The FRIDA LAS VEGAS guide to the Ultimate Kitsch Road Trip through Outback New South Wales, Australia!
The Great Australian Road Trip is alive. It never died for a generation of folks who know what a Shoo Roo is and who the Leyland Brothers are. Deserted highways, Chesty Bonds, rocky outcrops, desolate roadhouses, ‘slip slop slapping’, eskys brimming full of beer and the double white line to nowhere all played their part in making the road trip a mystical time-honoured tradition.
Fast forward to 2020 and international travel has become the stuff of feverish fantasy for many Australians. I, like many others, have spent the past few months in lockdown, furiously researching road trip destinations within our borders to keep the travel dream alive.
My insatiable appetite for unearthing pockets of secret Australiana has left me with a Little Black Book of road trip holiday destinations bordering on The Kitsch, The Lurid and The Sensational. For one week in July 2020, my intrepid husband Angus and I drove a 3000 kilometer loop around NSW to escape the rat race and see what visual delights we could find in the outback in the name of creative inspiration and good ol’ fashioned imagination.
What we found is a side to Australia that doesn’t get rave reviews in Broadsheet, nor visits from hoards of white linen-wearing influencers. Bordering on the bizarre, this is a travel guide for anyone who likes their road trips long, Sweet and Sour pork sizzling and landscapes soul-crushingly gawjuss.
Time to fill the tank, grab a packet of Chips from the servo, download a phone’s worth of podcasts, leave the prisons/sanctuaries of your homes and join me for a trip through the razzle dazzle Australian outback!
Mwa X Stavroula aka Frida Las Vegas
VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: This is an authentic, unbiased account of the various hotels, restaurants and places of interest I stayed at throughout my road trip. This is NOT a sponsored post. All expenses were paid by moi and these are my 100% unbiased and honest opinions.
EXTREMELY IMPORTANT NOTE: Brain Freeze via thickshake isn’t a mere relic of childhood.
SYDNEY to ORANGE
255 kilometers
Approx. 3.5 hours drive (no breaks)
Leaving sunny Sydney behind us, Angus and I decided to make Orange our first official intra-state stopover for lunch. Most visitor guides and locals will tell you Orange has beautiful cold-climate wineries and a slew of restaurants that ‘put Sydney’s dining scene to shame’.
We had other plans based solely on the grandiosity of interior decorating schemes. Enter the New Golden Bowl Restaurant smack bang in the middle of Orange town centre.
Don’t heed the vile reviews on Trip Advisor - this place is a gem and a truly fine purveyor of gelatinous deep fried goods. The interior is 10/10 Wes Anderson worthy country chic and the serving ware didn’t disappoint - here’s looking at you, mini spring roll boat. The combination Chow Mein was tuh dieh foar.
A couple of doors down from New Golden Bowl is the old Australia Cinema, which looks like the dilapidated decaying movie palace that dreams are made of.
The president of the Orange and District Historical Society said the building was built by James Dalton Junior in 1886 to provide a venue for Irish supporters visiting Orange. Like many old school cinemas in Australia, it became an evangelical church for a while, but was recently sold and now remains a dormant pillar of faded grandiosity on Lords Place.
I was gagging to see what lay inside; alas the doors were boarded up. I can imagine all the 70s Ozploitation films that would have played here back in the day with buckets of popcorn swathed in atomic yellow butter to match.
Peeking around the corner Inside the creatively named Orange Arcade (look for the 70s letters on the facade of the building on Summer Street) lies the beauty salon time forgot: Rhonda’s.
As this was a sleepy Thursday in peak COVID era, sadly the salon wasn’t open. All I could do was marvel at the perfect typography and imagine what it would be like to get a wet set with a full bottle of Fanciful in ‘White Minx’ by Rhonda herself.
Walking down Summer Street you encounter another ridgy didge example of regional Chinese restaurant signage & shop frontage care of Loc Sing Restaurant and Takeway. Still full from our feedbag at New Golden Bowl down the road, we couldn’t bear to call in - but had to stop and admire the bamboo graphics and deco roof orning.
Around the corner from Summer Street is the fantastic old Masonic building, which has found new life as fashion and homewares store Jumbled. Check out their Instagram to get a sense of how the owners have breathed life into the interior with the so-hawt-right-now Ken Done meets The Design Files vibe. I love the grand exterior, resplendent with meta Masonic eye imagery and nod to the Acropolis vibes.
ORANGE to DUBBO
144 kilometers
Approx. 1.5 hours drive (no breaks)
Leaving Orange behind for Dubbo via Wellington - the ‘Ice Capital of Australia’ - I had low expectations to say the least, but it’s a SUPER pretty drive through rolling hills and pastureland.
