Yesterday's thunderstorms had cleared, but we had a windy night and the wind continued as we headed towards Warrumbungle National Park via Coonarbarabran. 

On the five main roads into Coonabarabran three-dimensional planet models are displayed on huge billboards with the size of the planets and the distance between each billboard scaled relative to the 37-metre Anglo-Australian Telescope dome at Siding Spring Observatory which represents the Sun. It is called the Solar System Drive and perhaps underlines Coonabarabran's claim as The Astronomy Capital of Australia .

On the outskirts of Coonabarabran we stopped at Crystal Kingdom. Originally established in 1974, it is divided into a display of minerals and fossils from the local area and exhibit which contains items collected from elsewhere in the world.

We then went to the Visitor Information Centre, where apart from the usual tourist information there was an extensive display relating to Australia's megaforna. This display is relevant to Coonabarabran because one of the finest diprotodon skeleton specimens was found nearby at Tambar Springs in 1979. The Diprotodon, the largest known marsupial about the size of a large rhinoceros, roamed Australia during the last 1 - 2 million years and may have become extinct as recently as 20,000 years ago. 

The drop in temperature from the high 20s we'd been having in Queensland to the mid-teens was a bit hard to take and so we stopped for a pie for lunch at the bakery and managed to find space to squeeze in a nice cake too.

It was then just a short drive to the Warrumbungle National Park Visitor Centre where we paid for a two night stay on a powered site at Camp Blackman. We were surprised by how many caravans there were already at Camp Blackman, but we found and set ourselves up on a nice site.

We drove back to the Visitor Centre to view the interpretive displays. Interestingly we initially thought the Visitor Centre was closed because there appeared to be temporary fencing around it, but one of the staff members told us that it was there to stop the kangaroos eating the garden which they were trying to establish after the Centre was rebuild following the devastating 2013 fire. The rebuild has certainly resulted in an impressive facility.

Dinner was chicken schnitzels with a Caesar salad followed by banana and rice pudding, which was interspersed with watching the opening games of the NBL on Foxtel via the internet. You're not really roughing it when you're in a National Park, but you have access to free to air TV and the internet! Lightning provided a little extra entertainment and we had a light shower of rain. Hopefully tomorrow's weather will be conducive to taking in some of the spectacular Park scenery.