Going To The Gundagai Gaol

Gaol is jail in Australia and if you break the law, you're going there no matter the spelling. You can also go there if a Gaol is closed and now a museum. Like in Gundagai.

The Big House at the Gundagai gaol. Warden, not prisoner.

Spartan accommodations. A single bed and a single bucket toilet.

Exercise yard, bars between you and the wild blue yonder.

Stockage in an exhibition room and a portrait of some famous bushrangers (rural outlaws) who passed through the gaol including James Nesbitt and a man with a flowery name, Captain Moonlight. Trippy.

Prison kitchen, a fireplace, table and pot. Daily gruel!

Going To Gundagai

Gundagai is a sleepy, small, rural country town about an hour from Canberra. The place has taken on the symbol of old Aussie frontier life in songs and lore and has a couple of attractions to reinforce that honor.

Hello Dad and Dave, Mum and Mabel. The Beverly Hillbillies of Australia? More like tough homesteaders. Little House on the Prairie? Sure. The characters are from a series of stories from the 1890's, On Our Selection, by Steele Rudd.

Inside the requisite pioneer museum. Old car, old painted saw, old man portrait, old everything. "Hullo thar pardner." A homemade mannequin on his bullock cart. He looks like he needs a break. Or a paint job.

Art in the wool. One of the more unique items at the pioneer museum, an elaborate wool tapestry, representing the area's agriculture glory, made from its most famous product.

Iconic stuff, old wood train bridge and the Dog On The Tucker Box sculpture, named for an old cowboy-like poem. Spoiler alert, the dog won.

Hello Melba. Dairy cow mural, paying homage to the local milk maidens.