We'd left the flat scrubby land behind us yesterday to set off into much more interesting terrain. We drove back out of our spot in the bush to Baradine, then kept going southwest to hop on the John Renshaw Parkway into the Warrumbungles. Driving to the Warrumbungle National Park was beautiful, with rapeseed fields everywhere glowing yellow under the sun.
It was so nice to be back to the mountains again, and as we drove into the National Park, all you could see was the tree-covered mountains (as well as an observatory right on top of one). We stopped off and had a walk around, but there had been a fire in the past few years and the bush was in recovery mode - there were blackened stumps with bright green offshoots everywhere. I love seeing the bush regenerate, but it didn't make for nice photos. We also went for a look around the observatory, which was interesting.
We stopped off at Coonabarabran for some lunch and to pick up some supplies. Josh went to get some ice from an automatic machine, which to his amusement packed the ice in a bag to the tune of Ice Ice Baby. Back on the road again, we drove off towards Dubbo. The campsite that we were aiming for was called Ponto Falls Reserve and, compared to other campsites we'd been to, this one was packed! It was also very noisy, with large clouds of cockatoos flying around. Dusk was so beautiful, and the colour of the sky was just amazing. We also stayed up (and rugged up) that night to take a few shots of the sky - Josh is a great astrophotographer and he was teaching me the basics because I kinda suck at it, and I wanted to take more Northern Lights photos when I went back to Europe!