A Not-So-Lazy Sunday Afternoon

We did a couple of the fun touristy things around Canberra this Sunday. First, the high-tech - we went to the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex (DPSCC), where NASA and the Australians communicate with various things in outer space, including Voyager I and Voyager II, now cruising through space beyond the solar system.

The main feature are an array of five satellite dishes, one of them massive. It was a bit strange, driving thru a very rural part of the Australian Capital Territory past farms and campgrounds, then turning off, passing over a ridge, and seeing these huge high-tech satellite dishes plopped down into a pleasant valley.

The visitor's center had the usual nifty displays - descriptions of the Apollo program, food that astronauts ate back in the 1960s, a model of the Lunar Module and the Mars Rover. And a real-live hunk of moon rock.

{{It didn't have anything however about the alien base on the Dark Side of the Moon that destroyed the original NASA and Russian spacecraft that orbited the moon and replaced them with alien clones. Once again, the international conspiracy to keep us in the dark about our Alien Overlords continues. I'll reveal the truth one day, I swear.}}

{{Back to our regularly scheduled blogging.}}

We then went a bit further to the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve. By the time we got there, it was early afternoon and it was HOT - about 90F. So we're strolling along a wide path and we're wondering, "where are the kangaroos?"

Then we saw them - they were all lying in the shade, under the low wide trees scattered about. I counted at least 25 in a mob under a clump of trees. A smaller group of six or so let us get to within about 50 feet. I didn't try to get closer - they aren't meat eaters and they don't have rabies, but a kangaroo's claws will open your belly up real good. (Dying thought/cold consolation after being attacked by a 'roo - "at least I won't get rabies"?)

At this point, after a drive thru some other parts of the park, we split up (a bit disappointed at not having seen any emu) and one car returned home by the north. We turned south instead, to complete the Tidbinbilla tourist drive, and not two minutes down the road found a pair of emu standing near the fence in the middle of a meadow, eating and walking and pooping like emus do.