Whyalla

Last weekend we took a day trip down to the town of Whyalla. It is a small town about 45 minutes down the coast from Port Augusta.

It started in the early 1900s as a port where iron ore from inland could be loaded onto ships to be taken to Port Pirie. In the 1940s, a blast furnace was started that would purify the ore into iron. Later a steel mill was added in conjunction with the blast furnace. Also in the 40s, a shipyard was opened for constructing patrol ships for WWII and commercial ships after the war. Today, the shipyard is closed, but the blast furnace/steel mill is still operational. The town is also promoting itself as a tourist destination with scenic coastlines, museums and dolphin and cuttlefish watching.

We had a quick lunch at a local hotel when we first arrived:

Then we went down to see the harbor to hopefully see a dolphin or two. We got there just as some fishermen were returning to the dock. It is common for them to throw scraps overboard and the dolphins have learned to trail the boats in the hopes that they will get fed.

One of the fishermen gave Christa a leftover bait fish and told her how to get a dolphin to come and eat it.

photo from Dunc

Sequence of dolphin approaching and gently taking the fish out of her hand:

Us (plus an unidentified lady) being dolphin paparazzi:

photo from Dunc

The dolphins were pretty curious (or greedy for food). Both in the harbor and while we were on a jetty, they were watching us. They would often swim on their side so they could keep one eye above the water and see through the air.

We also saw a local fisherman catching squid for dinner.

As we were leaving a huge pelican swooped in and landed on a lamp post:

Viewed in the right way, they look like silly cartoon characters:

Biking

I have done some biking on this trip, but not nearly as much as last time. Our work hours are crazier, it has been a lot hotter, and my car has been needed at work.
I planned to do more off road riding this trip so I bought some new improved puncture resistant tires. One of the local plants has completely defeated them. It has small, rock hard seeds, with a single sharp point. They are perfectly sized for my tread so they fit between the nobs and have just enough reach to puncture both the tire and inner tube. They leave tiny punctures that are impossible to find without submerging the tire in water and cannot be seen even when I know exactly where they are.

Offending seed:

One day I went a little farther out of Woomera than normal. As I was riding through one of the rare patches of mud here, I noticed that both tires were deflating. My bike was covered in stinky mud, it was 95 degrees, I was 4+ miles from home and had two flats and one spare tube. I found I could pump up both tires and then ride about 400 meters before they got so flat I had to stop. I did this about 4 times. In my frustration, I also managed to bounce my bike pump out of my bag twice and had to backtrack to find it. Eventually, I threw the bike in the bushes and walked the 3 miles back to Woomera, got the car and went back to recover the bike. I haven't ridden my bike since. There are some bikes here we can borrow. I thought they handled the seeds better, but when I went to borrow a bike this afternoon, I found the bike I rode the other day had a flat. Between that bike and my own, I have 4 intertubes to try to fix this afternoon...

Sorry state of my bike for the last 2 weeks (two flats and splattered in mud and dust):

I got a great new app (GPS Kit) that allows me to record where I ride and export it to Google Earth. In this way, I can overlay all my rides on top of each other and see everywhere I have ridden. I am now trying to cover as many paths/roads as possible. Here is what I have done so far. The single red path is my walk home after the double flat debacle. For reference, the yellow line is one mile long.

Rockets

Being in Woomera (and being fascinated by rockets and aircraft) I feel obligated to mention some of the technology developed here. The Woomera range was originally established as a joint project between the UK and Australia for the development of rockets after WWII. The types of rockets being researched and developed included ICBMs, antiaircraft missiles, satellite launch vehicles, sounding rockets (for atmospheric research) and antitank weapons. In addition, several atomic bomb tests were conducted in the 1950s and there were a variety of radar tracking sites for space/satellite/defense purposes.

The Skylark sounding rocket was used for many experiments related to atmospheric research and astronomy. It could lift a 200kg payload to an altitude of roughly 200km. Over 400 of them were launched worldwide from 1957 to 2000. The one pictured here has a an optional second stage on the bottom that added 4 seconds of burn time and an additional 90km of altitude. Multiple experiments were typically fitted into the nose cone.

