is located about 25km west of the town of Narrabri in rural New South Wales (about 500km north-west of Sydney), about 80km north of Siding Springs Observatory. You can see several radio telescopes along the diagonal line. They are used in an interferometer configuration to make high angular resolution measurements. (428k)
Whale Watching in the Whitsundays and Hervey Bay
A pod of five Humpback whales, splashing around, having fun. (406k)	Two whales, showing their enormous backs. (384k)	Pod of Humpback whales, one showing his head and mouth. (442k)	This shows the whole whale through the water. (340k)	Whales like to play around in the water. This one was repeatedly slapping his front flipper onto the water. (352k)
This one was rolling over on his back. (411k)	This one was slapping his tail fluke onto the water. (431k)	Closeup of the head of one of the whales. (360k)	When they start to exhale while still partly submerged, they blow up huge fountains of water and spray. (391k)	Closeup of the head with the blow holes. Baileen whales (like the humpback) have dual blow holes, while toothed whales have a single blow hole. (343k)
Closeup of the heads of two whales. You can see the barnacles on the white underside on one of them. (408k)	A closeup of the underside of the head of one of the whales, with barnacles. (434k)	A Dolphin leaping 3m out of the water. (341k)

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