It wouldn't surprise me if there is still some blue-green algae in the dam. It has been listed as "boil before drinking" for as long as I can remember.
Essentially it is just a large body of stationery water... all sorts of things might be calling that home!
Adding this out of interest, doesn't matter where I go camping always take drinking water from home, guess it's what my bodies accustomed to. Quite happy to boil water for washing up and showering etc but the blu- green algae thing, it worries me .
The NSW Water website shows no Algal Alerts for Lake Chaffey at this time. Algal conditions are monitored by Regional Algal Committees and they issue alerts if required. As Lake Chaffey is the prmary source of Tamworth drinking water I would think it is closely watched. Here is the link to the Algal ALert page:
Long time ago it was bad enough to have floating islands of the stuff.
Safe to say the technology involved with removing it would have improved ALOT in nearly 25 years!
I wouldn't be too concerned about it, it's not an issue for swimming, just dont consume it (I have and it did nothing - crypto in Sydney had no effect either)...
I'm still keen for the camp... as long as they don't add anything to the dam that can creep into your tent and eat you at night, I'm good.
A recent published scientific paper implicated blue green algae as a possible cause of motor neurone disease in humans. This was an australian discovery.
Apparently they found that a protein in the algae is almost a clone of one of the human neuro transmitters and when it enters the body it " switches off" the natural one and replaces it. Unfortunately it doesn't replicate as necessary as the human one does and over time neuro transmission ceases. Further work will follow I'm sure
The camping get togethers we have are just that. We have avoided calling them astro camps or any such facsimile because the sole idea to to encourage people to come and meet up at a common location with a common interest and have some fun.
Otherwise there is no organising or profit making etc so as to avoid all the legal garbage that accompanies organised events.
We all attend at our own risk as we would if wee were camping alone except we have friends all around.
Will leave the "big events" for Mike and others to organise 😊😊
My son and his partner will be driving down from Brisbane to join us at Lake Chaffey. They will be there for the new moon weekend. They were sold on the trip after I showed them the Orion Nebula over the Christmas period. They are keen photographers, have astro binos.
Arthur, et al, just noticed that new my Camp 7 book lists Bowling Alley Point Rec Reserve as 4 days maximum stay, checking websites, some say seven days, others say four days, others seven days by prior arrangement. Is this an issue, do I need to book somewhere to stay the whole week?
As Lake Chaffey is alittle further east in the ranges and higher in altitude the temps maybe lower than those shown (slightly).
Certainly the averages indicate that it will be both comfortable for day time lake activities, and cool enough at night to be enjoyable for astronomy and sleeping.
Temps last year were brilliant, if I remember correctly it was overcast a lot during the day and miraculously cleared late afternoon, I think the ISS got spotted on 5 or 6 occasions whilst we were there, this time I'm trying to stay for 6 nights
G'day Rob. Your post has given me a thought. In Arthur's first post he said he was getting there on Tuesday and leaving Sunday. What is the general consensus? I can be there anytime to fit in with when everyone else is going to be there.
I was planning on going up on Monday the 24th. My son will be coming down from Brisbane on Friday the 28th. Arthur picked a great week for this event, the moon doesn't rise until 12:47am on the morning of the 25th, and because it's past last quarter on the 23rd it gets increasingy irrelevant as the week goes on rising later and later, by the 27th whatever is left of the moon is lost in the dawn. I will stay until Sunday or Monday.
