From a grass-roots sculpture trail initiative to an iconic window on space, a road trip through the NSW Central West is full of quirky attractions.
Trudy Mallick stops to check a counter as she enters the site of Varanus (Goanna Gugaa), Glen Star’s giant metal sculpture near the Gum Swamp Wildlife Refuge on the outskirts of Forbes in the NSW Central West. The sculpture acknowledges the importance of the goanna to the Wiradjuri people of the NSW Central West and is either the start or end point of a 100-kilometre trail of giant works, each positioned approximately 10km apart on the Lachlan Valley Way between Forbes and Condobolin.
“One hundred and eight thousand, two hundred and ninety-five visitors,” Trudy says, reading the tally. “That’s how many people have been to this site since the sculpture went up in 2019. And it’s 2000 more than when I was here last week, so it’s definitely drawing attention.”
As the president of the Forbes Art Society, Trudy is at the helm of a dynamic group of locals, who are determined to put Forbes on the map with the sculpture trail, improvements to Gum Swamp with four bird hides providing windows on the district as an internationally recognised bird-breeding centre and establishing an art gallery and café in a former ambulance station in town.
The trail was the brainchild of local artist Rosie Johnston, who had her “why-not?” moment on the way back from visiting Sydney’s Sculpture by the Sea outdoor exhibition. Numerous creatives including Wendy and Kim Muffet, who run Girragirra Eco Retreat on the outskirts of town, jumped on board and, in 2017, they organised the first Grazing Down the Lachlan lunch as a legacy event. Grazing is now an annual long lunch and has contributed about $300,000 to the Art Society for the sculpture trail. The organisers’ efforts were bolstered by $7 million in government funding that has seen the trail and numerous sculptures around town built, the gallery project almost completed, and upgraded the Gum Swamp precinct, which now boasts two more sculptures, The Hunter by Damian Vick, and Brett Garling’s Gum Swamp Birds.
An installation spelling out AMAZING in 2.5-metre high red metal letters was the first sculpture in the community-driven initiative. Designed by Rosie Johnston, it was fabricated and installed at the 9 Mile Reserve by local farmers, tradespeople and engineers who volunteered their time. As one Forbes local observed, it’s thanks to the extraordinary drive of this small bunch of people that Amazing Forbes NSW was adopted in 2017 as the town’s destination brand. Other sculptures along the way include Mike Van Dam’s Bird in Hand, Suzie Bleach and Andre Townsend’s Sonata and Damian Vick’s 6m tall Heart of Country, a powerful tribute to the resilience of the Wiradjuri people.
Forbes, with 9000-odd residents, Condobolin, population about 3000, and Parkes, with about 14,000 inhabitants, are the major centres on an elongated triangle of a road trip that includes travelling from Condobolin to Parkes via the Henry Parkes Way and a return leg down the Newell Highway back to Forbes. While the towns’ primary function is as service centres for the surrounding agricultural communities, tourism is booming and there are lots of quirky experiences to be had along the way.
Travelling from Orange to the east, or Canowindra and Cowra to the south, you could begin this road trip just north of Eugowra with a detour to Escort Rock, a big boulder where, in 1862, bushrangers Frank Gardiner and Ben Hall held up a coach carrying £14,000 (roughly $3 million today) worth of gold and money. The pillaging came to an abrupt halt in 1865, when Ben was betrayed by an informer and was ambushed and killed by police. He’s buried in the Forbes Cemetery where, according to local lore, there are always flowers on his grave.
There are reminders of the golden days of Forbes on a heritage trail that takes in many of the colonial buildings and includes the 1881 post office and 1891 town hall. Forbes offers plenty of motel and pub accommodation options but, for something a bit different, head out of town for 38km to Top Paddock Silo Stay. Kylie and Adrian Matthews have created a three-bedroom farmstay accommodating seven guests in repurposed grain silos. The Matthews run Angus cattle on the 1200-acre (485-hectare) farm and their children, Heidi, Tara, Brooke and Brendan, introduce guests to their menagerie of pets, including the former poddy (bottle-fed) calf, Braveheart, who now weighs a massive 500 kilograms and is a walking advertisement for the low-stress stock handling principles they use.