The Black Knight Rocket was originally designed as a test vehicle for studying designs and materials for reentry. Originally it was intended to help with the development of the Blue Streak rocket but this program ended up getting cancelled. Later flights were done in conjunction with the US for studies needed for its manned space flight program. The initial rockets would reach altitudes of 800km and then fall back into the atmosphere reaching velocities above 3km/s. Later versions used a second stage rocket that fired after the rocket was falling back to earth and further increased the downward velocity to 5km/s.

The flights were done at night so the reentry could be seen optically. I found the following image of a Black Knight reentry. (stolen from http://www.spaceuk.org/bk/bk_pics/5.htm) The reentry head is the longer streak.

One of the most iconic vehicles here is the Jindivik target drone (aboriginal for "The Hunted One"). It was developed by Australia for the testing of antiaircraft missiles. It took off on a wheeled trolley. Once it gained sufficient airspeed, the Jindivik detached from the trolley which stayed on the ground. It took 5 people to remotely pilot the vehicle. Generally, the Jindivick tows a target (eg a flare) behind it for missile tests, though sometimes it was used as the primary target. It had no wheels and landed by sliding on its underside.

An image of one taking off:

Additionally, old fighters (like the Meteor below) and bombers were modified to be unmanned target drones as well.

Starting in the 50s, a lot of testing was done on anti-aircraft missiles. An example of this is the Thunderbolt missile pictured below. The 4 yellow rockets were additional boosters that detached shortly into flight. The missile used semi-active radar to find its target. A ground based radar was required to illuminate the target aircraft. The missile detected the radar reflection off the target and homed in on it.

Video of a Thunderbird test.

Finally, here is a piece of equipment used for the testing. A kinetheodolite. It was used to record the flight of the object under test (eg bomb or rocket). It took two operators to keep the camera on the target: one kept it aligned in azimuth and one in elevation. It's camera took images of the target and annotated them with the current azimuth and elevation of the pedestal.

Example image from a kinetheodolite (from the book Fire Across the Desert - Peter Morton). People would have to analyze each frame of data, recording the azimuth and elevation of the target and adding a correction if the target was not correctly centered in the crosshairs.  

Streaky Bay

After completing our travel through the Gawler ranges, we ended up a little over an hour from the west coast of the Eyre Peninsula. We decided to take off for Streaky Bay then, to see the ocean! We showed up to the small town about dinner time and took a pleasant swim near the harbor. We kept feeling our hands were hitting something while swimming. It felt a bit like one of the water jets on the side of a pool. Towards the end, we realized there were tons of small transparent jellyfish that we were banging into.

Harbor area:

Our hotel:

According to the tourist guide, Streaky Bay is one of the centers of seafood in Australia and we couldn't wait to get a good seafood dinner. Unfortunately, the really good restaurant in town is only open 4 days a week. The only other place that served seafood was our hotel. They had about 8 seafood meals:
    several types of fish: deep fried and breaded
    shrimp: deep fried and breaded
    abalone: deep fried and breaded
    calamari: deep fried and breaded.
The oyster appetizer was the only dish that was not deep fried and breaded.
They did sell seafood in the shops there, but we didn't have any facilities for cooking our own meals. 

Non breaded oysters:

The following morning, we did a scenic loop 20 or 30 km down the coast. There were some spectacular views from the cliffs overlooking the ocean.

We found one place to do a bit of snorkeling. The water was pretty chilly. We saw a few fish and some seaweed, but nothing tremendously exciting. 

Duncan getting up the nerve to get wet:

On the return part of the loop we came to the dune section with beautiful fine white sand and no signs telling us we couldn't climb on them.

View at the top of the dunes:

 Weird sand formations:

I did the obligatory running jump down an edge of the dune.

