Inland Astro-Trail Inc. is a small not-for-profit community association with a visionary goal to establish the Inland Astro-Trail as a world-class astro-tourism, education, and cultural heritage road-trip. It emerged from the Big Skies Collaboration‘s Skywriters Project in 2017 but, unfortunately, it is no longer, in my opinion, fit for purpose. I believe we need to look at alternative organisational and governance models to take the Inland Atro-Trail into the future.
The IAT concept was first aired in public in Parkes, in July 2017, at the Skywriters Project’s Big Gig by participants in our Astronomy, Cultural-tourism and Creative Writing panel. This panel consisted of astronomers Donna Burton (Coonabarabran), the late Les Dalrymple (Billimari), Peter Starr (Dubbo), Trevor Leaman (Orange), and then-Mayor of Parkes, Ken Keith OAM, with me, a non-astronomer, as panel chair to introduce the topic and nudge the conversation along.
Above: The Astronomy, Cultural-tourism and Creative Writing panel at the Skywriters Project’ Big Gig in the Coventry Room, Parkes Library, 8-9 July 2017: from left Les Dalrymple, Ken Keith OAM (Mayor of Parkes), Donna Burton OAM, Peter Starr and Trevor Leaman. Photo by Margaret Jacovac, Parkes, 8 July 2017.
Our goal, from our earliest conversations, was to encourage coastal folk to travel inland where they could experience our very dark Inland nights and our many internationally significant astronomical sites, and to do this in ways which catalyzed new cultural, social, educational and economic opportunities for people in small inland communities. Sort of astro-tourism meets regenerative economics, meets community cultural development.
Our discussions were so well received that a small group of Skywriters decided to form a not-for-profit community organisation to take the IAT from concept to road-tested reality. We registered our association in New South Wales (Reg. no. INC 1701499), opened our first bank account in the name of Inland Astro-Trail Inc., and, on 6 February 2019, held our first IAT Symposium and AGM in Parkes . See the Symposium program here >>
Above: Astronomer Stuart Ryder, then Head of International Telescopes Support, Australian Astronomical Observatory, and John Sarkissian, Operations Scientist at CSIRO’s Parkes Observatory, with our Skywriters poster in front of Murriyang, the 64 metre radio telescope at Parkes. Photo by Merrill Findlay, Friday 3 March 2017. This photo was chosen as the ATNF Daily Astronomy Picture a few days later! The poster was designed by Jo Dicksen from Arts OutWest. Brad Tucker at ANU’s Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics assisted with printing and distributing it.
Our initial concept: the 700 Kilometer Array (700KA)
Initially, our IAT was confined to an area we called the 700 Kilometer Array (700KA) with an ironic nod to CSIRO’s Parkes Pulsar Timing Array, and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). Our array was very different though! It included all the twentieth century scientific observatories and tracking stations in Inland NSW and the ACT: CSIRO’s Parkes Observatory and the Australia Telescope Compact Array near Narrabri; ANU’s Siding Spring Observatory near Coonabarabran; Sydney University’s upgraded Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope (MOST) or UTMOST near Bungendore; NASA’s Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex at Tidbinbilla; ANU’s Mount Stromlo Observatory; and the old tracking station sites in the Australian Capital Territory. Which, together, stretched for a distance of around 700 kilometres from the red plains of northern NSW to the southern tablelands.
The 700KA also included many private observatories, such as Millroy Observatory operated by Donna The Astronomer Burton at Coonabarabran, Peter Starr’s Dubbo Observatory and Warrumbungle Observatory, Ray Pickard’s Bathurst Observatory Research Facility, the late Les Dalrymple’s observatory near Billimari, and the Tamworth Regional Astronomy Club‘s Astronomy Centre, as well as multiple astro-heritage sites from where First Nations people have observed the night sky for millennia, and other sites from where diverse settlers and their descendants have been observing our southern inland sky for the past two centuries.
But then the Covid lockdowns ….
The Covid pandemic was a disaster in so many ways, of course, but it also gave me time to think more deeply about the IAT concept, and to read a lot of astronomy and astrophysics books, journals and websites. I also gazed at the stars a lot; watched a lot of astro-themed Youtubes and online documentaries; listened to a lot of astro podcasts; and reflected on the all-inclusive First Nations concept of Country, which embraces not only lands, waters, and living entities, but the sky and all its celestial phenomena too.
And soon 700 kilometres was not nearly far enough to capture the full story of Australian astronomy, nor to express the full sense of wonder, awe and spiritual connection to the Cosmos I felt when I gazed at the night sky from my backyard during those dark lock-down nights. Because now I was imagining so much more! Like 65,000+ years of astronomy and cosmology, 5 billion years of planetary evolution and 13.8 billion years of celestial creation. Which is … BIG!
I spent hours on my laptop identifying astro-sites that could reveal this very big story in all its fullness. I found dozens of sites embodying the many different ways Australians, of all backgrounds, have been trying to understand the universe over thousands of years. I added them to a Google map, and soon the more-or-less linear trail we conceived pre-Covid became a convoluted maze of wriggly lines across four states and the Australian Capital Territory. But how could I knit them all into a single cohesive whole? Into something that was marketable as a thrilling road-trip?
While I was dreaming up this expanded IAT, our little organisation, Inland Astro-Trail Inc., was quietly dying. And, because I’d been elected Public Officer at our 2019 AGM, it was my responsibility to resurrect it. I achieved this after submitting five years of overdue reports and outstanding fees to the Department of Fair Trading NSW. We’ve since held our first post-Covid AGM, an online maintenance meeting with the minimum number of members (5) to comply with Fair Trading’s conditions. But, yet again IAT Inc is once again in a state of paralysis!
I’m now thinking that an incorporated association is probably not an appropriate form of governance for the Inland Astro-Trail during this initial construction phase. It’s current status is ambiguous. Officially, I own and am building this website and operating the email account. I can’t manage it all myself though, and nor do I want to. I’m looking therefore looking forward to the day I can hand all the administration over to a responsible host organisation.
My Astro-van
As part of my personal commitment to this project, I bought a Toyota Hiace van and converted it into a relatively comfortable home-away-from-home for visiting all the IAT sites, writing about them, and sharing my posts on this dedicated website. You can read about my astro-van fitout here >>
The Website
I’ve purposely kept the website relatively simple, because many people in rural and remote communities don’t (yet?) have the bandwidth for anything fancy (and nor do I have the skills to build a fancy site, nor the funds to pay a professional web designer to do it).
This current design is a preliminary fix to engage with fellow-travellers, promote the IAT routes, share my blog posts and invite others to contribute their own posts. I expect the site to evolve into something much more sophisticated as we grow our IAT community though.
I welcome any insights, advice or support you’d like to contribute to this wild endeavour.
Dr Merrill Findlay, Forbes, July 2024.
Page created 16 July 2024. Last updated 15 November 2025.
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