Saturday 28
December 2019 – 280 980
Up early for
Queanbeyan parkrun, the second last letter in our parkrun alphabet – and it was
cancelled due to smoke! We are all very
disappointed as the closest “Q” to home is a four hour drive each way. https://www.parkrun.com.au/queanbeyan/
The
Australian War Memorial was today’s destination.
We began with a self-guided walking tour of
ANZAC Parade memorials prior to opening time. https://www.nca.gov.au/anzac
On opening at 10am we had a brief look around the entrance area before
joining a guided tour at 10:30am with “Clem” as our guide. This was very informative and covered many
different parts of Australia’s military history and its impact on Australia’s
social history.
After a
picnic lunch we returned and explored the displays on WW1, WW2 and Afghanistan
as well as the Hall of Valour. A few
interesting things I learnt today:
·
17000 Australian served in Korea – I hadn’t
realised there were that many
·
There was a tank much smaller than I expected –
I think it was Italian
·
Rommel knew what the Allies were doing in Africa
as there could “read” communications between Britain and the US
·
102800 people have died serving Australia
militarily, 62000 of them in WW1
·
John Simpson, the man with the donkey, was in
fact, John Simpson Kirkpatrick
·
100 Victoria Crosses have been awarded to
Australian military personnel
We stayed
until the end of the day for the Last Post Ceremony, as did a very large number
of people. https://www.awm.gov.au/commemoration/last-post-ceremony
A day at the war memorial is
emotionally and mentally draining but very interesting. We spent the whole day there and did not look
at everything – there is simply so much so see, experience and learn.
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