High spirits and shooting stars
It’s not hard to imagine Jurassic Park from the summit of the Grand High Tops, a remnant volcano shield which 13 million years ago hissed, grumbled and belched Warrumbungle National Park into existence. Here, 960m above sea level, the world seems prehistoric; a rippling green skirt pierced by a giant’s crown of lava domes, plugs and soaring spires. It’s awe-inspiring in the humbling way of big nature, and I half expect a dinosaur to poke its head above the canopy and start munching on a branch.
Australia’s only Dark Sky Park, about 515km north-west of Sydney, is a magnet for hikers and climbers alike, with various trails for all levels of fitness – including this show-stopping 14.5km Breadknife and Grand High Tops Circuit. It’s breathtaking by day, but nightfall is when the magic really happens. That’s when the sky dazzles with a trillion twinkling stars, satellites, shooting stars and nebulas, easily seen with the naked eye.
We’re here to see the annual Geminids meteor shower, a shooting-star extravaganza which happens in December when Earth passes through the asteroid 3200 Phaethon. The debris left behind is more rock than dust, showering the sky with dozens of spectacular slow-burning streaks of light.
It’s a fitting end to our week-long road trip in northern NSW. From high up at Balor Hut, a rustic cabin near the Grand High Tops summit, the night sky is a glittering web. At 2am, it’s also freezing cold. That’s soon forgotten as the first shooting star zips across the sky. Then another. And another. Then for what feels like long seconds at a time, we watch openmouthed as a dazzling streamer of light shimmies across the sky like a ribbon-twirling gymnast leaping through the air.
It’s no less spectacular in Lightning Ridge, more than 300km earlier, and what now feels like another world. It’s 5am, and the night air is cool. In the artesian bore baths just outside town, though, we’re up to our necks in thermal waters, naturally heated to 41.5 degrees.
Despite the early hour, we’re not alone. Two older men gab about the weather. A third dons goggles, and to our amusement swims laps, pausing every few turns to guzzle bottled water.
As dawn splashes the sky galah-pink and gold, others slip into the hot waters with an audible sigh, turning to strike up a conversation. We linger awhile, chatting and soaking up the genial ambience, while the mineral-rich waters melt our muscles to jelly.
Black opals and fossicking might draw travellers to Lightning Ridge, but this circular thermal pool set beneath a star-spangled dome sky is a blissful find on an outback road trip.
Out here, on the edge of the desert, the Great Artesian Basin splurges to the surface, giving rise to the fertile black soil prized by wheat and cotton farmers, and a proliferation of mineral-rich natural hot springs.
We’re following the Great Artesian Drive, a meandering loop through north-west NSW, where many of these hot bore baths and spas are a relaxing antidote to a day of driving. There are eight in total, but we’re dipping our toe in five, making the 1831km round trip from Sydney in a six-berth motorhome from Camptoo (camptoo.com.au), a website for caravan and RV owners not unlike Airbnb.
Pilliga, a small farming town near Narrabri, is the start of our spa trail. It’s dusk by the time we pull up to the small hot springs, the sun casting long, buttery blades across an idyllic rural setting. Two farmers hog the bore jet, eyes bright red from its sulphurous sting, and a group of Indigenous girls lounge on the watery steps, sipping soft drink while pop music blares from a portable radio. We exchange shy smiles as I sink into the pool, the warm 37-degree waters enveloping me like a hug.
It’s a little slimy underfoot and only waist-deep, but instantly reviving and so refreshing after our big drive. We languish long after everyone has gone, letting the bore jet pummel our shoulders as the sky flares orange.
From Pilliga to Burren Junction and onto Moree, the next day we spool past wheat silos, cotton crops waving gently in the breeze, and a tractor tilling the earth, leaving a billowing cloud of dust in its wake. Bright-green parrots kamikaze-dive across our path on another ‘shortcut’ gravel road flanked by fields of gold and green.
It’s big country out here: sun-blasted, endlessly flat and top-heavy blue. We spot few cars, but plenty of wildlife: kangaroos disappearing in a cloud of red dust; cockatoos like confetti flung against a cornflower-blue sky; and a mob of emus dashing helter-skelter through the bush.
Moree is a town with so many hot springs, it reminds me of Edward Lear’s nonsense poem about three men who went to sea in a sieve. Driving into town, we pass a sea of motels advertising pools and hot tubs where
“We spend the afternoon soaking, steaming & unwinding.”
the Great Artesian Basin splutters up from below.
The jewel in Moree’s crown is the $7 million state-of-the-art Artesian Aquatic Centre, first tapped in 1895, and today boasting two health-giving artesian pools, heated to 38 and 40 degrees, and an adults-only day spa with treatment rooms, a sauna, plunge pool and large thermal bath. We slip in here after a late lunch at the very likeable Brooker Trading Co, and spend the afternoon soaking, steaming and generally unwinding, happily emerging two hours later, pink, damp and deliriously limp.
It’s a different kettle of fish at our unexpected find. On the tip of a local and hastily scribbled directions, we head out of town, down gravel roads where po-faced cows mingle, to a secret bore. This one is a simple circle of cement-filled petrol drums with a bore jet in the middle (pictured bottom right). A steady torrent of hot springs splashes into the pool, catching the light, and mirroring green crops and blue sky. We have it all to ourselves. I squish my toes in the sandy bottom, gaze at the flat bowl of farmland and endless sky, and soak it all in. More at visitnsw.com