Seeing The Queanbeyan Show

Small town country, agriculture fairs are alive and well all over Australia. See some prize bovines, eat a corn dog, throw it up on a ride, go home happy.

Humble hay stage at the annual Queanbeyan Show.

Worthy wool. Sheep shearing is still big biz in Australia and having the best merino is coveted. Your Water Stream Here. Masochist clown amusement.

Dunking for Disney characters.

Rough rides. The sky's the limit and hitting the chilly slopes in the spring heat.

A little quiet time in the bleachers between animal competitions.

Wandering Around Goulburn

Goulburn is about an hour from Canberra and the town has a handful of cool sites to visit. Pumping water and gawking at Big Things, here we go.

Ye Olde Goulburn Waterworks. Iconic red brick building.

Pretty piping. Engineers then knew how to build to both perform well and look good doing it.

What the..? All hail Rambo! No ram-sh*t, this big merino is named after a real ram from the nearby Bullamallita property. 50 feet of concrete studlliness.

Delightful details. You can climb up the inside of Rambo and peer out his big eyes. Rear view, no doubt it's Rambo, not Ramba.

Ho hum, it's still an exit through the gift shop, time to pick up some socks and a beanie.

Remembering Wars In Goulburn

It seems every town in Australia has a war memorial and perhaps a war-themed museum. Little Goulburn in New South Wales has both sites right next to each other.

The Memorial Museum entrance with a captured WWI German Howitzer artillery gun out front.

WWI rifle line up. Choose your killing machine. Strategic map of the WWI Pacific theater.

A Vietnam War exhibit. The war will be televised, behind the velvet rope of your living room.

Details of fighting, a humble sewing kit and Vietnam War era anti-war buttons and National Service protest handouts.

Just down the road from the museum, an impressive stone tower, dedicated to ANZAC and WWI.

Seeing Spring Blooms At Tulip Top

Ahh, spring. Nature wakes up and shows its beautiful colors. Canberra has a couple of nice gardens that overflow with flowers in the spring and a great place to go see blooms is a relaxing place about half an hour from the city, Tulip Top.

The garden is in the middle of rolling hills, a colorful oasis among bored cattle.

And the tulip blooms are out, way out.

A little picnic under the cherry blossoms.

Water feature, more blooms. Flower gazing, a hobby for all ages.

Oof, enough with the beautiful flowers, time to head to the well-placed pop up wine bar!

Woolfest In Boorowa

About an hour or so outside Canberra is the small town of Boorowa. Every year they put on something called Woolfest, basically a big celebration of the mighty sheep. The highlight is, er, shall we say, the Running of the Wools!

The main drag of Boorowa is closed for the event and the sheep are penned at one end, prepped for their big sprint.

Big balloon sculpture of the celebrity of the day. Parade undercard, old tractors.

Cool demo, the still manual art of shearing. Did the shearer do the top of his head first?

Another cool demo, confident kelpie corralling some sheep. The sheep had no chance. Awww, automatic pet me critters, mad adorbs. If only possible to house break them.

Finally, the big event, the sheep sprint. Reality: a frantic run down the street to a roundabout and then back to the pen. The reality reality: down to the roundabout, get stuck turning around, jump over shrubs, send spectators for cover. Excellent show!

Bringing Your Worst To The Sh*tbox Rally

There's a great event in Australia that raises money to fight cancer. It's a sort of rally car race, lasting several days and the only requirement is that your vehicle must be worth less than $1,500. In other words, a real shitbox.

The rallies are held a few times a year with different starting, ending points. One race started in Canberra and going to see the collection of shitboxes proved to be an event in itself.

Mmm, morning steam and smog. Not quite F1.

A big part of the fun of Shitbox is customizing your crapmobile. Why spend $1,500 on auto gear when you can add a boat or a Thomas the Tank Engine front?

If you're going to cover your car in grass, make sure to bring the lawn mower. Nice vest.

Bring the noise. Shitbox logo and a surround of a million rocking artists. Barbie is ready to roll.

Bogan mobile, classic. The term Bogan is an Aussie word, used to identify, shall we say, white trash? A mullet wearing, beer guzzling, idiot. Shitbox and Bogan, a marriage made in road rage hell. Vroom!

Going International At Cockington Green Gardens

Once you've built out quaint, miniature England, time to go international with some of the world's most iconic places. Especially if some of the local Canberra embassies are happy to sponsor a model.

A Ukrainian cupcake, St. Andrews church.

Don't be afraid to show your crest. St. Mark's church in Zagreb, Croatia. Heading to Asia, the impressive Lahore gate of the Red Fort in Agra, India.

As it was, the good life on a terrace. Israel's Masada, in reconstruction.

What color to paint your house? Any color! The La Boca neighborhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Hmm. Mining headframe, representing Australia. Suck it, Sydney Opera House.

Brutal, in a fantastic way. The Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban parliament building of Bangladesh. Designed by the concrete-loving architect, Louis Kahn.

Ye Olde (Miniature) England At Cockington Green Gardens

Think a big miniature golf course without the golf. An elaborate model train set without the trains. OK, one train. Cockington Green Gardens in Canberra is a cute, throwback type of attraction, just lovingly detailed model after model of examples of iconic English architecture.

Here's Lavenham, known for its leaning buildings.

Quaint. Cockington village, the namesake for the gardens. Modern village example, a row of council houses, a style quickly built after WWII.

There's that train, doing the commute around the lake.

A little gentleman's cricket match on the village pitch. Country church wedding.

Ole! Attending a CG (Cockington Green) FC game.

Cute details. Commerce on an early canal. Getting rough in a golf game.

No miniature of England is complete without a little Stonehenge. With picnicking friars.