Country and Western road trip from Tamworth to Kempsey

Nothing says Tamworth more than an oversized golden guitar flanking the golden arches of a McDonalds. This gilded instrument looms over the Tamworth Visitor Information Centre. It’s here you’ll find the Country Music Wax Museum.

It ain’t no Madame Tussauds, folks. You’re either standing before a wax representation of Troy Cassar-Daley or Margaret Thatcher. But it’s kitsch and fun and the beginning of our Country and Western adventure!

After you wax lyrical beneath the yodelling musak, you’ll ‘chordially’ saunter into the National Guitar Museum behind it. Naturally, geared towards country pickers, you’ll also find KISS-star, Paul Stanley’s axe and The Beatles Rickenbacker guitars here. Look for the empty cradle on the wall with a small card reading: Air Guitar.

Travel to TRECC, 6 kilometres from the city centre on the New England Highway, where the Golden Guitar Awards have been held for more than twenty years.

Also here is the Australasian Roll of Renown. Australia’s Elvis, Slim Dusty, was inducted in 1979. An Australian cultural icon, Slim is one of the country music's most awarded musicians, with a career spanning seven decades. His wife Joy (with her sisters) was a country star in her own right and actually penned many of Slim’s hits.

Lasso the Tamworth Regional Gallery for the excellent Take me Home to Tamworth exhibition. 2022 marks 50 years of the Tamworth Country Music Festival so the exhibition interprets Tamworth’s place at the heart of Australian country music.

Look out for the red-back-spider dresses tailored for the backup singers of Slim Newtown, who in 1972 crooned, ‘Redback on the Toilet Seat’.

The boot-scootin’ Australian Country Music Hall of Fame houses a miscellany of country music tropes, including the Smoky Dawson Armchair.

Smoky was an all-singing rodeo and folk performer and radio star who could split an apple with a whip and throw a two-kilogram axe with pinpoint accuracy.

However, his magnum opus is his patented armchair which mechanically tips you up and out of your seat like a surly night-club bouncer. (Note the speed dial on the arm to control your ascent.)

You’re on a C&W Road Trip dining in a restaurant owned by a Tamworth cattle baron in a tall hat, so consider the award-winning Jack’s Creek Beef marbled Wagyu rump cap cooked on the wood-fired grill.

Like all open kitchens these days, the chefs are on display like lab assistants at CSIRO. But the gang at Workshop Kitchen has been grilling steaks since 1986 (now that is well-done). They have elevated the steak to a brilliant art form.

Stop in the centre of town for a coffee at a shipping container/cafe run by an affable ex-Tamworth cabbie who sells “weapons-grade coffee and doughnuts”. 

Tip: Always chat with folk like our cheery barista as he’ll steer you towards interesting things in town like Mount Misery Gold Mine Museum.

At the museum you’ll learn that like most goldfield towns in Australia, Chinese migrants played a starring role in this shindig. Moreover, the annual Nundle Go for Gold Chinese Easter Festival celebrates their contribution to Nundle’s pioneering heritage.

The historic Peel Inn pub was won in a poker game by John Schofield a century ago. How C&W is that?

It remains in the Schofield family today. The food is excellent. The chef is Indian so consider the delicious Rogan Josh or Tandoori Burger.

Out in the beer-garden, you’ll feel you’re in Tuscany beneath the canopy of twisting vines with carolling birds overhead.

Leave Nundle to visit Hanging Rock (9 mins). But consider going back to Tamworth to retrace the Oxley Highway to South West Rocks. Google Maps indifferently sends you via Forest Way.

Here you’ll rattle your kidneys along a dirt logging-road full of potholes, with long trucks tearing around hairpin bends, leaving you sitting in a cloud of dust, shaking. Take a pair of pliers to extract your fingernails from the steering-wheel.

When you arrive at Walcha, stretch your legs and buy petrol. It’s a false economy not to buy petrol in country towns just because it's 15c a litre more.

Arrive at Gingers Creek for fuel. Find it’s closed. Drag the owner Gary in his socks and sandals, from his Smoky Dawson Recliner to sell you petrol as you are on your knees pleading.

Gingers Creek is a popular pitstop for motorcyclists who love the winding roads (hence the roadside memorials).

The beauty of South West Rocks takes your breath away. It’s the topography that impresses. You could be in Samoa or Tonga.

Here, you’ll absorb a lingering twilight on a pretty beach with overpriced fish and chips that you’ve waited 45 minutes for.

You’ll be awestruck by the number of gold records and golden guitar awards our Slim won in his lifetime, which are on display at the Slim Dusty Centre.

At $23.50 per person, admission feels a little steep – being it’s now run by local council – but, hey, you’ve come this far. Remember, you’re on this road trip to learn about the colourful characters and yarns in country music. And the centre delivers in spades, with hip curation and a nice cafe.

You’ll be moved to your tall boots, seeing photos of Joy, Slim’s wife, with a calliper on her withered leg (from Polio) playing the squeezebox with hubby at agricultural shows and bush jamborees. 

Above: Slim's 'Old Purple'

Be sure to check out Old Purple: the Ford Fairlane 500 V8 that towed Slim and Joy's double-bogey aluminium caravan all over the continent. It did so many miles it was the equivalent of going to the moon and back! The centre is wonderful tribute to an Aussie icon. 

Arrive at the heritage-listed village of Bellbrook in less than an hour from the Slim Dusty Centre.

Named in 1882 after the bellbirds you hear tinkling through the dense scrub along Nulla Nulla Creek, up the road is Slim’s home.

It’s not open to the public but there’s an interactive display where Slim chats about the house. Why doesn’t the nation buy the homestead? Surely, it’s Australia’s Graceland.