Doesn't get any more ‘Sh*tbox' than this
Day 3: Silverton to Bourke — Some were still going strong. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 3: Silverton to Bourke — Some may have needed a push. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 4: Bourke to Mitchell — Day 4 got romantic, congratulations to the happy couple. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 4: Bourke to Mitchell — Everyone stocked up on fuel for the next long leg. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 4: Bourke to Mitchell — Thomas the Tank is still going strong. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 4: Bourke to Mitchell — Out in the sticks. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 4: Bourke to Mitchell — They're nothing if not a supportive community. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 4: Bourke to Mitchell — Looking good! Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 4: Bourke to Mitchell — Mario and Luigi are a long way from the Rainbow Road. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 4: Bourke to Mitchell — Australia has some incredible scenery. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 5: Mitchell to Barcaldine — Back on the bitumen. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 5: Mitchell to Barcaldine — The cars were getting a little worse for wear five days in. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 5: Mitchell to Barcaldine — Everyone's there to help. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 5: Mitchell to Barcaldine — Hydration station. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 5: Mitchell to Barcaldine — With only two days left, everyone's desperate to make the finish line. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 5: Mitchell to Barcaldine — Love to see the kids getting out in support. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 5: Mitchell to Barcaldine — Um, okay. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 5: Mitchell to Barcaldine — Back on the dirt roads. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 6: Barcaldine to Hughenden — Only two days to go, the s**tboxes are still going strong. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 6: Barcaldine to Hughenden — Sleeping under the stars. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 6: Barcaldine to Hughenden — What a way to start the day. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 6: Barcaldine to Hughenden — Funnily enough they were all getting thirstier on the drive. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 6: Barcaldine to Hughenden — Greatest chairs ever! Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 6: Barcaldine to Hughenden — They finally made it to Longreach. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 6: Barcaldine to Hughenden — It was getting rough by day six. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 6: Barcaldine to Hughenden — Everyone's still going strong. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 6: Barcaldine to Hughenden — Was he dirty before he jumped in for a dip? Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 6: Barcaldine to Hughenden — Almost at the finish line. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 7: Hughenden to Townsville — Old friends and new. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 7: Hughenden to Townsville — The final leg. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 7: Hughenden to Townsville — The champagne flowing like the end of a Grand Prix. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 7: Hughenden to Townsville — Huge achievement hitting the finish line. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 7: Hughenden to Townsville — They're all friends by the end of the week. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 7: Hughenden to Townsville — It's hard work in the Shitbox Rally. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 7: Hughenden to Townsville — These guys are all ready for the auction. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 7: Hughenden to Townsville — You did it! Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 7: Hughenden to Townsville — Thomas the Tank made it! Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 8: Auction — After seven days, everyone was too attached to their vehicles. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 8: Auction — Remember, the money is going to a great cause. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 8: Auction — The cars went under the hammer. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 8: Auction — If anyone needs a car, see these people. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 8: After Party and Awards. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 8: After Party and Awards — Time to celebrate. Photo: BOX RALLIES
Day 8: After Party and Awards — A drink has never tasted sweeter. Photo: BOX RALLIES
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News.com.au
17 minutes ago
- News.com.au
