The eyes have it!

Bit of a play on words there, but we can't not mention how truly, unbelievably, scarily disgusting Mark's eyes now are. In fact, they are so bad that he had to see a doctor in Coonabarabran to get some heavy duty eye drops and ointment. He tells me that not only do they look bad (and believe me, they DO look bad), but they are also painful - sort of like flash burns from a welder. With all of the pus constantly coming out of them, coupled with the entire whites of his eyes now blood red, even the chemist had a hard time looking at him. Ugh. Hopefully the medications will do the trick, but we have been told that what he has is extremely contagious and that we shouldn't share any linen and to disinfect the washing (yeah right....on a caravan trip!). Mark says that he now has a new empathy with cows that get pink eye.

Today we left Dubbo and headed for the Warrumbungle National Park. In particular, Camp Blackman campsite. On the way, I decided to count the number of caravans, motorhomes and the like. By the time we got to Coonabarabran, I was up to 52. A fair number considering that the trip wasn't all that long (180kms). A quick stop in town (to see aforementioned dr) and grab some lunch before heading out to the National Park (about 36km further along).

The winding road into the park was dotted with a number of places that had their own little observatories. This is probably due to the fact that the Sliding Springs Observatory is located in the Warrumbungles. It is open during the day for visitors, but closed in the evenings because the scientists are conducting their experiments. We might call in there on our way out tomorrow.

Being a National Park, we had to collect firewood outside the park boundaries, so after depositing Biddy and I at the camp ground, Mark took Tom off for wood collection. They came back with a modest pile - enough to cook the obligatory marshmallows that we had promised Tom. He has never been camping before, and was so excited. Unbelievably, he was great around the fire, and neither kid scorched themselves on gooey confectionery.

The kangaroos are absolutely everywhere in here, many of them with joeys in their pouches suggesting that either there were some fertile roos around, or it was a good year nutritionally. Probably both! At any rate, there are Eastern Greys all over the place. And they obviously see lots of campers, because they are far from wary of us.

There are plenty of walks around here and I'm sorry that we are not here long enough to give a few a go. The scenery is spectacular - the Warrumbungles were formed as a result of volcanic activity 13 - 17 million years ago and have quite distinct craggy peaks. But be warned; in seasons other than summer, I can imagine that it gets damn cold in here. Even tonight, the cold air simply appeared and forced us into the confines of the van a bit earlier than anticipated. Bring warm stuff.

Campsite wrap up: the campsites here (that caravans can use at the least), are quite civilised, with some of the powered sites sporting bitumened areas. There is quite a bit of room here, but I am lead to believe that it is quite crowded in NSW school holidays. Even now, there are a few in. There is a new powered site area just opened up, but there is very little shade here (not a problem at the moment) as the trees are so small. The older area is amongst established trees and I daresay, would be more popular in summer. There is an amenities block (showers and toilets, public phone) which we haven't visited yet (it is a bit of a walk), but there are compost toilets close by to all the camp areas. You are allowed to have fires, but being a National Park you have to bring in your own wood. This is a nice place to rough it a bit whilst having some of the small luxuries around you. Great if you are into bushwalking or just lolling about, but unless small kids are into bushwalking too, you may find that they will be pestering you to 'do something' as there is no playground (that I saw anyway). I believe that there is a discovery programme for kids, but I don't know the details. I liked this place and would definitely return if around this way.