Anzac Day

It's Anzac Day today when we get a public holiday to reflect quietly upon the selfless bravery of the Aussie diggers who died for their country defending freedom, democracy and so on and so forth.

Gallipoli is especially celebrated as perhaps the greatest contribution they made to the Empire's war effort, and lots of Australians go there to reflect, again quietly, as the sun comes up, and maybe (but probably not) ponder the futility of it all, or just that action in particular, where thousands of Australians, and many more thousands of others died assaulting the heavily entrenched Ottomans in an attempt to take the Dardanelles in an onslaught of expendable human matter as was the savoir faire in those days of war-as-statecraft.

Which isn't of course to detract from the bravery of those soldiers, far from it, but to reflect on the progress that has been made since in attitudes to the tactics, strategy and politics of war where loss of life has become a thing to be avoided at all costs, thankfully.

Anyway we pondered the futility of it all whilst we listened to the radio coverage of people pondering the futility of it all as we sat in the traffic on the way up to Bribie Island aspiring futilely to reaching a speed greater than 10km/h.

Siezing the day we took an exit to try and make some speed, and watched the traffic on the highway we'd just left accelerate away as lots of other people siezed their days also in the same way as us.

Eventually we got to Bribie Island and as usual went to Red Beach, the dog-friendly beach of choice to discerning Bribie Island-goers, and walked amongst the driftwood, paddled in the frankly quite chilly waters, buried each other in the sand and ate peanut butter sandwiches.

A jolly three hours or so we spent there, and what with it being Nicole's day off in her new Monday-Friday nine-to-five (give or take an hour or two of timeshift) existence, it was nice to get out of the city and grab a breath of fresh sea air.

After a while cloud started to drift over from the mainland so we adjourned for coffee and milkshakes.