Summer holidays may find traffic jams up and down the coast, but not for the intrepid inland travelers who chose the central town of Parkes NSW to discover their inner 'rock'n'roll'.
In it's twentieth year, the Parkes Elvis Festival is a thriving event for the local community and some 12,000 Elvis fans and adventurous people who turn-up. Our journey took us on a 950km round trip with a week full of adventure and new experiences, costing a normal weekly family budget.
Cowra - Worth Stopping
We drove out from our Southern Highlands base through Goulburn and Yass aiming to stop for the night at Cowra.
The friendly Cowra Tourist Information Centre can be easily found at the crossroads into town, adjacent to McDonalds. It hosts a delicious and expansive rose garden that is beautifully presented with each type labelled and luckily for us, in full bloom. The Cowra Rose Garden contains 'approximately 880 bushes of 130 varieties including a bed of the Cowra Rose'.
There is a guided walk from Cowra Tourist Information that leads down past painted murals and the old wooden bridge on the Lachlan River into town, featuring historic buildings of the past century. We met some friendly local lads who were taking a dip in the river who asked us to take their photo which we were pleased to do. They invited us in for a dip but the water was flowing a bit too quickly for our liking!
We followed the well laid out map and walked up past The Old Stone Flour Mill which is now a winery and function centre and the old-fashioned department store 'Reid Smith & Co' was redeveloped into Cowra Plaza shopping centre in 2000. It was hot and dry and despite our best efforts to engage the children the conditions lead us to curtail our tour and retreat into the shade with an ice block bought from the local Coles.
In one of those strange moments that occur when most unexpected we were delighted to find a fancy dress shop, 'Fancy That', able to cater for our Elvis Festival needs. Kev and I were instantly transformed into a grungy Elvis and Priscilla, Finn found a black vinyl 'Thunderbirds' jacket and the girls scored pink plaits and groovy clothes. The shop is run by Lambing Flat Enterprises Cowra Breakout with government assistance to train and employ people with challenged abilities.
Conimbla National Park
We stopped for the night in a strip of remnant of Australian bush thankfully gazetted in to the Conimbla National Park located just outside of Cowra. Whilst devoid of facilities, save for a well-cared for drop toilet, it still served our needs well enough, self-contained as we were.
We enjoyed the fact that each camping trip does get easier to pack for. This time we brought 3 smaller tents, 6 sleeping bags, thin mattresses, huge canopy, gas stove, pantry, Esky (icebox), groceries, picnic set, towels, raincoats, first aid, and minimal 
clothing.
Instead of pillows we brought pillow cases to stuff extra clothes in and a couple of tiny camping pillows. Having listed the above, it is never time to leave home until the car and storage pod on top is so full we can't pack anymore in. We forgot steel wool, washing up bucket, Elvis Cds and a dress up costume ... all of which were solved.
Our children had us in stitches as they settled down to watch evening TV, namely a sign with the details of the National Park upon on it, and then played out a complete imaginary TV episode in their active play!
Cowra Art Gallery
The next day we visited the cool and inviting space that is Cowra Art Gallery which had a fabulous touring exhibition from Grafton which we really enjoyed called the Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award (JADA). The biennial prize 'seeks to encourage and promote innovation and excellence in drawing and plays a vital role in fostering Australian drawing practice'. We were given a warm welcome by Gallery Director, Brian Langer and Administrative Officer Jacque Perry who were rightly proud of what they were achieving at this regional arts hub.
It was fascinating to find that each 'picture' in the JADA,was completely hand drawn when we looked closer as they all presented so differently from a distance. When we each selected our favourite three pieces most of our choices were unique to each family members. The winner of the lucrative prize was Peter Alwast's 2010 drawing titled 'Trees, Waterfall, Back' (centre picture below). Catherine O'Donnell's charcoal drawing 'One Way' was also a finalist and also one of our favorites.
World Peace Bell
When we emerged again into the bright sunlight we crossed the road to outside the Council Chambers to ring the Australian World Peace Bell, a sign of acknowledgement for international understanding. During the second world war, Cowra held Prisoners of War captive and was the scene for the horrendous massacre of hundreds of Japanese prisoners.
