[Photos] Former Orroral Tracking Station

[Todd M]

These photos were taken in October and posted on the ATDB, it is a prequel to my Honeysuckle Creek thread.

 

Last weekend a few friends and I made a random trip south of Tharwa in the ACT through to the Namadgi National Park. After living in the ACT for all 22 years of my life, I must say I had never ventured south of Tharwa so it was a new experience to head into Naas Valley (Of which we ended up nicknaming 'Wandin Valley', the oldies will know what I mean) and through to a valley which some may have heard of before "Orroral Valley". Orroral Valley was home to a space communication complex called Orroral Tracking Station and was used to track and support satellite’s in earth orbit. As I did not have my camera on me, I headed again to Orroral Valley to get some photos of what was left of the station, which is now situated inside the Namadgi National Park and is apart of the Orroral Valley Trail which is a 6km (Well signed) track that explains the history of the valley. The ACT has three tracking station sites, Orroral Valley, Honeysuckle Creek and Tidbinbilla (As Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex). Tidbinbilla is the only station left in operation, the others were made redundant as time went by and technology improved. Below are photos of Orroral and I will endeavour to get photos of Honeysuckle Creek as well. Sadly, as per the weekend, I went past Apollo Road to find a closed sign after the recent rain (Yet it is not listed on road closures site), so I will wait a few weeks until the road re-opens to get some photos. As most would be aware, Honeysuckle Creek played an important role to provide the first images of man walking on the moon to the world (Not Parkes, as Hollywood would have you believe) and also had voice and telemetry communication with the module. This site provides more information as to the myth vs. fact of Parkes v. Honeysuckle http://members.tip.net.au/~mdinn/TheDish/ and this basic website has good historical pictures and information http://www.honeysucklecreek.net/ . There is not much online info on Orroral though (Only what is on http://www.cdscc.nasa.gov/Pages2/pg01e_history.html#anchor30450)

 

Orroral Tracking Station

 

One of the most interesting things for me is how the road infrastructure has stayed intact, that since the stations closure it is not completely over-run by weeds, cracked and pot-holed. The road infrastructure is designed to last as with all Federal Government built roads in the ACT, it is very much like a small suburb of the ACT with all guttering, drains, even down to the ACT in-ground FH with the little block of concrete (Still intact, where elsewhere in the ACT they have been removed) sticking up for the FH Sign. I was waiting to stumble across a Yellow and Black bust stop peg! Today there was no-one but me at this site, it was very peaceful with birds chirping and kangaroos lazing about on the grounds (only broken by my own small chuckle at Joey's clambering about in their mothers pouch and carefully eyeing me off, as well as those getting a feel of earth and use of their legs). Every now and then I would hear a clack-clack and a magpie would be making its way for me, so I avoided only two areas of the grounds due to swooping (one was really game, swooping me front on, until I stared it down). When I was departing, a group of Outward Bound campers broke the peace and were trundling in to collect supplies left there from the depot about 2km's out of Tharwa. It was about this time of year I did bound in '04, so probably boys from my old School performing what we called 'Soft Bound' as they were closer to civilisation then the rest of us who were at Tantangera (Hell, not once did I get to use a proper toilet, these guys got to and also got to walk along formed walking trails!). So even though the station is closed, it still performs a vital function for recreational activities in the ACT. A lot of the signage has also been replaced on the site, with new ACT Parks, Conservation and Lands information signs. Sadly though, they have only provided information in a vague fashion so some of the sites do not have any information (You only know what they are by the small map on one sign).

Clicking a photo will enlarge it. More photos can be found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kommissar_todd06/sets/72157625077754697/with/5098978328/

 

 

Entry sign with local wildlife

 

 

Entry to the Main Operations Building with overgrown garden

 

 

A 26m Antenna sat at this location, and when the station closed it moved to Tasmania

 

 

Information sign regarding the 26m Antenna

 

 

A view of the Boiler room

 

 

The site was powered by Diesel Generators and not connected to the main city supply, the generator building was in this location with engineering sheds located to the right

 

 

The Guard House which was manned 24/7 for 19 years (complete with lino floor)

 

 

Information regarding the gardens, which were landscaped by local Fritz Rehwinkel. I would say this would be the same Rehwinkel that had Rehwinkels Nature Park, since closed down but a childhood memory of most in the ACT (And once serviced by ACTION Route 909 between Canberra and Bungendore

 

 

Looking over the entry road to an overview of the Operations Building. In the small garden is one single lightpole, in a derelict state. The others have been removed as without town power, there is no point in them being there