Topical 22/9/20

And in the history department – “Not so many decades ago,” a reader tells Topical “ Yarrie Lake Road was a dirt road with some pretty rough patches. When deliberations for the development of a solar radio observatory at Culgoora were underway in the 1960s, the CSIRO Division of Radiophysics sought an undertaking from the Namoi Shire Council that the road would be sealed, to clinch Culgoora as the site. “Absolutely! Of course!” the astronomers were assured. The radio heliograph, foreunner to the Australia Telescope at the site, was duly built. And Yarrie Lake Road was in fact eventually sealed – after many years admittedly, but sealed as promised!”