We had a jammed pack day today. First we visited Parkes', 'The Dish' which was great for us adults and the kids had some fun too. They particularly liked climbing on the monument directly in front of the dish, running around the gardens outside the visitors centre and telling us we had to turn off our mobile phones. I personally think CSIRO have done a wonderful job with the Visitor Centre and we all particularly liked the 'Whispering Dishes' that they had out the front. These small white dishes demonstrated how the parabolic shape of the dish amplifies sound waves. These two dishes stand approximately 50 metres apart facing each other. One person stands directly in front of a dish, facing it and whispers a message which, then travels the 50 metres across to the other dish where the other person is standing to hear it. With Tig (Phil) and Kai at one dish and myself at the other, Kai found my voice so clear that he walked around the back of the dish just to check I wasn't standing behind it. It was clearer then any UHF chatter we have heard so far. We even had our first experience of the kids leaving something behind. No sooner had we driven out of the car park gates Ella suddenly calls out "where's my book and pencils". As I tried to find somewhere to turn around and travel back down the road, we questioned Ella as to where she had left them. Her only response was "I don't know". Great I thought, we had been many different spots at The Dish and I certainly didn't want to search every spot. Ella was also the cheeky monkey who told us as we drove into the car park again "You need to turn your phone off". Great, I had only just turned it back on. Thankfully Tig and Ella quickly found the items on a picnic table which was the first spot we had wandered to and off we went again. Ella has now learnt that when we say 'Please leave your treasures in the car', we mean it.
Next stop was Dubbo Zoo where we found the signage and system of entry needing some attention. We had a great afternoon driving around in our zebra striped buggy seeing the animals. I did find that I got a little wind chilled as the kids constantly asked Tig to drive faster and he was more then happy to put his foot to the floor and say "This is as fast as this thing goes". Most of the animals we found were quite far away as they have so much room to roam but we did get a close up of the elephants as the keeper came and gave them some branches right near us. The kids enjoyed having a go at taking some photos using our big camera. Unfortunately the Mac is having some difficulty downloading these so I don't have them to show. The only photos I have here to show are one I took with my iPhone. Hopefully I will be able to solve the problem and get them downloaded soon.After the zoo and the compulsory play on the play equipment and flying fox we headed a bit further north to our camping spot (I use that term loosely since we are sleeping in a caravan rather then under canvas). We are surrounded by numerous other caravans and motorhomes which even includes another Bushtracker. They are camped up at the top boundary away from the rest of us so we haven't ventured up to say hello. Tomorrow morning we will probably have a walk around and check out the other set ups.
Tomorrow we are off to Lightning Ridge where unfortunately we will not be catching up with Mike and Chantelle Keith as they are both still out of town. We plan on spending a couple of nights there so we have a whole day to check out what The Ridge has to offer.
Till next time...
Thea
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