After watching the aussie movie “The Dish” staring Sam Neil, created in 2000. I found out it was filmed in Parkes, in central NSW. Brendan and I pulled out the map and thought “oh yeh, lets go check it out.”

So with our limited research we packed the bags, jumped into the FJ40 and headed out into the outback. Traveling west through Lithgow and stopping at Bathurst for some lunch we couldn’t resist a hot lap of Mt Panorama. We did it in something ridiculous like 6 minutes.

Following the many kilometres of tarmac through small country towns passing through Orange, our next stop was Parkes. We watched the colours of farms change from green to yellow and the dirt from brown red as be bounced along the narrow 100km/h country roads.

After driving for nearly 6 hours we arrived at Parkes. The wide roads dominate the town as it’s a common stopover for trucks. We stopped at the information centre only to find brochures on holiday destinations such as Penrith, Parramatta, Blue Mountains.

“What the hell, we came from there, what’s in Parkes?”

After a quick chat to the attendant, not much happens in Parkes. Tourists only come to see The Dish and hang around for the Elvis Festival. Where drongo’s dress up in Elvis costumes and attempt to impersonate his vocals. Parkes doesn’t have much to offer, but that’s it’s whole appeal. We found a few caravan parks and left the information centre heading for The Dish.

About a 15 minute drive North of Parkes is where The Dish is located. The spot has been chosen for it’s incredibly low noise interference from the mass amounts of radio waves in the atmosphere. It seems as though it’s in some guys back paddock with nothing else there.

“That’s pretty damn huge.”

Sure enough, it was massive. It’s surreal that all this technology is placed in a town that is lucky to have water on tap.

We took plenty of photos and watched a movie in the information centre explaining the history and it’s important roll in landing Neil Armstrong on the moon.

With our list of caravan parks we ventured back to Parkes to find a cheap place to stay. “Cheapast And Best – Caravan Park” Bingo, we pulled in greeted by an Asian dude. Kinda weird, as the rest of Parkes is full of aussies. The grass was green and the amenities clean. It was good enough for us, until we saw this strange man who kept watching us as we put up our tent.

Freaked out by the weirdo we went to the local leagues club for an awesome feed. Roast beef, veggies and chips for a bargain price of $6. Brendan and I were even more stoked when we found out that the full size pool table was free to play.

Back at the caravan park we got talking to a man who was traveling from Melbourne to Queensland in a campervan for a relative’s birthday.

Red dirt roads

The Dish

Perspective trick with Brendan

Outback trees look cool

Wyangala Dam, not much in it

Bush mechanics

Busted neoprene bushes and pin

Nice camping spot