Ayrnzacs …

Day 33: Wednesday 25 April (1pm, Ayr)

Anzac Day is always an emotional morning. Watching the march on TV is enough to send me for tissues, so I thought I would be really brave this morning and attend the march. It was brilliant!

I almost missed it as I had the wrong start time so wasn’t quite dressed when I heard the pipers and determined it was a little bit more in tune than a practice would sound, so quickly threw on my clothes and raced out the door without any makeup on – thank goodness for sunglasses! Got to the street outside my window and I took the short cut between the shops to the main street. Made it just in time to see the first cars roll through, followed by the diggers and then all the supporters and schools. Ray (motel manager) was all dressed up and very proud of his ‘Skippy’ badge so gave me a salute as he walked past. He later told me it was proper for an officer to salute a woman as she would always be of higher standing than a male – I think deep down all the husbands of the world know this, but it’s nice to hear it!

Once he was past me, I cut through the march and ran down to Anzac Park for a better photo and stayed for the ceremony. We had the Mayor, the State Member for the area and the Federal Member all present! RAAF guarded the memorial. We had a fly over (might have been a straggler from Townsville?). Apparently it was the biggest turnout they’ve ever had, so little ol’ Ayr did good today!

Remember I mentioned this was to be a short week as I had some exciting news? Well, I’m about to head down to meet Shelley in Bowen for an overnight stay as we’re going to be out in the beautiful blue waters around there early tomorrow morning – we’re turtle tagging!

This could easily be the highlight of the trip as we will be out in the water, jumping in to catch turtles and then tagging them for research purposes before dropping them back in the water. It’s up there in the amazing stakes with swimming with dolphins and whale watching, and almost didn’t happen, but Eddie has done some shuffling of his responsibilities to wrangle a day off on Thursday to take us out with Jim and their wives. Perfect timing as our Australian Business Volunteers co-ordinator, Jean, has arrived to review how we’ve gone, so she’ll be joining us too.

Expect some stellar photo’s from this event!! (ooooh, expectations – silly girl!)