You know you’ve arrived in Dubbo when confronted with a Vegas strip of old-school family motels lining the town as you drive in. No wonder the locals call Dubbo ‘Dub Vegas’!
With so many motels to choose from with a Ye Olde Shearer Country Vibe, we stayed at the Cattleman’s Country Motor Inn. I am truly a sucker for a giant fibreglass cow by the highway every time.
The rooms smell like a heady mix of decades-old cigarette smoke and Shake ‘n’ Vac. This isn’t a bad thing - the ‘motel aroma’ is a quintessential part of the experience - as is unlocking the doors to the bathroom to see what complimentary beauty treats lie within.
Driving around Dubbo town centre at night is a Lynchian experience. You half expect Agent Cooper to show up talking into a dictophone. I love the lone ranger that is Fortune Kitchen Chinese Takeaway standing out like a sore thumb against the sea of Maccas, KFC and Subway in town.
My favourite slice of Dub Vegas neon paradise is this beauty of a sign, located at the rear of the Cattleman’s Country Motor Inn overlooking a fenced off pool complete with palm garden.
One must not stop in Dubbo without vieweth Taronga Western Plains Zoo. I’m not going to say it’s THE most thrilling zoo in the world, but it’s a welcome novelty to view the animals without the usual Isla Nubla-esque fences.
Variety-wise, there are the usual stock-standard African crowd pleasers, but I cannae resist the cheeky meerkats and their beady lil’ mini racoon eyes.
The BEST part of Taronga Western Plains Zoo the tour guides don’t tell you is that you can drive your own car through the grounds (don’t bother with the $90 golf cart hire). I highly recommend cranking ’The Lion King’ soundtrack in your car stereo and DIY-ing the budget African safari experience.
Cue “Naaaaaaaaaaaants ingonyama bagithi Baba Sithi uhm ingonyama!” just as you enter the car park of the lion enclosure to witness the fitness of Mufasa in his natural habitat!
DUBBO to NYNGAN
169 kilometers
Approx. 2 hours drive (no breaks)
Any town whose claim to fame is having The Big Bogan is worth calling into in my books.
Seeing as we spent the day at Taronga Western Plains Zoo, leaving little time for car travel, Nyngan felt like the perfect stopover before tackling the Barrier Highway journey to Broken Hill.
Rolling into town around sunset, The Big Bogan and his Hulk Hogan-meets-Fred Durst demeanour didn’t disappoint.
Yes, it’s a clever modern take on Australia’s Big Things phenomenon, but Nyngan is situated on the banks of the gentle Bogan River - hence the town’s claim to fame.
We stayed at the Nyngan Riverside Tourist Park in a simple cabin, but next time, I’ll be doing the rustic eleganza of the River Cabin which is built into the back of an old truck and fronts directly onto the river for ultimate chill vibes.
NYNGAN TO BROKEN HILL VIA COBAR
590 kilometers
Approx. 6 hours drive (no breaks)
The Nyngan to Broken Hill drive is L-O-N-G, so best stop off in the mining town of Cobar for a break and pretend you’re at Sovereign Hill in the 90s.
The only truly accurate metric a country town can be measured on is the quality of its baked goods. The Cobar Bakery didn’t quite deliver on the Top Crust Flakiness vs. Bottom Crust Hardiness challenge, but I quite liked the signage.
Around the corner from the Cobar Bakery is the trust town Vinnies. Sadly op shops are mainly dumping grounds for fast fashion labels rather than genuine vintage clothing these days, but the hosiery basket always yields some gems.
Remember this forgotten icon of the 80s?
Leaving Cobar after a mosey around (an hour is plenty for a break, no need to stay overnight), we continued along the Barrier Highway to Broken Hill, our westernmost destination of the trip.
I’ve always been curious about Broken Hill given its remote location and legacy as Australia’s ‘Hollywood in the Desert’. I knew of the iconic The Palace Hotel Broken Hill (formerly Mario’s) as I’d heard it had some spectacular painted murals inside what looks like a stock-standard outback pub.
What I wasn’t prepared for was the sheer size, scale and jaw-dropping beauty of these murals, painted by indigenous artist Gordon Waye to resemble a day-glo outback oasis.
Depending on where you sit on the Taste-O-Meter, welcome to the outback palazzo of your dreams (or nightmares!)
Mario, the former owner of the pub (sadly now deceased) hand-painted the ceiling with his own crack at Boticelli’s Birth of Venus. I mean…THE DREAM.
The level of random Australiana tchotchkes hanging in the pub’s office is truly off the richter scale awe-inspiring. The current operator told me these were all personally collected by Mario during the 1960s - 80s. Lots of bad taxidermy and velvet paintings. Heaven!
Looking down the corridor on the first floor towards the dunnies is another shot from a Wes Anderson movie that hasn’t been made yet.
