Travelling Australia - Journal 2010  http://www.travelling-australia.info

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1-4 October 2010 - Coonabarabran
The caravan park we stayed in had a definite, regular daily cycle during the week. It was about ten per cent full in the middle of the day and gradually filled with caravans during the afternoon to the extent that vans arriving at five o'clock had to search for a spot (sites were not allocated by the office; new arrivals paid for their stay and were told to find whatever site they wanted). In the morning, the full caravan park began emptying after breakfast and by lunchtime there was a handful of stayers left; they could usually be identified by spread awnings. Most travellers remained for one night and did not go outside the caravan park during the stay; not a particularly good outcome for the tourist industry in the town. This cycle altered for the long weekend when the park was nearly half-full for the three days. We thought this could be because people wanted to be off the highway during the long weekend, possibly encouraged by about 30 hours of continuous rain on Saturday night, all of Sunday and much of Sunday night.
	The Newell Highway passes through the middle of Coonabarabran, complete with heavy transports such as this B-double.
The caravan park was alongside the Oxley/Newell Highway and from our van we could watch B-doubles, and other heavy transports, on that highway. For some reason B-doubles looked bigger and more threatening viewed from the side at a distance than they do when seen in the opposite lane on a highway. The Newell Highway is a busy route for heavy transports between Melbourne/Geelong and Queensland and passes right through the middle of Coonabarabran but the town makes no concessions to through traffic. Coonabarabran uses reverse parking in the street and the road is not wide enough for vehicles to pull out of the traffic stream before reversing into a space; a driver seeing a spot to park just stops and begins reversing from the traffic lane while any traffic behind waits. The sight of a couple of B-doubles on a main interstate route stopped in the road while a small sedan reverses into a parking spot in the shopping area indicates the Coonabarabran attitude to Newell Highway traffic.
	Clocktower in roundabout at intersection with Newell Highway in Coonabarabran.
Coonabarabran is a service centre for the surrounding area and base for astronomical observatories established in the Warrambungles. A substantial Information Centre provides tourist information on the Warrambungles and on the Pilliga Reserve; the Discovery Centre in Baradine is lead centre for the Pilliga but Coonabarabran necessarily handles questions from travellers along the Newell Highway who can easily stop at Coonabarabran but may not be prepared to drive about 40 kilometres to Baradine. The Coonabarabran Visitor Centre includes an annex of the Australian Museum in which a Diprotodon skeleton found near Coonabarabran is on display. This is a worthwhile presentation, especially the skull and jaws in a glass case.
	Diprotodon skull found near Coonabarabran on display at the Information Centre. A less complete skull is displayed at Burra and a full size Diprotodon representation at Mungo National Park.

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