Narrabri

Narrabri is in the centre of cotton country, and we had been hoping to do a tour of a cotton gin, but these no longer run so we had to content ourselves with just a photo of a cotton field. We also visited the Australia Telescope Compact Array, a collection of 6 telescopes used by the CSIRO to study far distant galaxies. One telescope is fixed while the other 5 can be moved along a 3km rail track - interestingly the track is absolutely flat and does not follow the curvature of the earth, although you couldn't tell the difference with the naked eye.

On Saturday the local wine and food festival, the Nosh on the Namoi (named after the nearby Namoi River), was held in easy walking distance from our caravan park. This was a pleasant coincidence as we hadn't even been aware that it was on until we got here. We came home with some gluten free anzac biscuits and local cheese, as well as fish and fresh salad veg for dinner.

The main local attraction is the nearby Mt Kaputar National Park, centred on a range of hills formed by volcanic activity around 20 million years ago. Subsequent weathering has left dramatic landforms including volcanic plugs and sheer cliffs, contrasting with the flat plains beyond. We spent a terrific day here doing various walks. We had hoped to spend another day at a different part of the park walking into a deep gorge, but after struggling down a very muddy 4wd track (compliments of the heavy rain the night before) to the parking area, we managed only about 100 metres of the walking track before being stopped by a gushing creek, presumably thanks to the same rain. A third section of the park which has organ-pipe style rock formations known as Sawn Rocks was closed as they are doing upgrades to the access road, so we'll have to make a repeat visit to Narrabri to finish off the experience.