On Wednesday 29^th March 2006 one of the most spectacular natural phenomena occurred when the moon moved in front of the sun creating a total solar eclipse. This caused the shadow of the moon to sweep in a narrow corridor across the surface of the Earth, travelling from west to east.

After starting at sunrise at the eastern tip of Brazil, the shadow crossed the Atlantic Ocean and made landfall on the West coast of Africa in Ghana. It swept across Togo, Benin and Nigeria before crossing the mountains of North-western Chad and entering the virtually inaccessible sandhills of Southern Libya. In this location the track was at its widest (183.5km) and the duration of totality at the maximum for this eclipse (4 minutes 6.7 seconds). After crossing the stark Libyan desert, the moon’s shadow reached the Mediterranean Sea at the Libya/Egypt border. Following its gentle arc, it travelled relentlessly across the sparkling blue water to enter Turkey at the resort town of Antalya and then diagonally across the country. The path crossed the Black Sea to Georgia and, with the sun slowly sinking in the sky, continued across the Northern part of the Caspian Sea before ending in Mongolia where the eclipsed sun sank below the horizon.

This mammoth journey of the moon’s shadow curved diagonally across virtually half the Earth’s surface took just over three hours.

After thoroughly investigating weather prospects, we decided that the best chance of success lay in North Africa. We took into account not only the incidence of cloud in late March, but also the height of the sun in the sky, the duration of totality and the ease of access to the site.

The options we considered were Sallum on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt very close to the Libyan border or two locations in Libya, both accessible by bitumen road. The easiest site to reach was approximately 140km south of Tobruk and the other was around 100km south of Jalu Oasis (450km south of Benghazi). This latter option would have taken two days out of our itinerary for driving and required us to camp in the desert for two nights with questionable facilities.

Our original plan was to view the eclipse from Sallum in Egypt, and we worked closely with Dick Cijffers of Journeys Worldwide to put a tour together. After a few hiccoughs, we decided to start the trip in Tripoli and observe the eclipse south of Tobruk. This gave us the option of changing to a coastal site near the Egyptian border in the event of a sand storm at the inland site. Dick travelled through Libya to ensure we had the best local guides, accommodation and transport available and these arrangements ran flawlessly.

Our group of 60 was divided fairly equally between those who came primarily for the eclipse and were happy to have a tour of Libya and Egypt thrown in, and those who came for the touring and considered the eclipse to be a bonus.

We spent the night prior to the eclipse in Tobruk, a small port city perched on the edge of the desert. The locals were aware of the up-coming event and conscious that Libya would be a focus of world attention the next day. They were very friendly, and as we walked through the streets of Tobruk they honked horns and waved and welcomed us to their country. A cruise liner, the MSC Sinfonia was docked in view of our hotel, and its passengers would travel in buses to the same spot where we were going. On the afternoon prior to the eclipse, weather predictions on the internet looked promising.

Eclipse day dawned clear, and we set off at 8am in high spirits, but we quickly drove into fog and the mood in the bus became as gloomy as the landscape. We were assured that the fog would burn off by 10am and we tried desperately to believe this. With the 4 minutes of totality starting at 12.37pm and the partial phase taking 1 hour and 18 minutes, time was on our side. After travelling for about an hour we drove out of the fog and spontaneous cheering erupted in the bus.

The road south from Tobruk travels through rather featureless desert without a single blade of vegetation, unlike Australian deserts that are mostly covered with tiny shrubs and saltbush. There are no romantic looking sand dunes, just a featureless plain that has its total monotony broken only by the slightest undulations.

When we were a few kilometres short of the spot where the centreline passes diagonally across the highway, we could see countless vehicles dotted across the desert. Our buses were directed by Libyan Police to drive eastward for around four kilometres. Calculations indicated that we were then virtually on the centreline. We didn’t need a road because the hard packed stones were easy to drive on. The landscape was in two colours – a totally cloudless blue sky arcing above a dun-coloured gibber plain peppered with fossilised shells.

The spot we were directed to was the ‘foreigners’ encampment where we found large tents for shelter, five portaloos, tables and chairs, a souvenir shop and a duty free shop. Young men from the Libyan version of the Scouts sang to entertain us while we waited. We estimated that between 2000 and 3000 people were in the camp, including a large contingent from the cruise ship docked in Tobruk. We were glad our buses were equipped with toilets and we did not have to join the very long toilet queue.

The amateur astronomers in our group decided they would set up their equipment some distance from the others, and Peter advised the non-astronomers to give them a wide berth during the period of the eclipse. He jokingly told them that these usually meek and mild people could turn into fierce animals if they were disturbed while making their observations or taking photographs.

Looking towards the south-west we could see a line of vehicles and people on a low ridge about half a kilometre away, with police cars topped with flashing lights patrolling along the edge of the crowd to keep them from crossing ‘no mans land’ to our encampment.

Excitement mounted during the partial phase as we watched the disc of the sun gradually being gobbled up by the moon. Little by little, the sunlight dimmed as the moon moved in front of the sun until the desert was bathed in an eerie light and the temperature dropped. We watched the darkness of the moon’s shadow swoop towards us out of the south-west. Shadow bands were visible as dark shapes flitting on the many white sheets and towels laid on the ground for the purpose. Like a last defiant gesture from the sun as it was swallowed by the moon, a sliver of sunlight shone through a valley on the edge of the moon’s disc and blazed in the famous diamond ring effect. This was greeted by a roar from the assembled multitude as all eyes were riveted on the sun and we removed our protective glasses.

With a background noise of yelling and cheering, we gazed in awe at the spectacle before us. The pale silvery-grey corona streamed out like fine strands of hair, and was particularly prominent on the upper left and lower right. The intense black disc of the moon was surrounded by the bright pink chromosphere, and with binoculars solar prominences were clearly visible. I stood, drinking in the sight and trying consciously to imprint it on my memory. We were surrounded by a 360º sunrise effect, with Venus twinkling in the velvety dark sky.

All too soon the end of our four minutes of totality approached, heralded by a second diamond ring blazing out on the opposite side of the moon’s disc. This was greeted by increased cheering and whistling from the assembled thousands. As the sun appeared, the intense light from the sun overwhelmed the corona and chromosphere and they were no longer visible.

Only keen observers watched the partial phases as the sun gradually triumphed over the moon and emerged to show its full face once more. We were all emotionally drained. The half of our group who had arrived as ‘eclipse virgins’ were now initiated into the fraternity of those tens of thousands who travel across the world to experience this unique event. Now they understood.