Parkes

Parkes has two claims to fame and refuses to choose. The first is The Dish: the 64-metre radio telescope that beamed the Apollo 11 moonwalk to six hundred million people, still working, still listening, with a visitor centre right beneath its great white ear. The second arrives every January, when ten thousand jumpsuited pilgrims descend for the biggest Elvis festival in the Southern Hemisphere. In between, walk the rim of Peak Hill's open-cut gold mine and the ridges of Goobang National Park. Small town. Enormous frequencies.