Spridget Odyssey 2002 - for those who've done Space Odyssey 2001

See 21 January 2003 Bushfire update below on Mt Stromlo Observatory - the destination for Sprite Odyssey 2002.

What better way to learn more about space than to start with a 309 kilometre trip in an MG Midget in company with 20 other Spridgets.

Travelling from Sydney to Canberra, we were on a weekend excursion to inspect the Deep Space Tracking Station at Tidbinbilla and Mount Stromlo Observatory. Both are very close to Canberra, Australia's capital.

But as with all travel, getting there is most of the fun and so it proved - the Spridget Odyssey was as eventful and entertaining as the interplanetary missions and space oddities we learnt about at the tracking station and observatory.

Six hundred kilometres in a weekend would be a lot for the Sprites and Midgets. Expressways with 110 kmh speeds are not long-term spridget territory so backroads were chosen.

On one of the backroads, here's Kevin's red Mk 3 Sprite at about half way with an inoperative engine.

No fuel getting to the carburettors so a replacement fuel pump was called for which someone had in their kit. That's the Club President with his er, back to the camera, inspecting progress with Colin doing the work .

Hard at work, Colin looks like he is milking the Sprite - except he was trying get fuel squirted into the carbies rather than milk into the bucket!

A few of the 20 Sprites and Midgets that gathered in front of the George Harcourt Inn in Gold Creek on Canberra's outskirts. We made it with Kevin's vehicle going like the clappers both before and after the new fuel pump.

ABP 102 outside the Inn waiting for.......

........its cousin, Neil's immaculate Mk1 Midget. More about it here.

Both Midgets give way to Greg's bugeye, the model that started it all.

It's Sunday 15 September and an early start to Mt Stromlo to see the 74in reflector telescope

Update 21 January 2003 - Mt Stromlo observatory has been devastated in a huge bushfire that destroyed over 550 homes in nearby Canberra.

See the details here - nature blasts through man-made structures demonstrating the danger that can accompany the beauty of the Australian bush.

The Tidbinbilla radio telescope dish (70 metres in diameter and the height of a 20 storey building) is in the background obscured by the trees

Midget with dishes