The Dish

27/3

Today we visited Parkes observatory. It seems since the film "The Dish" it has become quite a tourist attraction. We eschewed the opportunity for breakfast at hotel and instead dined on pancakes with a lovely view of the the main radio telescope. The science displays where relatively basic but we did treat ourselves to the "Isn't the universe amazing" slide-show in one of the theatres. The staff were very helpful but were a little lost by my questions, I'm afraid the bar has been set quite high by my visit to Joderall Bank.

On our way to the wine growing region of Mudgee we stopped off for a visit at the Peak Hill open cast mine. It's a pretty impressive example (yet small by Aussie standards) of open cast gold mining. We went for a wonder around 3 of the mines and snapped a number of nice shots of the landscape.

We arrived in Mudgee with enough time to visit one of the local honey shops. I'm afraid I found most of the honeys too sweet for my tastes. This is apparently a product of the high amount of eucalyptus in the area. However the mead was quite nice and hopefully Lee will appreciate the bottle we are bringing back for him.

We stayed car bound for the early afternoon and visited a port producing place as well as a sheep/goat cheese manufacturing farm. It took a while to rinse the taste of the stronger goat cheese from my taste buds. We then retired to the hotel and prepared for the evenings pursuits. We ate at a local restaurant that allows you to cook your own steak. Once we were all sated by large slabs of beef we wandered back into the blackness out of town for a little star gazing.