Travel for the Over 30s

Parkes, NSW, on the face of it, a unlikely place to drive 360km west of Sydney to see. It is a pleasant enough country town surrounded by wheat fields. Pleasant country towns and wheatfields aren’t on most tourist’s to do lists.

However it was a whole lot different 40 years ago and yes I took the long detour to check out Parkes - well not Parkes itself - but the historic Parkes Radio Telescope which is located down an improbable country road - about 20km out of town. Seriously I’d love to see a tourist’s face who stumbled on the huge dish in the middle of fields by accident!

During the 1969 1969 Apollo moon landing Parkes was a critical  part of the NASA tracking program which transmitted the famous pictures of Armstrong and Aldrin walking on the moon.  Australia being conveniently located “down under” it was one of several used by NASA during the 1960s for both the Gemini and Apollo programs. Unfortunately the other two sites: Carnavon,WA and Honeysuckle Creek near Canberra, have been closed and nothing much remains.

Parkes on the other hand is still a functioning radio telescope with an interesting museum and excellent coffee shop with views over the dish. If you are in the area and have interest in astronomy its definitly worth a detour - kid friendly too.

The story of Parkes and the moon landings was retold in the movie The Dish staring Sam Neil

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