There are a couple of rooms you can stay at The Palace - but for serious culture vultures - there’s only one choice: The Priscilla Suite.
This the only room in the pub that has the same painted mural treatment as the interior staircase (the other rooms are plain ol’ white) and most importantly, it’s the room where the main characters Tick, Adam and Bernadette stay in the classic film, Priscilla Queen of the Desert.
The Priscilla Suite comes with a DVD of the film so you can have your very own ‘Inception Priscilla’ moment and look at the walls with your own eyes at the same time the room comes on screen in the film - spooooooky!
The interior of the Priscilla Suite is a mish-mash of haute 1970s baroque paired with a early 2000s Lizzy Maguire-esqe second bedroom and a bathroom with a rubbish shower but gold swan tap fixtures, so all is forgiven.
The best part of the Priscilla Suite is the light-up vanity mirror where you can sit down and do your hurr and mekkup PROPERLY for the first time in 1,123 kilometers.
The Priscilla Suite backs straight onto the Palace Hotel verandah where you are at leisure to kick back, pop open a vino and enjoy the terrible, terrible sunsets of Broken Hill firsthand.
Next stop on the Broken Hill trail of awesomeness is Bell’s Milk Bar, which is presumably the oldest of Australia’s famous but now-defunct milk bars still in operation.
Driving down Patton Street in Broken Hill South, it wasn’t too hard spotting the ah-mazing 1950s exterior of Bell’s, resplendent with mosaics and alien mascot.
The interior of Bell’s is nicely done, with all the original murals intact and lots of care given to making it a truly ‘authentic’ milk bar experience as opposed to a lame modern interpretation of what the 50s looked and felt like (Hungry Jacks in the 90s, I’m looking squarely at you).
All the syrups and cordials are made on-site at Bell’s from their traditional recipes. I went for the Peaches and Cream Waffles and some sort of delicious apricot fizz that tasted like a mix of lemonade and apricot nectar - the exact hangover cure I needed. YUM!
At the back of Bell’s is the outstanding Milk Bar Museum, which houses the Bell family treasure of mid-century household items and furniture. It was a great surprise to walk out back and keep the nostalgia vibe a-flowin’ post-waffles. The current owners really know how to use Bell’s as a living time machine of sorts, and to good effect.
Leaving Bell’s Milk Bar to drive around Broken Hill didn’t exactly kill those “What date is this” vibes. So much of the town’s shopfront and buildings are in their original state and I for one am THANKFUL property developers haven’t got their filthy mitts on the town.
Yes, this IS a building in the shape of a giant vintage radio!
I mean, can you get any more classic than Rudolph Alagich tailors!? My kinda two-tone shopfront fantasy.
Even the Broken Hill South fish and chip shop is firmly rooted in the 70s. Look closely at the menu - it’s full of deep fried corkers. There’s even a poster of a Chiko Roll ‘chick’ on the reverse angle of this photo.
The ghost town of Silverton, NSW is about 25 kilometers out of Broken Hill and is best known as the shooting location of Mad Max 2 (aka The Road Warrior), Wake In Fright and countless films shot in Australia where producers wanted a ‘cowboy feel’ but were too tightarse to shoot in the US.
The Mad Max Museum was an excellent devotion to the franchise from a dedicated fan who moved from the UK to Silverton in honour of his passion. The collection leans heavily on film props, photos and relics from Mad Max 2, but you’re not allowed to take pics inside - so Mel Gibson baes, you’ll simply have to make the trek to the future dystopia of Silverton yourself.
The Mundi Mundi lookout is about 5 kilometers drive out of Silverton and is an excellent view of the desolate ‘nothing’ that serves as a key location in Mad Max 2. Even if you don’t care for the film, it’s a beautiful spot for BYO tea and bikkies.
Driving back into Broken Hill from Silverton, you’ll come across the Living Desert Reserve & Sculptures run by the local council. This a not-to-be-missed slice of outback paradise that locals say you should go at sunset to see it’s true beauty, and they’re not wrong.
The sculptures are all carved out of sandstone and make for a somewhat Stonehenge-esque vibe perched atop a hill in the reserve. Magic hour in our last night in Broken Hill was just that - magic!
BROKEN HILL to MUNGO NATIONAL PARK
325 kilometers
Approx. 4 hours drive (travelling unsealed roads, no breaks)
After Broken Hill, you can drive back to Sydney the way you came via the Barrier Highway - or you can go the ‘long way’ via Mungo National Park. If you have time, I WHOLEHEARTEDLY RECOMMEND going the long way because it was quite literally out of this world.
I’ll let the Mungo website give you the full, complex and fascinating story of the area. Suffice to say, if you have ever wanted to know what it’s like to walk on the moon on the surface of the earth, this would be the place.
