Australia 2 | Missions in the MiGMan’s World Tour DLC

AboutThe Jacaranda capital of Australia, Grafton lays astride the Clarence river and features Edwardian and Victorian architecture.
Fly east of Grafton to the coast and then north to the coastal towns of Wooli, Minnie Water, Sandon, Brooms Head, Angourie Point and Yamba. Then return to Grafton via the Clarence River.

AboutGrafton sits on a large plain and your first waypoint, Shannon Creek Dam, is just inside the mountains at the western edge of that plain. Explore the Mann and Clarence Rivers to the north-west of Grafton.
Copmanhurst, population 300, is a popular camping and kayaking spot on the Clarence River.

AboutTake a few passes at the Air Weapons Range just 12 miles south of picturesque Evans Head.

AboutByron Bay was traditionally a sanctuary for 'Age of Aquarians', which peaked in the 1960s. Nowadays it remains a popular tourist resort and hosts an annual blues festival which looks back longingly to Woodstock and Australia's own Sunbury. Tweed Head (NSW) and Coolangatta (QLD) sit astride the N.S.W./Queensland border and are known as the "Twin Towns".

AboutLismore is one of the largest regional centres in northern N.S.W. and is a locus for the boomer era counter-culture, much like Ballina, Byron Bay and Nimbin. Mount Warning is a volcanic plug, with about half the crater walls remaining and forming a very distinctive landmark. It last erupted about 23 million years back so 'Bob's your uncle' as we say down under. **
But you never know!
** Translation: Conditions are optimal. Luck not required.

AboutLismore is one of the largest regional centres in northern N.S.W. and is a locus for the boomer era counter-culture movements, much like Ballina, Byron Bay and Nimbin.
Casino is the 'Beef Capital of Australia' and has a population around the 12,000 mark. 12,000 people that is, the cattle population is much higher. It was originally named 'Cassino' after Monte Cassino in Italy, but a bureaucratic error led to the current spelling becoming official. C'est la vie.

AboutTenterfield is where, in 1889, Sir Henry Parkes made a famous speech calling for Australia's federation, which became a reality in 1901. Today Tenterfield is in beef country and famous for it's fine wineries.
Rangers Valley was established in on the lush New England Tablelands 1839 by Oswald Bloxsome who had arrived in Sydney from the United Kingdom ten years before. Today it runs 40,000 cattle on the 12,000 acre property under the ownership of Marubeni and supplies grain fed Wagyu beef to the Japanese market.
Glenyon Dam, which feeds into Pike Creek and thence the New England Tablelands, is just across the border in Queensland and covers a massive 1,295 km2.

AboutCheck out a few of the spectacular valleys in the Great Dividing Range, to the east of the Northern Tablelands.
The Mann River and Boyd Rivers run all year and are part of the Clarence River catchment.

AboutSitting astride the Macintyre River, Inverell has been a source of diamonds and sapphires from the mid 19v onwards.
Nowadays the main activities are tourism and a variety of crop cultivation.

AboutExplore the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park to the east of Armidale. Armidale is the Northern Tablelands administrative centre, about halfway between Sydney and Brisbane and also home to the University of New England.
Oxley Wild Rivers National Park covers 1,452 km2 of extremely rugged rainforest covered terrain. Get your first glimpse of the spectacular gorges at the town of Hillgrove, and then Wollomombi Falla and Oakey River Dam. These three spots are all on the northern end of valley which are just begging to be explored by you!
Waypoints 4,5 and 6 take you down the eastern border of this area, west across the bottom and back up the western border to WP 6. I suggest you explore the wider valleys heading south and then climb to about 7,000 ft at WP 4 and enjoy the view from above. But, the world is your oyster so just go for it! Of course at anytime you can curtail your exploration and head back to Armidale.

AboutMost large country towns feature a racecourse and a golf course, both of which help you build a mental map where the airport is located.
Armidale Racecourse is about 2 miles NE of the airport. See if you can spot the golf course?
About 10 nm NE of Armidale airport is Woodville Airport YWVI, whose grass runways can be quite hard to spot from a distance. By pure luck your flight path follows a dirt road which leads directly to it.