What's on in Darwin August 2 and 3, 2025: Festival tips, 360 at Mayberry, and crocodile racing
WHAT'S ON THIS WEEKEND Music lovers are again in for a treat this weekend. If you've been keeping up with my Gig Guide on We Are Locals, you'll know that all weekend this weekend is the 53rd Top Half Folk Festival. But this year is a little different, it's at Mt Bundy Station, on the banks of the Adelaide River. The festival is bringing together more than 40 artists from across the NT and beyond, for four days and three nights of music and entertainment. It started yesterday but you can just go for the day any day this weekend, or grab yourself a weekend pass. It's a bit of a long weekend treat, going out to a gig on a Sunday night – and fans of Aussie hip hop can catch 360 with his special guest PEZ at Mayberry from 8pm. If you're keen to get on the microphone yourself, it's First Sunday Blues at Tracy Village from 3pm. Head along to listen to the local blues bands, or sign yourself up to belt out a few tracks on the board when you enter. And Monday, of course, is the Darwin Cup – but if you're feeling like going full Territory, check out the 'Croc Cup Carnival' at the Berry Springs Tavern on Sunday from 2pm. Yes – it's croc racing … But don't worry, they're only freshies. SOMEWHERE YOU NEED TO EAT It's an oldie but a goodie – so if you've been there, I am sure this is a welcome reminder to bring it back into the rotation, and if not: you need to try the Moorish lunch special. For $35, you get the choice of three tapas plates and a glass of Sangria – and if you go with friends and all get different plates, it's a seriously good way of tasting the whole menu. If you're going to order your own meals, try the Portobello mushroom with cauliflower puree, almonds, currants and truffle oil. YUM. LOCAL'S TIP It's officially less than a week to go until Darwin Festival – a reminder to break free of the NT stereotype of buying tickets at the last minute, and actually pre-booking your shows to avoid disappointment, and support the arts. Speaking of supporting: brand new gym and recreation facility, Gecko Climb, opens this weekend. It's four years in the making. There's some serious climbing equipment there and they're also running a cafe, workout spaces, team building areas – the whole shebang! It takes a lot of work to bring something of that scale to life, and I always have great respect for people who go all in to bring new things to Darwin – so get down and check it out.

News.com.au
2 hours ago
- News.com.au
The unassuming 71-year-old ‘ketamine queen' who changed Australia's drug scene forever
Kerrin Hofstrand used to have a foolproof ritual every time a package of ecstasy would arrive from the US. She'd head to a bar on Sydney's Oxford street, play the song California Dreamin', drink a Stoli and drop half a pill. If she wasn't high as a kite in 15 minutes, she'd know the drugs were no good. And if you think that's the most shocking thing you'll hear out of the mouth of a kindly-looking 71-year-old, you're in for a surprise. Known as the woman who introduced ketamine to Australia in the 1990s, Kerrin's life has been colourful enough to fill several books, and in this week's episode of Gary Jubelin's I Catch Killers podcast, she weaves a fascinating tale spanning decades - including stories of her time working as a stripper, selling cocaine in Hawaii, managing a brothel and taking LSD at the age of 12. 'It was just what we did in my group,' she explains candidly, referring to her childhood dalliance with LSD. 'I did acid before I ever even smoked a joint. It was very strange.' Despite the early indoctrination, Kerrin says her true 'drug days' didn't begin until she moved to the United States. An international move and an introduction to criminal life Kerrin's father, Gordon Stephen Piper was a household name in Australia. An actor, he was best known for playing Bob the plumber on the long-running television show A Country Practice. At 19, Kerrin's dad organised an opportunity for her to study at a prestigious New York acting school, a move she bankrolled with an inheritance she'd received from a great aunt the year prior. 'A girlfriend of mine, Sandra, was going to Hawaii,' she explains. 'She'd already been there, and she'd met this guy named Mark. She was in love with him. And I said, 'oh, well, I'll stop off in Hawaii with you' [en route to New York].' Mark, a semi-pro surfer with long blonde hair, lived in the penthouse of a 1930s building locals called 'the Hippie Hilton' in Hawaii. And as soon as Kerrin arrived, she fell for him. The pair quickly struck up a long-distance love affair between Hawaii and Sydney. 'Sandra went home after a month, I never went to acting school, and I ended up marrying Mark back here two years later,' she says. Once the pair moved together permanently to Hawaii, Kerrin began studying nursing by day, and working in a strip club by night, where she quickly progressed from cocktail waitress to fully fledged dancer. 'I was a tall leggy, good-looking person,' she explains. 