Hot and Cold

Dubbo turned on quite a mild morning for our departure. I spent some time checking the data on Mt Kaputar last night, and after a phone call to my brother I had some thinking to do. Mt Kaputar is 1400m above sea level and typically records temperatures 10 deg below those felt down on the plain. The weather forecast indicated a change moving through and indeed through the morning the cloud disappeared as we travelled North.

The snag though was that in the last couple of days Narrabri had fallen to –2, so by the rough rule of thumb on the website, we could see as low as –12. I don’t believe that for a moment, but in any event we can expect it to be cold.

So after our departure I did a quick poll of the back seat and gave them a choice of cold on a mountain top, or warm in an artesian spring. No surprises in what the returning officer reported. That wasn’t a bad outcome because that gave us an opportunity to travel west of the Newell along the Castlereagh River on our way to lunch at Pilliga.

Pilliga’s claim to fame is that the forest of that name is the largest natural cypress pine forest in the world. It is a reserve exploited commercially to supply cypress for the building industry as it is a tough termite-resistant wood. There is however little to detain us though so after lunch we were off the the artesian bore baths at Burren Junction just up the road.

Coming from over 900m underground, the water emerges at 44degC and is cooled slightly before being poured into a round tank set in the ground. The overflow from this goes into a much smaller paddling pool for little kids before running out into the bore drain. The water flows continuously keeping the main pool around 38-40degC.

While it was pleasant enough, I’ve been in much nicer thermal pools. The big disappointment though was the associated campground where I had planned on spending the night was just a bare dirt carpark with about 100 people already installed. It was unanimous that an aspirational campsite it was not, so we were back on the road.

Kaputar was back on the agenda. So up we went. During the climb the temp went from 15 to 5, so the 10 degree differential was in effect. The afternoon sun though was spectacular and made for a very scenic climb.We still had plenty of time to set up camp before dark and get food underway. On the way a new beeping from the car gave a little amusement – the ice warning on the dash was triggered, warning us of potentially slippery conditions. The thermometer continued to plummet, dropping to 1.8 before the wind rose moderating things somewhat into the high 2s. My mad children though were hoping that tonight would be one of the occasions for snow on Mt Kaputar.

The instruction was to put on every scrap of clothing feasible and for once it was reasonably obeyed. Dinner was attended by a collection of Michelin sumos.

As I write the cloud is thickening, but I doubt the snow is coming.