[RECAP] Goulburn Road Trip

Today I would like to share with you a Google meet-up that myself and @Blue_bullet were involved in, and that’s our Goulburn Road Trip! To give a brief summary, Bibu asked in this post if there were other Sydney local guides, to which many of us eagerly responded. @RobFranceInOz told us that he was from Goulburn, which then sparked a brilliant idea to help map the area, as well as see a peculiar something as well, that I will leave until the end of this recap! In a little bit of trivia, did you know that Goulburn was Australia’s first inland city patented back in 1863 by Queen Victoria?

So without further ado, let’s begin!

Goulburn Road Trip, NSW

It was a beautiful day and morning to wake up. Didn’t have much sleep the night before, but that didn’t stop me from the excitement that was to unfold. I made my way to Chatswood to meet Bibu via train one hour and twenty minutes, only for us to drive back towards my area via the M4 and M7 motorways! I don’t actually mind long trips, and public transport is relatively a safe haven for deep thought and relaxation.

Every 10 minutes I took a picture of the road and put them together for a nice little hyperlapse.

For the majority of the road trip, we talked about plenty of things. We talked about photography, the beautiful weather, music, our experience with driving (we’re both P-Platers!), our country and plenty of countless things. While forcing him to stop at every small rest area to snag a few pictures, what was expected to only take two hours and fifteen minutes resulted in a three hour and forty-five minute road trip instead! For your happy-go-lucky roadster and Google Mapper, this was an excellent opportunity to map the south-west corner boundaries of the Sydney Conquest project, which will spark a massive zoom out from the locals and

finally venturing into the outskirts of Sydney!

On the way, we stopped at the Partridge VC Rest Area for a nice small sausage roll, followed by the 7-Eleven Pheasants Nest South, and then the midway point at Heatherbrae’s Pies, where we had a little bit of a lunch break. We enjoyed the view on the way there, kept on talking, and also Justine (sorry can’t tag, your name is ambiguous, we missed out) had messaged us expressing her apologies due to an unforeseen circumstance. That’s okay, there will be many other opportunities for all of us to meet!

At long last we finally made it to Goulburn, at around 1:45pm. We parked at the local KFC where there was a little bit of trees to shelter us from the increasingly warm sun, and a lot of space and quiet to park. Goulburn is a town rich in history, with plenty of buildings and facades retained throughout centuries, repurposed and renovated in numerous ways, as well as many of the regional museums, monuments and civic centres that itself as a major regional city prides itself in. There is barely any traffic (which is good news for any Sydneysider), and the community is quite close knit. Also a city of churches like Newcastle, Bibu and I walked around the majority of the city’s main centre Auburn Street and around the main features.

Some features of Goulburn

  • Top-Left: Goulburn Post Office
  • Top: LJ’s Carvery, a major diner, and an example of Goulburn’s recurring elements of musicality across the town.
  • Top-Right: St. Saviour’s Cathedral
  • Bottom-Left: Tree Spirits Public Artwork
  • Bottom: Tesla electric-charger stations. This is the first time I’ve encountered these, and in the middle of a regional town too!
  • Bottom-Right: Belmore Park gazebo, which instead the listing has a picture of a building on the other side of the town instead.

Babu’s and my goal was to help map a few businesses that have not existed, and also give a little bit of accuracy and contributions to the map. There was a small pop-up store that sold ornaments from Bali, an F45 Functional Training centre opening up within the next month, as well as a few other stores that had not been mapped. However there wasn’t really any new listings that weren’t mapped, but some a matter of just updating the category and such. Our updates in Goulburn were nice and seamless (all of them approved!) despite downplaying the algorithms the whole time on the way there, but when I got back to Blacktown, I was met with your usual downers of the not applied business and such, which I now have a new hypothesis for one of the many billion reasons not applied. Anyway enough of that.

