Gordon Wyen, a student of indigenous painter, Albert Namatjira, arrived at the pub in the early 1980s to add to the Palace’s gallery, putting stratocumulus clouds on the ceiling and native warriors behind the bar.

This former coffee palace, built by the optimistic Methodist Temperance Movement in 1888, has been a lively institution ever since the wowsers were shown the door – and the [grog] artists moved in.

Priscilla: Queen of the Desert lent Mario’s murals some airplay, with Mitzi Del Bra and Felicia Jollygoodfellow staging a tiff before Wyen’s riverscape.

Safe to claim The Palace is the only pub in Australia where you can genuinely say, ‘I’d love to come to work today, boss, but I’m currently attending a birth.’ [227 Argent Street, 08-8088-1699]

Bizarrely, the hamlet was once a front-runner to be the new Australian capital. But those 15 seconds of fame passed soon enough. Nowadays the biggest eye-catcher is a fiberglass elephant outside the bakery called George.

Why George? I don’t know. Can anyone tell us? Or take a guess what connects elephants to a toast-sliced wholemeal? Nimmitabel is no end of mystery.

A sawmill set up shop in the early days call Donne & Bogan, not to be muddled with a transcendental poet accompanying a bourbon-swiller in black jeans. All the same, it’s rare to find a town named after a pair of fellers.

Any other town you can pinpoint in Oz that owes its name to a trailblazing corporation? There can’t be many. Which one are we forgetting?

Add a parrot, a bandicoot and Henrietta the Hedgehog, and you have the recipe for The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay, a kids book as lasting as the pudding itself.

Lindsay himself lived in his own private fantasia in Faulconbridge, in Sydney’s Blue Mountains. Surrounded by nudes and water features the artist managed to upset most postwar puritans, churning out faun statues, inflammatory novels and The Crucified Venus, among other outrages.

Sirens, the movie, captures a slice of his hedonism, with Sam Neill ogling and doodling the glam-set of Kate Fischer, Portia de Rossi and Elle. And the Norman Lindsay Gallery http://www.normanlindsay.com.au/still lures hordes of admiring voyeurs every year.

A lesser known fact is the road system close to the gallery, which deserves a dedicated wander for any reader who fell under the pudding’s spell. One meander will reveal the who’s who of Lindsay lore: Uncle Wattleberry Place, Watkin Wombat Way, Patrick O’Possum Place and Bill Barnacle Avenue.

Know of any other suburb or town in Australia where a local writer’s characters warrant their own enclave? We’ll tell you another later this week, but maybe you can beat us to the punch. Or you know a better story behind other street names. Let us know – or Sam Sawnoff will get trigger-happy.

Snails Bon Appetite is Australia’s first and only snail farm, set up in 2000. This hothouse industry makes it home in Congewai, a short drive from Cessnock in the Hunter Valley.

Robert and Helen Dyball are the snailers involved, feeding their flocks a diet of lime, calcium and other minerals to ensure the flesh’s ideal plumpness and pallor.

As soon as each gastropod reaches three centimeters in length, the morsel is sanitised over seven days and then vacuum-sealed into a 12-snail blister pack for haute cuisine.

Perhaps a memento of your homegrown meal can take the shape of the Dyball’s unique snail-shell pendants or snail earrings. And should you develop an appetite for thise spineless grub you can even purchase special concave tongs from the farm’s website at http://www.snails.com.au/.

Visits to the snailery, situated at 245 Congewai Road, are by appointment only. So call 02-4998-0030, or drop a line online – otherwise you’ll be deemed a pest.

A living breathing dinosaur”¦.

Above is the opening couplet of a poem composed by kids at Canowindra Primary School, 330 kays west of Sydney.

Such high-quality verse-mongering saw the school snag a remarkable prize, a two-metre sapling no other school on Earth could boast.

Known as a living dinosaur, the Wollemi pine was discovered only 12 years ago by David Noble while trekking beyond the Blue Mountains, in Wollemi National Park.

Scientists had long figured the Gondwana giant to be extinct, a fossil curio dating back two million years. But Noble’s trip to a remote canyon, and his sharp eye, has led to the botanic find of the 20th century.

And now, after so many steady shifts of propagation in a high-security nursery, the pine is venturing outdoors. Prime samples have already been planted in major botanic gardens around the country, but thanks to a school’s stirring ditty, a playground in Canowindra will also brag a Jurassic monster.

You can learn more about the Wollemi – cousin to the Norfolk pine and the monkey-puzzle – via a brilliant pine shrine at http://www.wollemipine.com/.

(As a bizarre postscript, the origin of the word WOLLEMI is the Aboriginal phrase for ‘take a look around you’ – while CANOWINDRA derives from ‘resting place’. Seems this story has been pre-scripted.)

Pakistan

Turkmenistan

Kazakstan

Baldrockistan

Afghanistan

That’s right. All ‘stans’ are legitimate children, except the curious bastard, Baldrockistan.

More concept than enclave, Baldrockistan is a state of mind conjured by Herman de Vries, a member of the shadowy cartel known as State of Sabotage.

Before you get alarmed, or alert, consider this: Bald Rock is the largest monolith in Oz, after Uluru, a single granite boulder that rules the borderline scrub and canyons between Tenterfield and Stanthorpe off the New England Highway.

By no coincidence, Tenterfield is also the spot where Henry Parkes plugged the idea of Australia’s disparate colonies (essentially the Baldrockistans of their day) merging into one nation.

Measuring some 650 hectares, Baldrockistan offers the monolith, as well as deep gorges, a Mexican hacienda and a lump of land labelled Serengeti Meadow. If this is seeming a little on the ledger’s loony side, then visit http://www.sabotage.at/sos/baldrockistan.php (no visa required) and learn other bald facts.

Such as? Well, today for example, August 30, is the realm’s day of independence. Or maraschino cherries are the national dish. Don’t believe me? See for yourself.

[MICRONATIONS, $24,95, Lonely Planet, 2006]

http://shop.lonelyplanet.com/product_detail.cfm?productID=2943&

A stone’s throw from the Iconic Banana in Coffs Harbour, The Clog Barn is ankle-deep in shavings, and wall-to-wall in wooden slippers. Outside, in the yard, is a downsized Amsterdam, with canals, tulips, a min-rail and the mandatory outcrop of windmills.

The barn also claims to stock the largest range of collectable teaspoons in Coffs Harbour, which may seem a fairly cautious claim. (Just in case Ye Olde Gift Shoppe on the main drag bankrolls another showcase.)

Kids and carpenters can see clogs being made any days of the week – at 11, 2 and 4 – or make a mess of Big Oma’s strudel in the coffee house annexed to the barn.

Rather than clog this blog with too many details, dip your toe into http://www.clogbiz.com/default.htm

Graham Hand, of Cremorne set readers the challenge of naming the longest walk possible in Sydney, while remaining under cover at all times. He wrote:

“You can walk from the Colonial Centre on Phillip Street, at the top of Martin Place, all the way beyond Town Hall to Kent Street, near Bathurst Street. That’s via the MLC, Skygarden, Centrepoint and various stores, under cover using sky bridges. Can anybody beat that?”

For those who know Sydney well – or reckon somewhere else in Oz could match such a cozy under-roof trek – we throw you Mr Hand’s gauntlet.