Coonabarabran

Stranded in an Australian Country Town
By Celia Jones, Freelance Writer

People seldom stay very long in Coonabarabran (“Coona” in Australian). Travellers use it as a halfway stopover when driving north from Melbourne to Queensland. Last winter, an intended one-night stay in the small Australian country town ended up lasting a week.

After a long day’s driving, my husband and I knew we were getting close to Coona when the The small town of Coonabarabran is often used as a stopping point for people traveling from Melbourne north to Queensland. earthy smell of cow manure assaulted our nostrils, and all we could get on the radio were stock and grain prices. Also, an increasing number of dead kangaroo carcasses littered the highway. I’ve been told that a German tourist once lived here for a month on road kill alone. It seemed likely we would encounter some lively ‘kangas’ (kangaroos) at this time of night, so we kept our eyes peeled, and stuck limpet-like to a local ute (truck) in front of us. With his large extra spotlights and a sturdy-looking bullbar, he could sweep away most of the suicidal kangaroos before they splattered on our front bumper.

In Coona, we checked into our usual self-contained cabin, where the manager had left the electric heater running so the room would be warm for our arrival. It was a very clear night, just the sort of night to take in the evening show at the Skywatch Observatory, a couple kilometres from town. Even with the naked eye, the sky was so clear we could easily see the Milky Way. The freezing temperature took our breath away as we lined up for the guided tour and waited for our turn to look through the smaller telescopes aimed at the various planets.

The next morning, we woke to find the cabin icy and the water pipes frozen solid. While waiting for the pipes to warm up, we took in the pleasant bucolic tableau of the steamy cows huddled together on the frosty paddocks behind our cabin.

Later, we headed out to the Warrumbungles National Park, about 27 kilometres west of Coona. I was enjoying the panorama of ancient volcanic mountain peaks when my adventurous husband turned off the main road onto a rocky, dirt road. We heard a loud thump, but we kept travelling until the warning signals in our car went ballistic. My husband got out of the car just in time to catch the last of the oil dripping from the punctured sump. Empty fields and paddocks all around us didn’t bode well.

Fortunately, in about five min The ill-fated car prepares to turn off the main highway on the way to Warrumbungles National Park, a mere 27 km from Coona. utes, a white ute materialized out of nowhere and sped toward us in a cloud of dust. A young farmer wearing the traditional wide-brimmed Akubra hat came over to us. “You ‘right, mate? We followed the trail of oil to your car.” Luckily, his truck had a UHF radio, which his wife used to call her mother and ask her to get a tow truck from town to pick us up. Five minutes later, another farmer’s ute pulled up to see if he could also offer assistance, and when they both left, the mother with the UHF drove by to see if we were all right waiting for the tow truck. It seemed breaking down on a lonely road was a good way to meet several locals.

We were soon towed back the 30 kilometres to the only garage in town, where we learned that a new oil sump had to be ordered for the car from Sydney. Since it was the weekend, we’d be stuck in town at least another few days; the mechanic drove us back to our cabin. The only eating place in walking distance was a Roadhouse. Inside the diner, the homey smell and crackling sounds of chips frying worked on our appetites. I felt my arteries clogging up just reading the menu; fried breakfasts of eggs, sausages, bacon and chips were the ‘plat du jour’. There was a newspaper at our table, which we assumed the management had provided. After my husband read the entire paper, fingering the pages with greasy, sticky fingers, a large fellow at the next table approached him with a polite: “Can I have my newspaper back, Mate?”

The next day, we hired the only rental car available--an old Ford Falcon—again from the only garage in town, and we had wheels again. This sure beat walking up and down the wide main street of Coona, with nothing to look at but the shop window displays consisting of faded boxes of fertiliser, dusty compost bins and dead blowflies. Our only distraction was one of town’s three pubs where you could get a huge ‘counter meal,’ have a cold beer, play the ‘pokies’ (slot machines) and amuse the locals by trying to say the aboriginal names like Coonabarabran or Warrumbungles with a beer-numbed tongue.

Revving up the old Falcon, we decided to pick up our sightseeing through the Warrumbungles National Park, where we left off before the sump disaster. These ranges contain unusual rock formations created by volcanoes 13 million years ago. On a few easy bushwalks, we found the kangaroo, wallaby and emu populatio "It seemed incredible that the small town of Coona would have such sophisticated telescopes to explore the outer limits of our galaxy," as they did at Siding Springs Oberservatory. ns so prolific that we had to hold our stomachs in to avoid bumping into them on the bush tracks.

On the fourth day, we went to the Siding Springs Observatory, an Anglo-Australian project. Inside a huge white dome was a massive reflecting telescope with eight other smaller telescopes on site and a dramatic photo exhibition of the stars and planets. It seemed incredible that the small, isolated town of Coona would have such sophisticated telescopes to explore the outer limits of our galaxy.

We ran out of steam after the Warrumbungles and the observatories, and cocooned ourselves in our cabin with the oven and fan heater on full. Trying to keep warm and ward off cabin fever, we watched “The Simpsons” and commercials for sheep drench and tractors. I did emerge the next day to take in the Crystal Kingdom not far from where we were staying. The lady who owned the shop had a very large collection of minerals, Zeolite crystals and fossils peculiar to the area. She spent so much time giving me background information on the various minerals of the area that I felt obliged to purchase a couple of inexpensive crystal necklaces.

On the seventh day, (the same time required to create the world), after repeatedly hounding the patient, laconic town mechanic with “Has the sump arrived yet,” our car was finally fixed. Surprisingly, the bill was reasonable considering we were completely at the mercy of the only garage for miles.

Ecstatic at finally having our own car back, we were eager to journey on to our destination. As we drove north out of town toward cities and civilization, we reflected on our experiences and the friendliness of the people we encountered and concluded that if we had to be stranded in a country town, we could have done a lot worse than Coonabarabran.

If You Go

General information on Coonabarabran:

http://www.coonabarabran.com/

http://www.coonabarabran.itsyou.info/

http://www.visitnsw.com.au/

(New South Wales Tourist Bureau)

Information on Warrumbungles National Park:

www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/parks.nsf/ParkContent/N0035?OpenDocument&ParkKey=N0035&Type=Xo

Information on Siding Spring Observatory and tours:

http://www.sidingspringexploratory.com.au/

Skywatch Observatory Information:

http://www.skywatchobservatory.com/ecommerce/pressrelease.asp

Accommodation:

Castlereagh Village, Oxley Hwy, 2km north of Post Office. Phone: 02 6842 1706

**All photos by Allan Jones, except "Siding Springs Observatory" by Peter Innes