'I was a size six on a 5'11 frame. I passed the audition.' Over the next few years, Kerrin achieved her nursing degree and made an extraordinary amount of money. In the process, she also developed a cocaine and quaaludes habit. Eventually, Kerrin's relationship with Mark ended, and she had to move temporarily back to Australia to nurse her mother, who died of cancer on Mother's Day in 1981. Cocaine, cruise ships and ecstasy Over the following decade, what Kerrin describes as her 'unusual' lifestyle took her through a career working on cruise ships around Hawaii (during which time she sold cocaine to 'everyone onboard, from the Captain down') to her eventual firing (because a guest saw her exit the bathroom without washing her hands, none the wiser that she'd actually been doing drugs), to her return to Australia, determined to detox. And it was here, in 1990, that Kerrin's role as a key player in Sydney's drug scene took off. During a night out on Oxford Street, a friend visiting from the States had suggested he begin sending her ecstasy from overseas. 'He said to me, 'Kerrin, if I sent you over 300 ecstasy a week, would you send me the money back?' I was like, 'yeah, sure, of course I will!' I was high as a kite! At the time, I just thought it was post-Mardi Gras, ecstasy talk.' 'About a week later, I get a phone call from the United States. And he goes, 'OK, so I need you to go to Bondi post office, you're going to take this letter saying you are who you are, and you have the authority to pick this up, and there's going to be six macadamia nut canisters'.' And so it began. Soon, Kerrin was doing a roaring trade. 'Every couple of weeks I'd send him back $9,999 from a different bank each time, to keep it under that $10,000 mark [which would flag suspicion].' Swimming in cash, she was soon able to move from her one-bedroom apartment to a fancy three-bedroom house in Paddington. Asked whether she worried about the potential harm she was doing through selling drugs, Kerrin is decisive. 'I was not standing at a kindergarten gate selling heroin,' she says simply. 'I felt absolutely no remorse about selling ecstasy because it wasn't a bad drug in those days,' Kerrin continues. 'In those days, you couldn't get anything more pure as a party drug. You only had to do a half to have eight hours of fun with no alcohol, a Chupa-Chup in your mouth, and a lemonade.' 'Special K' One day, a few months into Kerrin's ecstasy-dealing career, her American contact got in touch to tell her he was sending something different in the post. It would arrive in liquid form, in contact lens containers. It was ketamine - a previously unknown drug on the Australian scene. Kerrin began cooking it up and selling it for $200 per half-gram. Because she was the only person supplying it, Kerrin made 'an insane amount of money', but in the back of her mind, she knew she could be found out at any moment. In June 1991, that's exactly what happened. Unbeknownst to Kerrin, she'd been under police surveillance for a month before they decided to arrest her. 'They came in at 7.30am, and I was up in the top bathroom,' she recalls. 'I lived with three guys, and I thought it was one of them wanting to use the bathroom. I was in my pink flamingo pajamas, and they knocked at the door, and they said, 'get out now'. And I said, 'just hold on a minute, guys'. And they said, 'it's the police'. And I was like, 'OK, I still gotta clean my teeth anyway.'' As police searched her house, seizing drugs and other evidence, they eventually came to the oven, where Kerrin had left a batch of 'Special K' (ketamine) she'd cooked the night before. It was worth $10,000. 'They said to me, 'what's that?'' she recalls, 'and I said, 'it's Special K'. And they said, 'what? Like the Corn Flakes?' I said, 'no, like the ketamine that you give horses, it's a dance party drug, yeah?' So I was the first person in Australia to be busted with ketamine, and they changed the law to make ketamine illegal.' Because the drug had not been on the list of prohibited substances at the time of Kerrin's arrest, she wasn't charged for the ketamine they found. She was, however, charged for the 300 ecstasy pills, 2000 hits of LSD and $100,000 worth of cash that police found. She was eventually sentenced to three years and two months in Mulawa Correctional Centre - an experience she describes as 'hell on earth.' Life after drugs These days, Kerrin lives life on the law-abiding side of the street, exploring a passion for French cuisine, caring for her adopted Maltese Terrier, Bowie, and making videos about her adventures on TikTok for her fascinated followers. And in spite of her former money-making activities, she says that these days, the stakes are too high when it comes to drugs. 'It's a war on quality,' she explains. 'If the drugs were the quality of what I was dealing with when the ecstasy I sold was around, when the Coke was around, when all the drugs were around in those days and nobody was stamping on it 100 times, then you could feel safe about people taking them now.' 'I wouldn't, wouldn't trust anything on the streets these days,' she says. 'And anybody who gets involved with ice is just a goddamn idiot. I see the effects of that every single day.'

