Quote:
Originally Posted by philiphart
Very interested to hear from those with that rare combination of local knowledge and eclipse experience.. How early do you think people need to leave Cairns/Port Douglas if they are planning to observe the eclipse from locations along the Mulligan Highway?
|
Hi Phil,
What you are really asking is how many people are likely to turn up for the
eclipse?
The answer is, nobody knows for sure.
But given every rental car is booked as is nearly all the accommodation,
one can imagine the numbers will be very sizable.
Being involved in amateur astronomy 24/7 and in talking to enthusiasts
and seeing posts here and elsewhere, we know the numbers will be considerable
for the amatuer demographic alone.
But anecdotally, it is the number of people I have chatted to who aren't
amateurs but who are going or they know someone who is. Talk to your barber,
your dentist, or work colleagues and they will often know about the eclipse
or in turn know someone who is going. I have stopped being surprised.
One big difference between this eclipse and say the 2002 South Australia
eclipse or the 1976 eclipse down the southern NSW coast is that this one
goes right through a city with a reasonable population.
in South Australia, some went to Ceduna on the coast. We were just north of
Woomera and in any case, it was a long drive for nearly everyone and there
was plenty of room to stand around when you are in the middle of nowhere.
Likewise in '76, it was easy to find a spot because it was a decent way from
Sydney (we chartered a Cessna out of Bankstown) but also in '76
the world was a different place. Cheap Dobs didn't exist. Nobody had cable TV
or the DIscovery Channel. To travel on a Jumbo jet was a luxury.
You had to be keen to go out of your way to come to an eclipse.
So come next Wednesday, Cairns has a local population of some 152,000
and a lot of those people will also be anxious to get a view of the eclipse.
So if it is cloudy in Cairns, you can imagine what large numbers of them
will do and that in itself tells you what you and I need to do too.