Finally, we went up the coast a few kilometers to the Whistling Rocks. These are porous rocks where air and water is forced up tubes in the rocks by the impact of waves at the waters edge. The higher holes produce odd breathing sounds as air is forced up them. The ones at the water's edge would spray fountains of water into the air.
A sign describing the phenomena:

Water spraying from the blow holes as a wave hits.

Lizards

We saw a lot of lizards in the Eyre Peninsula. They were prolific in the Gawler Ranges especially. We didn't notice them at first, but once we did, we couldn't help but see them everywhere. All the ones we saw were pretty small. Their bodies ranged from 1in to 4-5 inches in length. Duncan got most of these shots since I didn't have my long range lens the first day. Here he is getting shots of a small orange lizard:

A shot of the lizard. The way he camoflauges into the rhyolites is pretty impressive. He has similar orange, black, and white specs to the rock. I spent time trying to identify these guys and concluded they were all members of lizardus unidentifius.

We saw lizards with different coloring in several other environments.
Lizard on granite:
Lizard on sand:

I think this is a skink. We spotted him about 10 ft away from us. He nonchalantly headed towards us. When he was less than a meter from me, I moved which scared him off. He soon approached within a couple feet again. This happened about 3 times. If this were a dog, I would have considered his behavior as one of timid curiosity.

Yet another lizard:

Duncan got this cool shot:

The Gawler Ranges

The next morning we headed off to visit the Gawler Ranges. These were formed 1.5 billion years ago by large volcanic activity. The amount of lava expelled was some 30000 times that emitted by Mt Saint Helens. Over the years, the valleys have been filled in with silt.

To get into the park, we had to drive about 60km, mostly on dirt roads. The roads were scenic and not bad to drive on. Being his company vehicle, Duncan had to (got to) do all the driving.

Once we got into the park, we found slightly more exciting roads and were glad for the high clearance of our "ute". (Australian for pickup truck/utility vehicle.) We met a couple that were attempting to do the 4wd drive loop in the equivalent of a VW van.

The vegetation was a bit different. We saw a lot of spinifex (a type of grass), which we don't have much of in Woomera. This variety I believe is porcupine grass, named because its stems are sharp and quite stiff. Generally, spinifex grows in areas that are dry and often lacking nutritional content. Unlike the chenopods which favor dry but nutritionally rich soil.
Spinifex:

A mix of acacia, saltbush and spinifex: (the colors are a bit garish, but that is what I was seeing all day with my polarized sun glasses.)

Some startled kangaroos look back at us after fleeing. I have determined that Red Kangaroos may or may not be red and Grey Kangaroos may or may not be grey. These may or may not be Red or Grey Kangaroos...

We stopped at several places that would have waterfalls during the rainy season. They all had a trickle of water seeping down them, and some had small pools of algae filled water and even tadpoles. We weren't completely sure where all the water for the waterfall would come from as the fall's catchment area did not seem to extend beyond a single hill or two.

The second falls we stopped at had a very nice formation of rhyolites which are formed as large volumes of lava cool. As it is cooling, cracks develop perpendicular to the surface that is being cooled by the air (the cracks are generally vertical). The rock becomes an assembly of vertical columns. As they wear away and crumble, they break along the crack lines and take on a form that causes causes them to also be nicknamed "pipe organs".

Duncan on top of the pipe organs.

We stopped at one of the falls to eat our lunch out of the back of the ute before it rotted in the hot sun.

In one region of the park we saw areas in the distance that looked a bit blackened and that were full of dead trees. It appeared there had been fires across a number of the hills to the south of us. Eventually, we came to a region where the fire had burned across the road. Much of the brush was gone and all the leaves on the trees were dead. The fires are not supposed to be real intense in this type of terrain. The vegetation is not that dense and the salt content of plants like the saltbush acts as a fire retardant.

Once section of road we drove on had a line of dirt down the middle. It looked like one half the road had been grated and they had left a ridge right smack in the center of the road. Sure enough, several minutes later a grater passed us coming in the opposite direction. He was regrading the dirt road to keep it smooth.