Day 12 - Off to Dubbo and the Zoo ...

March 13th
Today we leave the NSW town of West Wyalong, and go north to Parkes and visit the telescope known as The Dish, and a movie titled the same, was made about it. After Parkes, we travel to Dubbo, primarily to visit the Taronga Western Plains Zoo - a BIG animals part of Taronga Zoo in Sydney. We were lucky that is was an overcast day (worked in our favour for once !) and nearly all of the animals were out and about. We got our tickets in Singleton, and they last for two days, so if you miss something the first day, you can come back, and most likely see it the next. As we saw all but about two animals, we didn't go back the 2nd day, and went home.
So, for now, we leave West Wyalong, at sunrise and the sun was extremely annoying, too, for about 30 minutes.

A Car Museum. See the vintage car on top of the building ?

We have a long way to go yet ...

When Dad and I came down a year ago, there was a dust storm and we had to take a detour, and now the water is lying along the sides of the road, everywhere !

Some of the competitors going to Qld for the Life Saving Championships, the following week. We saw them again at Goondiwindi, on the NSW / Qld border.

The Big Strawberry.

The Dish :)

Only a few metres from it :)

In Dubbo now, looking back the way we came. Hungry Jacks is on this corner.

The entrance to the Zoo.

Animals, and weird animals.

These Cheetahs are special. They weren't on display, but the trainer is preparing them for public display and we just happen to be there when she was doing a session with them. The lighter ones are males, and there are two females too, the ones with the black "lines" instead of spots. If a male and female have a recessive gene then their offspring revert back to this darker colouring, and it's more like lines than spots. So we were very lucky to see them. They are playing ball games, and have to fetch the ball and return it.

When we eventually decided to have some lunch, at 3.50pm, it was time to close, so we went to Hungry Jacks, as we saw one while turning around to go back to the Zoo from the Motel. Now, do you call this a "points-buster" Steve ! Forget the 8 points on the battered fish!

We just got to the Dubbo Gaol as it was closing, too, and managed to peek a look through an opened door :) The big circular "coin" is actually about 30 cm across and is embedded in the pavement. This photo was actually taken up the other way, because the sun was shining from the wrong direction, and my shadow would have ruined it.

And so that brings us to the end of a tiring but very exciting and fulfilling day ... and we are off north, and home tomorrow.