AboutEnjoy the of lush river valleys to the south east of Australia's Capital of Country Music: Tamworth.
Tamworth YSTW is one of the few airports in the New England region with a control tower amd two parallel runways.
Entire route: 77 nm Shorter return flights: 5 nm to WP 1, 200 yds S of Australia's largest guitar: 'The Big Golden Guitar'.'The Big Golden Guitar', which is currently down for maintenance. But watch that space!
6 nm to WP 5 Flagstaff Mountain
40 nm to Woolomin Airport YWOM, about 1.6 nm N of Chaffey Dam at WP 3

AboutSay that four times quickly!
With a population of around 3,000, Quirindi is typical of many small country towns in Australia. Like many place names in Australia, Quirindi is a word from one of the 400 plus Aboriginal languages. It's meaning is not agreed upon.
Wallabadah, population ~ 300 is named after an Aboriginal word meaning 'stone'. Wallabadah Airport appears to be a grass strip NE of town.
Currabubula, population ~ 300, named after a word from the Kamilaroi language.

AboutMoree is known for it's cotton farms and the natural spas which have been sourced from the hot springs of the Great Artesian Basin since 1895.

AboutWhitehaven runs about 11 coal mining operations in the region. On this flight check out the Whitehaven, Boggabri and Maules Creek locations.

AboutCSIRO is an acronym every Australian school-child knows: Commwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organisation, which discovered wi-fi amongst many other useful things.
The CSIRO Paul Wild Observatory is home of the Australia Telescope Compact Array and the Culgoora Solar Observatory.
Entire route: 47 nm
Shorter return flights: ESE for 8 nm to CSIRO Paul Wild Observatory at WP 1
NE for 10 nm to the Australian Cotton Researchg Institute at WP 4

About Explore the beautiful Lake Keepit, some 13nm NE of Gunnedah.

AboutVisit the Siding Spring Observatory complex set in the rugged Warrumbungle Mountains near Coonabarabran.
Shorter flights: 3 nm to Coonabarabran at WP 1. 11 nm direct to Siding Spring Observatory at WP 3

AboutTowards the western edge of New England region we get a taste of the vast plains which form much of Australia's interior.
Gilgandra means 'long water hole' in Aboriginal, as it sits on the meandering banks of the Castlereagh River.

AboutDubbo is Aussie slang for a person who is 'a little slow on the uptake'. Dubbo is also one of our largest regional centres, with the 300 hectare Western Plains Zoo being a major tourist attraction.
Cotton gins separate the cotton from the seed, a process which prior to the industrial revolution was done by hand.

AboutMudgee is a favourite 'get-away' spot for Sydney-siders, being about a 3 1/2 hour drive and boasting many wineries and restaurants. Mudgee means 'nest in the hills' in Aboriginal.
Australia's transition to decimal currency happened in 1966 and Gulgong, birthplace of poet Henry Lawson, was featured on the $10 note. Gulgong is also home to Prince of Wales Opera House, Australia's first, built in 1871. Gulgong means 'deep waterhole' in Aboriginal.

AboutThe Bathurst races have been a fixture of Australian culture for as long as I can remember. They fuelled the aspirations of many an Aussie teenager as they saved their pennies to get 'into the race' with their own version of an Aussie Supercar.
Traditionally the battle was between Holden and Ford. The current incarnation of this gladiatorial contest is a 1,000-kilometre race on the gruelliung Mount Panorama Circuit.
Bathurst is the oldest inland settlement in Australia. Ben Chifley, born in Bathurst, was a train driver who became Prime Minister of Australia from 1945 to 1949.

AboutAt Orange you'll find not just gold, but also molybdenum and copper being extracted at the Cadia Hill facility, which is a far cry from the hand-panning methods used in the first gold rush of 1851.

AboutParkes Radio Telescope has been operating continuously for more than 50 years and represents a 20th century confluence of mathematics, engineering and astronomy..
It is part of the CSIRO Parkes Observatory and in 2016 found the only discovered binary system of two pulsars.

AboutLatin: Sieze the copper! This region of NSW has enormous reserves of copper.
Copper has been serving mankind for about 11,000 years in weaponry and cookware. Since the work of Franklin and Faraday in the 19c it has been the circulatory system of the modern world, conducting electricity across continents into our homes, and around our electronic devices.