A Trip Down Memoy Lane
Memories of road trips past are a strong motivator when it comes to planning a family holiday. but can you ever go back.
memories of long car trips are the stuff of family folklore. As the daughter of a country school teacher, international travel was never an affordable option for my family. Instead, come holiday time my parents would pack me and my four siblings into the car and hit the road, heading to some faraway tourist destination with countless other holidaymakers.
The way I remember it, the journeys were always long and hot, but nostalgia is a powerful driver. Which is why, 30 years later, I decide to set off with my own three children to recreate a road trip from my own childhood to Dubbo, with its fabled zoo (in those days known as Western Plains Zoo, now officially Taronga Western Plains Zoo) and Parkes, home to the mammoth radio telescope.
In the 1980s, Dubbo which sits some 400 kilometres west of Sydney in central west New South Wales, in the heart of the Great Western Plains was still something of an outpost.
The Great Western Highway from Penrith was largely single lane, as was the Hume Highway. Today it is a regional super city, servicing a population across the region of some 120,000 people.
ON THE ROAD
Determined to recreate the feel of road trips past, I decide that the journey will be spent looking up, not down, which means no screens.
This proves a challenge at first, but by the time we are heading past Goulburn and into the vast Southern Tablelands, I almost have my kids believing that the landscape outside the car window is worth paying attention to, presenting as it does a whole new world to city kids used to the urban sprawl of lights and people and constant movement.
Sun bleached paddocks stretch as far as the eye can see. This is sheep country, and the drought is biting hard here. At Yass we turn off the motorway and the land quickly reasserts itself.
We stop in Boorowa, a town of around 2000 people renowned for its Merino wool. It is a charming combination of historic pubs, welcoming cafes and wide Victorian streets. We buy homemade pies and brownies at The Pantry on Pudman, with its eclectic range of antiques and collectables, and eat them down by the Boorowa River. Suitably refuelled, both literally and figuratively, our next stop is 80 kilometres down the road in the town of Cowra. One of the top heritage sites in New South Wales, the prisoner of war camp here is the stuff of legend: my kids hear the story of how 1000 Japanese POWs staged a mass breakout in 1944, with 235 of them dying in the process.
It is a solemn place, offset by the Cowra Japanese Gardens nearby, planted to foster relations between the local people and Japan. Its painstakingly maintained bonsai, panoramic local views, and slow moving Japanese koi are a tonic to this ugly time in the town’s history. We forge on across the wide country, through Canowindra, famous for its International Balloon Challenge held every April, and Cudal, the former stamping ground of bushrangers Ben Hall and Frank Gardiner. We pass through Molong, eventually arriving in Wellington in the late afternoon. Here we drink ice chocolates in the cool of the Cactus Cafe and Gallery’s courtyard, before setting off again on the final push to Dubbo.
GOING TO THE ZOO
Arriving into town, we make camp at The Aberdeen Motel. The kids are stir crazy after the car journey so they head for a riotous swim in the hotel pool, and I settle in. Conveniently located near Dubbo’s main thoroughfare of Macquarie Street, The Aberdeen has been recently refurbished, and our stylish family room has a double bed and two singles with a kitchenette and living area.
We sleep soundly after enjoying a good meal in town. The next day it’s time for the zoo. Taronga Western Plains Zoo is the largest tourist attraction in inland New South Wales, with 250,000 people or 78 per cent of tourists to the region visiting each year.
It’s a lot different to how I remember it from the ’80s, but somehow familiar; progress and nostalgia often make strange bedfellows. We arrive early eager to see the Lions Pride Lands, a 3.5 hectare area that recreates an African savannah for the zoo’s resident pride of lions, led by 14 year old Lazarus, who weighs in at an impressive 180 kilograms.
Upon boarding the purpose built, wire meshcovered safari truck for our Pride Lands Patrol experience, my 11 year old gets the jitters. “Can the lions get in here ” he asks as we arrive at the enclosure.
The triple airlock gates we pass through add to the anticipation, and his anxiety. For the next 30 minutes we drive through the Pride Lands eyeballed by the lively great cats, the younger ones following after the truck, before emerging unscathed and exhilarated.
An electric golf buggy is our transport for the rest of our visit. It proves a perfect way to travel some of the 445 hectares on a six kilometre circuit many bike it but it’s a hot day so we decide against it. As famous today as it was when I was a kid for its ‘no fences’ policy, Taronga Western Plains Zoo doesn’t disappoint. My kids rate the hippos and the excellent ranger’s talk the meerkats, elephants, giraffes and lions are also favourites. Satisfied we’ve seen it all and visited the gift shop we hit the road again.
PARKES AND RECREATION
We arrive into Parkes, 130 kilometres from Dubbo, in the early evening. A blossoming country town, it is accustomed to a huge influx of colourful visitors for the annual Elvis Festival held over five days in January (parkeselvisfestival.com.au). With its drive up rooms and rattling air conditioner, the Parkview Motor Inn, our home for the night, definitely takes me back. At first light, we head 20 kilometres out of town along the Newell Highway to visit ‘the Dish’ the CSIRO’s giant radio telescope that dominates the surrounding farmlands.
Its place in the history of the 20th century was assured, having been a prime receiving station for the July 1969 Moon landing by Apollo 11, and the turn of events memorialised in the hit movie starring Sam Neill.
As luck would have it the Friends of the Dish are in attendance when we arrive. Several men show my kids how to see Mars through their telescopes and we visit the Visitor Discovery Centre.
As I watch them I wonder if perhaps they’re seeing a glimpse into their futures at the same time.
Perhaps imagining a time when they too will be engulfed with nostalgia for the trip they have just taken and determine to recreate it for the next generation to come.