I thought Tom was going to wet himself tonight. We were watching TV in the hotel where we were having dinner and they were showing the latest keep fit exercises for the elderly – fencing. Imagine - proper fencing with foils and face guards with the opponents in wheelchairs or with zimmer frames! It was hysterical, but so difficult to describe. Just take it from us that it was one of the funniest things we’ve ever seen.
Anyway, back to the timeline of today’s activities - we set off by 10.00 from our freezing little cabin and stopped off by Anzac Parade to photograph the war memorials lining the street. There are eight of them at present with four spare sites, one of which is to be the Peacekeepers memorial. The current eight are Australian Army, Navy, Air Force, Desert Mounted Crops, Vietnam Forces, Korean War, Rats of Tobruk and the Nurses. Each is a great memorial but the two we both agreed touched us the most were the Vietnam one and the Rats of Tobruk.
Neither of us knew that Australia sent so many troops to Vietnam, 50,000. This is the largest memorial of them all. Great slabs of concrete set at odd angles, the insides of which are etched, one with a relief photo of some of the men awaiting extraction from Phuoc Tuy Province after an offensive,
one with random comments from men’s letters home and official documents, the third left blank. There is a long curved seat in the centre where you can sit and contemplate and over the centre is a suspended circle of stones, which contain all the names of the soldiers who didn’t come back from the war. The whole is set above flowing water and surrounding the main structure are plain concrete blocks with the names of some of those bodies brought home and some who were never found. Real tear jerking stuff.
The Rats of Tobruk memorial is much simpler but no less moving. The centre consists of large blocks of sandstone, the central one of which came from the original memorial built at Tobruk, using stone from the Post Office.
The surrounding low walls portray the perimeter defences and show the positions at which the enemy attacked.
Very simple but effective.
The two bronzes of “diggers” on the Army memorial are worth a mention. They are huge – about 20’ tall and the detail is superb.
After that moving start to the day, it was a bit quiet in the car for the first few miles but that soon changed! The road south, the Monaro Highway was fairly busy but not too many trucks. It passes through the Snowy Mountains, before which, the scenery was the usual dry brown, with long straight roads.
We stopped off in Cooma, capital of the snowy Mts, for coffee and I can safely say this was the rip-off of the holiday. We paid more than we’d pay for our normal evening meal for coffee and a sticky – twice as much as we normally expect. It wasn’t even a particularly wonderful café – but hey ho! that’s life! We handed in the books we’d read at the local charity shop and chose some more, and we picked up a couple of warm tops, and a pair of trousers for me to combat this really cold spell we’re “enjoying” at the moment! Back on the road, we were followed by a couple of trucks who terrorised us for a good few kms. Every time we came to a hill we pulled away, then when the road went downhill, the b*****s caught up with us again – goodness knows what speeds they got up to on those stretches! Thank heavens we lost them once we reached Bombala. We’d decided not to go the east coast route but to carry on south to Cann River then go along the south coast. Cann River was one of the places we’d thought we might stop but once we got there and saw the place, we moved on! We’re at Orbost for the night in a very nice motel with internet access. We walked to the local hotel for dinner where we had the hysterical fencing episode, after which we walked round the town/village (small town or large village, can’t decide which).
This is a much greener area than around Canberra with lots of beef and sheep farms.
On the way, we passed through forests of pine instead of eucalypt
and the land is much more rolling and hilly with real mountains in the distance. Tom couldn’t complain that there were long stretches of straight road on the journey – in fact, he was wishing for some straights by the time we got here! Anyway, tomorrow we’ll be well on the way to Melbourne – only one other night stop before we get there. So goodnight for the present.
Anyway, back to the timeline of today’s activities - we set off by 10.00 from our freezing little cabin and stopped off by Anzac Parade to photograph the war memorials lining the street. There are eight of them at present with four spare sites, one of which is to be the Peacekeepers memorial. The current eight are Australian Army, Navy, Air Force, Desert Mounted Crops, Vietnam Forces, Korean War, Rats of Tobruk and the Nurses. Each is a great memorial but the two we both agreed touched us the most were the Vietnam one and the Rats of Tobruk.
Neither of us knew that Australia sent so many troops to Vietnam, 50,000. This is the largest memorial of them all. Great slabs of concrete set at odd angles, the insides of which are etched, one with a relief photo of some of the men awaiting extraction from Phuoc Tuy Province after an offensive,
one with random comments from men’s letters home and official documents, the third left blank. There is a long curved seat in the centre where you can sit and contemplate and over the centre is a suspended circle of stones, which contain all the names of the soldiers who didn’t come back from the war. The whole is set above flowing water and surrounding the main structure are plain concrete blocks with the names of some of those bodies brought home and some who were never found. Real tear jerking stuff.The Rats of Tobruk memorial is much simpler but no less moving. The centre consists of large blocks of sandstone, the central one of which came from the original memorial built at Tobruk, using stone from the Post Office.
The surrounding low walls portray the perimeter defences and show the positions at which the enemy attacked. Very simple but effective.The two bronzes of “diggers” on the Army memorial are worth a mention. They are huge – about 20’ tall and the detail is superb.
After that moving start to the day, it was a bit quiet in the car for the first few miles but that soon changed! The road south, the Monaro Highway was fairly busy but not too many trucks. It passes through the Snowy Mountains, before which, the scenery was the usual dry brown, with long straight roads.
We stopped off in Cooma, capital of the snowy Mts, for coffee and I can safely say this was the rip-off of the holiday. We paid more than we’d pay for our normal evening meal for coffee and a sticky – twice as much as we normally expect. It wasn’t even a particularly wonderful café – but hey ho! that’s life! We handed in the books we’d read at the local charity shop and chose some more, and we picked up a couple of warm tops, and a pair of trousers for me to combat this really cold spell we’re “enjoying” at the moment! Back on the road, we were followed by a couple of trucks who terrorised us for a good few kms. Every time we came to a hill we pulled away, then when the road went downhill, the b*****s caught up with us again – goodness knows what speeds they got up to on those stretches! Thank heavens we lost them once we reached Bombala. We’d decided not to go the east coast route but to carry on south to Cann River then go along the south coast. Cann River was one of the places we’d thought we might stop but once we got there and saw the place, we moved on! We’re at Orbost for the night in a very nice motel with internet access. We walked to the local hotel for dinner where we had the hysterical fencing episode, after which we walked round the town/village (small town or large village, can’t decide which).This is a much greener area than around Canberra with lots of beef and sheep farms.
On the way, we passed through forests of pine instead of eucalypt and the land is much more rolling and hilly with real mountains in the distance. Tom couldn’t complain that there were long stretches of straight road on the journey – in fact, he was wishing for some straights by the time we got here! Anyway, tomorrow we’ll be well on the way to Melbourne – only one other night stop before we get there. So goodnight for the present.
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