Closer to town at Girragirra, the Muffets welcome guests to their environmentally sustainable, self-catering oasis of calm, overlooking a dam and a splendid stretch of the Lachlan River. Guests are welcome to help themselves to offerings from the organically grown kitchen garden, which provides a diverse larder of fresh produce throughout the year.
The newly completed Lachlan Visitor Information Centre is on the outskirts of Condobolin at the end of the Sculpture Trail. Stop in for homemade cakes and sandwiches at the cafe and to see the Utes in the Paddock outdoor gallery, featuring decorated Holden utes. There’s also a sobering memorial to fallen jockeys on a wall that records the names of the 800 jockeys who have been killed in accidents since horse racing began in this country.
Parkes is 102km east of Condobolin with a pit stop in the small town of Bogan Gate about midway. Parkes’ population pretty much doubles every year during January, when more than 25,000 Elvis Presley fans gather to celebrate the late star’s birthday. There are Elvis impersonators aplenty, a street parade, busking and art competitions, as well as lots of good and old-fashioned rocking and rolling fun.
If you can’t make it to town for this celebration, head to the Visitor Information Centre in The Henry Parkes Centre, where the Parkes Motor Museum, the Henry Parkes Museum & Antique Machinery Collection and The King’s Castle Elvis Museum are located in the one precinct. Greg Page, aka the Yellow Wiggle, is a big Elvis fan and has family connections to the district, so has loaned his extensive collection of Elvis memorabilia to the museum.
Keen foodies will make a reservation for Bella’s Cafe in the centre of town and the Italian theme continues at Cafe Aglio è Olio in the Parkes Hotel, where wood-fired pizza and exemplary pasta are the order of the evening. Coffee, breakfast and lunch venues include Roasted Kombi cafe. Although the town is well served with hotels and motels, book early if you want to be part of the Elvis Festival. Undoubtedly, the fanciest accommodation in town is The Buchanan 1894, a gracious mansion with sweeping sunset views across town from the upstairs balcony. It’s recently been restored into self-catering suites by Peak Hill farmers Steve Lindsay and Dave Johnstone, whose story leads this issue.
Steve and Dave also run The Fleece in a repurposed shearing shed near their home on Cora Lynn station. The kitchen is ready for cooks to move in and there’s a barbecue on the deck, with views of the landscape made Insta-worthy by Steve’s horses grazing in the foreground. Steve’s former life in hotel management shows in the quality of the fit-out, but there are plenty of nods to the building’s origins with historic photos and stencils on the walls, old wool scales in the bedroom and the shearing chutes and overhead gear preserved between the kitchen and living areas. There’s no Wi-Fi or TV, so guests are encouraged to enjoy a little digital detox, birdwatch around the lagoon, take early morning strolls through the bush and become reacquainted with their travelling companions and the sounds of silence.
Heading south on the way back, don’t miss a detour to the CSIRO Parkes Observatory including its 64m-high radio telescope. Immortalised as The Dish in the 2000 movie of the same name, it has a diameter of 55m and weighs the equivalent of three fully laden jumbo jets. Although it was only intended to have a 20-year lifespan when it was commissioned in 1961, it has been continuously upgraded ever since and is now over 10,000 times more sensitive than it was when it was built.
Since 2012, astronomers from all over the world have been able to schedule times to operate the telescope. Anyone with a project can apply for access and it’s free, but it also gives Australian astronomers reciprocal rights to facilities overseas. Only a tiny proportion of the work is related to space missions, but it did play a critical role in the 1969 Apollo 11 landing and relaying the pictures of Neil Armstrong’s moon walk to more than 600 million people around the world.
From Parkes, it’s a short 35km hop down the Newell Highway back to Forbes. Before leaving town, grab a coffee and perhaps a slice of homemade orange cake or pistachio tiramisu at the Courthouse Cafe in the Vandenberg Hotel. If you haven’t already, drop into the tourist office on the outskirts of town, to pick up a map showing sculptures around the area and Lake Forbes. The walk around town makes a neat book-ending to the trail at the beginning of a trip that showcases Australian culture in a truly memorable way. AC
