Since the film 'The Dish' was made, visitor numbers to the radiotelescope just outside Parkes have risen from 50,000 to 120,000 a year. The film, one of our favourites, tells the story of how the telescope helped to show television pictures of the first moon landings (which, by an extraordinary co-incidence happened 35 years ago today) to the whole world. It is also the reason we've driven 250 miles from Sydney into virtually the middle of nowhere.

It was only a twenty-minute drive from Parkes, and the huge telescope dish was visible from quite a distance. Once at the visitor centre, Mikey and I amused ourselves by whispering into parabolic dishes a few hundred feet appart (you had to be there). We were told that there were no tours of the telescope, and that there wouldn't be any chance to see more than the displays in the visitor centre until their open day at the end of August, and that they had no electricity for now due to telescope maintenence. Mikey and I decided to go on a magical mystery tour down some bumpy, orange unpaved roads for a while to take some photos. At one point we had to stop the car while a large white cockatoo stood in the road pecking at the ground. There was a whole flock of them, and some red and white parrots, all along the edges of the road.

Back at the dish electricity had returned so after taking a few pictures we watched a couple of 3D films about the universe which were quite fun. We looked at the displays and played with a couple of exhibits. I had issues with a few things (the electromagnetic spectrum, for example, and physics) and then we took a few more photos and went back to the car.

On the way through the next town, Forbes, the place used for the the town of Parkes in the film (Parkes isn't nearly pretty enough), we stopped for lunch. Then it was just a three-hour drive to Canberra with nothing much of interest except for plenty of silver-green grass and blue-green eucalyptus trees. Pretty. Near Canberra I finally saw what I'd been waiting for - a whole herd of wild kangaroos bouncing through a field (course I've heard of kangaroos) which made me happy.

We arrived in Canberra as it was getting dark, and stopped at the visitor information centre for advice on where to stay. They directed us to a motel near the city centre, which was about half the price of the local YHA, and we dropped all our things there and went to the nearby football club for free internet. Walking through the local restaurant area we came across an Ethiopian restaurant, and the incongruity of it meant we had to go there for supper. After a very nice meal we returned to the motel for rubbish television and diary writing.