Getting Tried At The Berrima Courthouse

The rock-n-roll style light show comes to small town justice. Little Berrima has an old courthouse that you can tour and get an idea of Aussie 1800s trials. Berrima figured that simply showing blah, dusty exhibits wouldn't bring in the jaded youth of today. Time for some bling.

Exterior of the courthouse, rock hard classical traditional.

The wigged out judge will see you now. Grim reminder of a physically abusive past, complete with corporal log book.

On with the show. "Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for the smashing crime duo, Lucretia and Martin!" The main courtroom has been transformed into a justice rock concert.

Jury of their peers, should also probably be in prison. Guess they really are peers. Highlighted hero lawyer.

The main attraction, looking a lot worse for wear. "Guilty! Encore!"

Training An Eye At The Goulburn Rail Heritage Centre

Australia's development seemed to have ridden the backbone of trains, which has now been passed by with air and something scary called road trains. Think rumbling, three trailer behemoths on two lane roads, heavy with mining materials and not caring if you fly off into the outback.

Back to trains. What to do with all that old, obsolete heavy metal and their cute roundhouses? Lucky for Australia, train buffs abound and they're busy saving, restoring, puttering with old trains and everything rail related.

The small town of Goulburn has a nice roundhouse and it's now a train museum. Hop aboard.

Wheels, locomotives and train cars, something for everyone.

Back in the day, everything moved by rail. A prison car, bars and all. Inside a mail car, a sorting frenzy on rails.

When things go sideways, best to call in the mighty craven. Dr. Yellow to the rescue.

Depot details. Patch of the mighty union. Oldest shop in the world and proud of it. A variety of lanterns, not available at Home Depot.

The roundhouse and massive turntable. Can play any record, even 78s.

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!