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By the dawn's early light ....

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 Many years ago when we lived in Brighton SA I wandered down to the Memorial Arch by the jetty just on daybreak on ANZAC Day.   A squad of blokes, some of an age to have served in WWII, were marching, silently and in good order, up Jetty Rd having just finished the Dawn Service.  It was one of the more moving events I have attended. Some years later when we were living in Bruce in Canberra I rode my bike down to the Dawn Service at the Australian War Memorial (AWM) on Limestone Avenue.  My guess was that there was no parking available on Limestone Av for 2km from the AWM.  I think about 5,000 were in attendance on that day.  Again it was very moving, in the form of a church service, similar to those held on the ships before the troops started landing.  I recall a Currawong bursting into song just as daylight arrived. Last year we weren't in Melbourne on ANZAC Day but this year we were so I decided to attend.  Proceedings started at 0530 so I...
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Laverton Creek

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I had wondered about going to the WTP today, but decided that I would be worrying about wasting diesel the whole time so it would not be much fun.  Instead we went to the mouth of Laverton Creek (aka Apex Park, Altona Beach).   Traffic was generally light on the drive over and Google Maps took the twisty route using Grieve Parade delivering to the end of the Esplanade.  As soon as we emerged from the Mazda we had an interesting bird in the form of an Egret which appeared to have a shortish neck and plumes.  Sorry, nice try, no cigar: the dark bill shouts Great Egret. While common, Crested Pigeons are very pretty birds. There were a few Stilts around, but I couldn't find any bands or all-white heads. A Singing Honeyeater was nice to see.  I always think of them as inland birds but they are easy to find in coastal Adelaide as well as the shrubby areas in Western Melbourne. One of my favourite birding books is "The complete birder" by Jack Connor.   Altho...
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In the footsteps of Captain Wales

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There are a few obscure references in that title!   The first is to "The Footsteps of Mr Kurtz" an excellent book by Michaela Wong about President Mobutu of the DRC.  (That title is itself a reference to the main character in "The Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad.) The second is to Prince Harry's preferred name when he was in the British Army.  He visited Footscray on Wednesday this week as we did on Friday. We visited different parts of the area to Harry, and I doubt I'd have got on to the turf of Whitten Oval.  Our reason for visiting was to explore the Heavenly Queen Temple, which we had seen from the train as we went to Williamstown a few weeks ago.  A helpful staffer from the City of Maribyrnong had provided us with a map of the area. Our route was starting at the station and more or less following the orange line, diverting to the yellow line, then the blue line and back on the green line.  These nice little cottages were in the area around th...
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