At long last Bibu and I ventured to South Goulburn to finally arrive to what we had set out to find, the Big Merino! Rambo, the 15 metre high ram is a monument to Goulburn and the surrounding district’s fine wool industry. I was excited to take a couple of pictures and look around the gift shop. At long last our journey was finally done with only about two hours to explore Goulburn (many of the historical museums close at 3:00pm, should go there earlier), and so Babu and I headed back home, of course with stops to each of the rest areas on the way too! Instead I headed off to Westpoint Blacktown, which has fast upload-speeds in its wi-fi to help me get all my photos uploaded to Google Photos and to all their respective listings, and so there I bid Bibu farewell and he went on his way, until I bumped into a stationary jeep. Ouch!

That concludes the meet-up for the day. With a little few weeks in the planning, it was unfortunate that not many people had expressed their interest to go, and that Justine had to pull out the night before. Nonetheless, it was still plenty of fun, got to meet a new local guide and explore Australia’s first regional inland city.

Until the next time, cheers.

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Hi @Briggs and @Blue_bullet too.

Thank you for this super recap Briggs. It looks like you guys had a great day. Thank you also for arranging this top event Bidu. To hear the history of Goulburn and see images of local businesses is interesting for all Google Local Guides, new and experienced, as well as tourists and locals seeing your reviews on Google Maps to join and experience as you do, all the different places you shared with us of one of the many outstanding beautiful towns on the outskirts of Sydney.

Once again I am sorry I was unable to attend but a health issue held me back. As such nothing stops me normally (you know from other ventures Briggs), anything Google Local Guides and Google Maps is best for helping our community, businesses and as such our country so missing this was very saddening for me. I knew you guys would have a great time and take excellent pics as well as you have! Thanks again.

A brilliant recap, love the time lapse trip there, looking good! Top images and reviews of several downtown Goulburn highlights of your fun day out! Absolutely love the image of “Rambo” Wishing to get to see that Huge Merino again some day when we arrange another adventure soon!

I am sure lots of Google Local Guides Team members both Aussies like @PaulPavlinovich , @Osaka78forTRUMP , @GillianC , @DavidTito , @RobMulally and also our other great Local Guides Connect contributors like @KarenVChin , @ErmesT , @HelloSamsonR will love to see this awesome recap too!

With many thanks for all you do thanks again both Briggs and Bidu. You Rock, Rock on, Stay strong. Take care. Have fun!

Cheers

Justine

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Wow this is a documentary @Briggs So much and a lot experiences you got here for us. Thanks for sharing your recap experience with us, we are very happy to immerse our minds into this well documented experience reading and enjoying the lovely moments you had. Your pictures are very lovely too and always lovely :blush:. @Briggs do you mind sharing some of your photography skills with us too ? What type of camera do you use ? If it is a phone then what type ?. I am a big fan of your lighting skills ;-)…

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@Briggs This is really impressive a lot of work done here, well done mate. This is encouraging!

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Yo mate @Briggs . The time lapse is f’ing awesome. I wish you included the pit stops! There were at least 10 :slight_smile:

Finally on my desk, finished work and now time to breathe! The weekend was just incredible. Thank you Briggs for making it a great trip. I would have never turned around and even thought Goulburn was on the map if it was not for @RobFranceInOz . Such a sunny amazing day to be out driving as well. Well narrated story bro! Yes, we both are P platers! I am P plater who has atleast 200k on the dial. :slight_smile:

Lets pick up steam! Summers heading in fast and easy. I hope everyone nearby stops by on the gconnect and I swear I wont let them felt left. Missed @RobFranceInOz , while we did the this quiet little beautiful town. Weird to find the Tesla charging station, cool enough.

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@Briggs congrats on level 10 Goulburn yeah I have been there before its half way to Canberra another place I’ve lived, There Ram has lot goodies inside did you look out of the Rams eye?

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Dear @Briggs and @Blue_bullet , hope all’s well. Awesome story, awesome photography. Looks like you had fun. Good to see Goulburn for the first time. Thanks for sharing, kind regards from Osaka78

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