Daily Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Daily Telegraph
This year's Logie Awards Hall of Fame winner announced
Don't miss out on the headlines from Logies. Followed categories will be added to My News. The Logies are almost upon us, with organisers announcing the winner of the coveted Hall of Fame award ahead of this Sunday's ceremony. It's been revealed Magda Szubanski AO will be bestowed with the honour, making her just the fifth female recipient since the first ever awards back in 1984. Szubanski, 64, who has enjoyed a stellar four-decade showbiz career, will be presented with the award onstage at The Star in Sydney. The comedic entertainer, who was born in England but raised in Melbourne, first hit our screens in the '80s on sketch shows including The D-Generation, Fast Forward and Full Frontal, while also carving a career in film with roles in 1995's Babe and its subsequent sequel. Magda Szubanski AO is the 2025 Logies Hall of Fame inductee. Picture:But she's perhaps best known for her star turn in the 2000s comedy Kath & Kim, playing the loveable Sharon Strzelecki – a character previously debuted in 1994's Big Girl's Blouse with Gina Riley and Jane Turner. 'With a career spanning nearly four decades, the much-loved Magda Szubanski has helped define Australian comedy, creating some of the country's most beloved and enduring characters,' a statement from Logies organisers read. 'The TV WEEK Logie Award Hall of Fame recognises outstanding and continued contribution and enrichment to Australian television culture by an individual, a group of individuals, or a program. 'Magda's contribution to comedy, literature, activism, and Australia's cultural identity is profound and influential. This induction into the TV WEEK Logie Awards Hall of Fame celebrates not only a remarkable television career but also a lifetime of shaping hearts, headlines, and history, and giving audiences the gift of huge laughs.' Gina Riley, Jane Turner and Magda Szubanski first debuted their Kath & Kim characters in 'Big Girl's Blouse' in the '90s. Magda's Sharon Strzelecki remains one of the most prominent characters in Aussie pop culture. Szubanski was previously bestowed with an Order of Australia (AO) in 2019 'for distinguished service to the performing arts as an actor, comedian and writer, and as a campaigner for marriage equality.' The recognition comes amid a devastating time in Szubanski's personal life, with the star announcing her stage four cancer diagnosis in May. The beloved entertainer told fans in a social media post she was battling Mantle Cell Lymphoma, a rare and fast-moving blood cancer. Szubanski confirmed she had begun 'the Nordic protocol' … 'one of the best treatments available' for the disease that was randomly picked up during a recent breast screen. 'Hello, my lovelies. The head is shaved in anticipation of it all falling out in a couple of weeks,' she said at the time. 'I have just been diagnosed with a very rare, very aggressive lymphoma. 'It is one of the nasty ones unfortunately. 'The good thing is I'm surrounded by beautiful friends and family and an incredible medical support team. Honestly we have the best in the world here in Australia. 'It's pretty confronting. It is a full on one. But new treatments keep coming down the pipeline all the time … I've just got to (laughs). 'What do you? What are you gonna do?' The much-loved Aussie entertainer will be honoured at Sunday's Logies. Picture: LisaDuring the past decade, Szubanksi has increasingly opened up about her private battles. In her 2015 memoir Reckoning, Szubanski documented her complicated relationship with food and her sexuality, something she had guarded for decades before coming out in February 2012. She later admitted it was one of the scariest things she'd done in her life. In her social post this year, Szubanski signed off to her legion of fans with a request: 'If you do see me out and about – don't hug me, kiss me or breathe anywhere near me! Wave enthusiastically from a safe distance and know I love you madly.' The Logies will air Sunday night on Channel 7. Originally published as This year's Logie Awards Hall of Fame winner announced