Carnarvon

A 220km drive today in fairly constant head winds which slowed us down. The roads were busier as we are heading closer to the populous areas. And the area is flat with low scrub for the whole trip. Arriving in Carnarvon we set up camp then straight into town for lunch. Food choices were very limited.

We visited the Space and Technology museum in the afternoon. This is based at the OTC Earth Station which so set up by NASA to maintain communications with space capsules from 1966. It also was used for the first live TV broadcast from Australia to the UK. The TV pictures were fed via the satellites but the voice feed was via undersea cable which posed a few timing issues. Today though there is now the nbn satellite station here which gives high speed internet to outback Australia with the two skymuster satellites.

The museum has acquired so many items it was hard to know where to look first. A lot of the equipment in the museum was technology that I saw when I first started my telco career. That makes me feel old when the equipment now belongs in a museum! A meal out at Carnarvon hotel completed our day. This area sure is windy!

We also found out today that any chance of returning to NZ next month via the Aus/NZ bubble is now not possible so we are in WA for a bit longer. It's disappointing but then again we couldn't really be in a better place to extend our trip. So much still to see.Read more