The crazily surreal 'lunettes’ were formed millions of years ago when the entire area was underwater by about 15 meters (yes, in the middle of the desert!). The famous Mungo Man and Mungo Lady were found amongst the lunettes, which is the area’s claim to fame.
The Willandra Lakes region (of which Mungo National Park is a part of) is an incredibly spiritual place for the three Aboriginal cultural groups who are the custodians of the land. It’s jaw-dropping natural beauty at it’s most puzzling - and photogenic!
It feels so wrong yet so right to see rolling and dunes that feel like you’re at the beach, when in fact you’re in the middle of the outback?!
Since I visited in the middle of winter when it was FREEZING, I am dressed like a small babooshka of the tundra. I heard from the rangers that Mungo National Park becomes truly scorching in summer. Whichever season you go, dress accordingly!
The only way you can trek across the dunes safely without causing damage to the landscape is by doing an ‘official’ guided sunset tour, which can be booked at Mungo Lodge right outside the national park boundary.
Mungo Lodge is a very comfortable place to stay, given you’re in the middle of actual nowhere. If you’re up for it, you can camp in the national park - if you can give up the idea of a warm shower in winter (which I just couldn’t).
MUNGO NATIONAL PARK TO WENTWORTH
160 kilometers
Approx. 2 hours drive (no breaks)
Once you visit Mungo National Park, it’s a loooooong drive back to Sydney, so best break up the trip via some random Cletus towns along the way.
We chose to stay a night in Wentworth, NSW to visit our mate Jock, who kindly took us paddling on the Murray-Darling river junction.
Aside from the beauty of the river, I was particularly taken with the spoils of the exquisite Wentworth laundromat. Check out that signage!
The Murray-Darling river is stupidly gorgeous and best experienced via canoe and a six pack of beers (not pictured).
WENTWORTH TO LEETON
490 kilometers
Approx. 5 hours drive (no breaks)
Leaving Wentworth for Sydney, it soon becomes apparent another stop will be needed as NSW is HUGE. Driving through the Hay Plains, we decided to forgo the big smoke mafioso chic of Griffith in lieu of Leeton, a small - but mighty - town in the Riverina region designed by famed architect Walter Burley Griffin with a lasting art deco legacy.
Rolling into Leeton you can’t ignore the majesty of the Hydro Hotel. Bang on magic hour, it feels like a suitable substitute for the Chateau Marmont, except the Sun Rice headquarters are round the corner.
Inside the lobby of The Hydro hotel was totes ‘Colonel Mustard in the Billiard Room with the lead pipe’ vibes.
The INCREDIBLE stained glass windows on level one of the Hydro Hotel was truly dishing Australiana Da Vinci Code aesthetic. Note the ibis in the centre!
The Hydro Hotel restaurant is called the Freckled Duck and has its own brand of lurid interior murals, albeit painted in the 90s.
Driving around town there was only one place that beckoned for dinner like a neon yellow venus fly trap: the glorious Chung Hing Chinese Restaurant.
LEETON TO SYDNEY
585 kilometers
Approx. 7 hours drive (no breaks)
Leaving Leeton, you can’t help but notice right smack in the middle of town the ridonkulously beautiful Roxy Community Theatre, built in 1930.
I was bummed the neon lights weren’t switched on the previous night so the theatre could be swathed in technicolours. Here’s what the Roxy Theatre looks like at night, thanks to this Flickr user.
The interior is kept reasonably clean and in-character, as the theatre is still operational as a movie cinema and town hall of sorts. Again, Wes Anderson eat your heart out in rural Australia.
The Roxy Theatre lobby has all sorts of photos and memorabilia from its glory days as a deluxe picture palace.
The main stage has it’s own lil’ concertina stage where the piano organ comes up from the floor.
Adjacent to the main theatre is the dilapidated milk bar which used to serve hungry cinemagoers back in the day, but now lays dormant for another use. The FLV concept shop maybe?!
Down the main road from the Roxy Theatre is this underrated - yet no less stunning - example of art deco architecture. Feast your eyes on ‘Dee’s: Fashion You Can Afford’.
Leeton to Sydney is about 6 hours drive, so make sure you stop off in picturesque Cootamundra along the way where you can pick up a couple of plaster lions, a giant bottle of Chianti from 1979 and perhaps knock it off at the Wattle Tree Motel.
That’s all for the Sydney > Broken Hill > Sydney road trip folks! Lonely Planet this ain’t - but I hope you enjoyed your voyage through the haute kitsch gems New South Wales has to offer - before they are inevitably given modern makeovers (bleurgh).
Until the borders open to my home state of South Australia where shit gets REAAALLY wack, this is Stavroula aka Frida Las Vegas signing off.
May your travels be bold, beautiful, young and restless!