We had previously watched a clever holgraphic presentation at the Visitors Centre which explained the story through the eyes of a 1940's young local woman. The script must have been supplied by the RSL as it was a little too jingoistic for our comfort given the seriousness of the moment with the hundreds of casualties mown down by machine gun, though in fairness, Cowra has made 'reconciliation' a big focus of it's offering.The suffering of all sides in wartime is something that we all regret and no doubt many local Cowra men have also made the ultimate sacrifice during the many wars in which Australia has been involved.
One of the major local attractions is the Japanese War Cemetery and Japanese Garden and Cultural Centre in Cowra that pay respect to this event as the town has no doubt sought to come to terms with this sad episode in it's history. We arrived as a hot uncomfortable wind was sweeping in further aggravating our already fractious children. Given the cost of entry for a family of six to the gardens we decided to give it a miss as our children were not in a receptive learning frame of mind, particularly given the complex morality tale that we needed to put into context.
Age of Fishes
Canowindra is 30km north from there and has a remarkable story. Fossils were discovered lying under the roads that have been dated to 360 million years old.
As we are travelling this year and will be homeschooling our 4 children, we took the
opportunity to ask for school excursion worksheets to fill in at The Age of Fishes Museum which tells the story of the discovery and displays some stunning fossils.
The children enjoyed the moment and we felt that we got value for the $25 family entry fee although the museum would obviusly benefit from further funding to expand it's offering.
Not everyone is able to have a pre-historic fish named after them but museum benefactor James Fairfax does. He will be forever rembered as mandageria fairfaxi , as handsome a prehistoric fish as we have seen!
Parkes Elvis Festival
Arriving at Parkes in the late afternoon we joined hundreds of travelers at the nearby showground for true-blue budget accommodation hosted by volunteers with catering supplied by the rural fire brigade.
Our excellent flat site was in the dog show arena and we were able to take advantage of small metal lean-to for our meals area which saved us putting-up our canopy. With clean hot showers and toilets available the Showground provided a good value option for our family.
Our camping site was also adjacent to the trotting track for our first Elvis event. As the sun set, we enjoyed the first of many Elvis concerts from the what turned out to be one of the better Elvis Tribute Artists the excellent Damien Mullens. From the back of a truck Damien gave lots of energy to the sometimes slightly disengaged crowd who were probably nicking off to place bets in between songs! There was a free jumping castle, sausage sizzle and Elvis lookalike competitions in between races. In the following evenings showground pavilions were used by 'resident entertainers' (or budget travelers) to entertain those of us who were not in town for the night.
Elvis Express
It is not often that one of the Festival Highlight is meeting a train but Countrylink caught onto this anomaly and with good reason given that the festival named 'Countrylink Parkes Elvis Festival'. Good on them for their support.
As the train arrives, the bottom end of town swells from a couple of passers-by to a surging crowd complete with horse-drawn carriages, fanfare of music, shiny cadillacs carrying showgirls, media frenzy and welcome by the Mayor in appropriate Elvis regalia. We make sure that we are there to welcome the official Elvis train from Sydney and as if it were a dream, all were gone that very same hour.
As the Parkes Elvis weekend continued we were able to enjoy a lot of fabulous free entertainment at the library, street parade, on Cooke Park stage and in the local pubs and clubs. There was also a registered Elvis busking competition where visitors could vote for their favourite busker. Ours was Big Al from Mount Druitt who came second. The town vendors kept reasonable prices too and we even discovered the best potato scallops and burgers this century at the Cooke Park Takeaway.
In our opinion, Parkes Elvis Festival is a wonderful excuse to take a memorable inland family holiday without hurting the budget.
Expenses for a family of 6 to visit Parkes Elvis Festival (7 days)
Petrol $150 for 950km round trip
Fancy Dress Hire (not essential?) $90
Age of Fishes Museum $25
Camping fees $75 at showground
Local Fruit 5kg cherries/peaches bought at Canowindra $32
Pool $3.90 each was expensive for our family with us spending $80 in pool fees during our hot five day stay.(Suggestion: Festival multi-pass)
Groceries $300
Gas for stove $18
Elvis CD $10
Optional Expenses
Cowra Japanese Gardens $35
Drinks, Ice creams and Takeaway food
Admissions to exhibitions and shows ranged from $5-50 per single entry
Elvis memorabilia ranging from performer CDs to TShirts, wigs, art and cadillacs
to be continued
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