Everyone has been through Coolac.

Yet if you were asked where it is, or what is there, chances are you won't remember. Let's narrow it down. Coolac is on the Hume Highway. It's about halfway between Melbourne and Sydney, nine miles north of Gundagai. Still, no clearer. Don't feel too bad if you have missed this blip on the roadside, deep in Dad and Dave territory. There is not much to Coolac - a pub and motel, a church, tennis courts, a servo and general store, a defunct railway line, a few houses - that's about all. There's the Old School House too, but that is a private home now. Yet strangely, it is the perhaps the most important place in the town, for it has become a sort of powerhouse for the place.

Peter Batey, OAM, lives there, and has done so since he escaped the city rat race some years ago. Prior to that he had been a driving force in the arts scene, one of the pioneers of contemporary Australian theatre, a noted playwright and set and lighting designer who collaborated on all five major Reg Livermore shows. He was also invited to direct the Royal Command Performance to honour the Silver Jubilee of HRH Queen Elizabeth II and held major appointments including Founding Member of the Melbourne Theatre Co. Artistic Director, SA Theatre Co, and Director, Victorian Arts Council. Despite all this, he decided to opt out and drop out, to Coolac.

However, you can take the boy out of the arts, but never the arts out of the boy, and Batey soon could see a blank canvas in this tiny town - population around 50 people and needing a focus.

Subtly, signs began to appear at the General Store. Fresh local apples, they advertised. Then other signs, hand lettered, that promised local food, local juices. And finally, the big one - a food festival. No, make that a Festival of Fun!

Batey had swung a deal - actually a lot of them - and called in some favours from friends in the city. A marquee was erected in the back yard of the Old School House, invitations and flyers went out, and RSVPs and bookings flowed in. Soon Coolac's Festival of Fun was off and running.

That was 10 years ago, and this year's one was a real biggie. Declared a 'Regional Flagship Event' by Tourism NSW, the Coolac Festival has been variously described as 'divinely outrageous, wickedly eccentric and most compulsive entertainment'. In fact the town literally 'books itself out' when visitors from the crossroads of NSW, Victoria, South Australia and ACT flock to it each February.

In 2003 the Bald Archies (a spoof on that other art prize) drew in its usual haul of prestigious entrants who didn't seem to mind a bit that the judges were Batey's dog Margaret, and Maude the white cockatoo, who shrieks from her cage when she decides the winner.

A couple of weeks later, the other Margaret - Food Patron Margaret Fulton (the absent-this-year Patron of the Festival is Dame Edna Everage) arrived for the Gala Showcase Dinner where top chefs, led by Graham Terrey, turned out magnificent food using almost entirely local produce, accompanied by fine Riverina wines. Batey himself became the over-the-top MC, and the whole evening formed a fitting conclusion to a month of revelry.

Earlier in the festival, the Daze of Wine and Roses had featured rose and wine experts and a fun debate - 'Roses are more romantic than wine'. A range of top musical performers over the weeks made their way to tiny Coolac too: Australia's jazz band Galapagos Duck, world renowned guitarist Slava Grigoryan performing alongside younger brother Leonard, and the sensational Acapella quartet - The Idea of the North.

Here's an association word test. Say Riverina, and most of us would reply Griffith, yet the area around Wagga and Cootamundra has much to offer too. There are pistachio growers, a mustard seed oil producer who exports to India and Japan, some of the best lamb in the state, and cheeses and fine wines made on the Charles Sturt University campus. There are cafes and restaurants, orchards, wineries and galleries, historical homesteads and indigenous foods.

In fact, if you plan a trip to next year's Festival of Fun, as you really should - Peter, Maude and Margaret would love to meet you - why not make it a long, long weekend and see the rest of the area too-