Christmas 2013 roadtrip

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

 

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!

 

Thanks! That was a really close call back then.

 

Wow, looks like they're really serious about interference. In the radio telescopes I went to, they only asked to turn off mobile phones.

 

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. : )