Hey! It was a really hot day today, like, very hot, it was 31'C in the house today and sadly, it still is! :-( It's too humid and ugh, I can't wait to get back to cool weather, but cool weather is forecast for the day we leave... awww!
Well today we went up to Mount Canobolas, it was a bit windy up there but it felt better than being on the ground, and it was really high up!... but we'll start from the beginning...
This is just going towards Canobolas in the houses in Orange, it shows how bright it was, although I don't think the picture really gives it justice...
Around half way there now, you can see the gum trees starting to come up a lot more, and man were there a lot!
Sara took this as we we're driving by, but we we're going pretty fast, I'm suprised it came out so clear... finally we got to the top!
Here I am at the top! Look how far up we are! To put it into perspective the little town below us is Orange... so we we're quite a ways up... here are some more pictures from the top of the mountain...
As you can see, you can see quite a distance! I went up and looked at the map which showed all the directions of each town...
But because I'm so light the wind actually blew me a little bit to the side, oh well, at least I didn't get blown too far. :-)
Sara and Daniel also showed me the map which shows the points of the mountain range, and which parts actually had eruptions, I think they said the last eruption on Mount Canobolas was around 50 million years ago...
I don't know if you can read what the sign says as it's a small picture, but I'll have Sara type it out for you...
"Within a 30 kilometre radius of Mount Canobolas, approximately 30 vents are known to have erupted. These eruptions commenced about 50 million years ago and halted approximately 10-15 million years ago. The Mount Canobolas vents erupted over that entire period, while others within the 30 kilometre radius we're active for shorter periods. The basalt capping has largely weathered away, producing fertile soils as far away as West Wyalong."
So you know how far away that really is I just had Sara do a search for you, and it says West Wyalong is around 2 hours and 40 minutes drive towards the Bush from Orange. :-) That's a long long way!
Before we we're ready to go on our next trek for the day Sara showed me some "Patterson's Curse" which is a nasty weed that got brought into the country a long time ago by someone from England who thought it was pretty. It's spread all over the country, and causes massive hay fever and it can get so bad it can kill life stock in some areas of Australia... thankfully most of it has died out... but it was still quite rampant up at the top of Mount Canobolas....
On the way down the mountain Sara got out and took some photos at a lookout point...
Next stop Lake Canobolas...
When we got out of the car this is the first thing we saw when we walked into the park... Sara says this area was dry as a bone before but now they've put water back into it... and it had a few ducks to come with it...
Here's a view of the area around Lake Canobolas...
...and then we noticed the seagulls... must get closer...
...not close enough...
...still not close enough...
...whoops there he goes!... I wish I could have gone swimming though, the water looked so good on that hot day! Sara said there was one last stop before we got home...
Look familiar? :-)
Well I'm probably not going to be doing much more as we're leaving very early Friday morning and I'll update again probably when I'm in America next! How strange is that!
Oh, and we said goodbye to our dear friend Super Grover he'll be on his way to Austria tomorrow! Isn't he just adorable?
