Skywatching

I'm writing this as we are driving from Arakoon up towards Coff's Harbor. Hopefully we'll make it farther than today today as Coff's Harbor is only about 140km(84mi) away. We may spend two nights at our next destination, giving us some more time to do a day hike or some sightseeing.

Before settling down to bed last night, we stepped out of the tent for a walk up to the gaol(read: jail) at the top of the hill. Earlier in the day there was a great view of the sea here. At night, it was breathtaking. I honestly don't think I have ever been so close to speechless before. The night sky was clear, with only a few small clouds. Above us, a field of stars twinkled and shone like no planetarium could ever hope to capture. The Orion constellation stood out brightly, his belt drawing a line across the sky. South of the equator he appears inverted, his sword hangs upward from his belt.

The JJ's are both physics majors and both took some astronomy classes so they were able to point out a few new constellations to me. Living in Boston now, I rarely have a good of of the stars. The blackness goes on forever, filled by more stars than I've ever seen. Some bright, some dim, but all united in their beauty. To think that millions of years ago, my prehistoric ancestor stood in my very spot and shared my vary view truly gives on perspective.

After waking up today, we went for a decent walk down along the beach. Without realizing it we had pretty much walked all the way to the South West Rocks town center. Along the beach were some signs of sea life, alot of coral and seashells. There were also heaps of dried up blue bottles, an Aussie version of jelly fish. They are called blue bottles because they are transparent, but have a slight blue tint, probably to help them blend in better in the water. Some of them were absolutely huge, we saw one that had a stinger that was a full meter long. Luckily, these won't kill you from getting stung. The box jellyfish found along the northern coast is much more deadly.

On reaching the other end of the beach we took a few minutes to take some photos of the rocks and to go for a dip. The water here was deeper and the waves much bigger than where we were camped. A family was also in the water with us, jumping off the rocks into the water. After drying off, we walked back to our campsite and took off for the next leg of our trip.