ANZAC, Ghost town and a tunnel

Today is ANZAC day in Oz.

Held on the 25th of April it commemorates the day in 1915 when soldiers of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs) went into action in the ill fated Dardanelles Campaign of World War One.

A mere 14 years after Australian Federation the casualties that fell in that campaign and the rest who fell before the end scarred our fledgling nation. Of a population of just over 4 million people in 1914, 330,000 Aussie soldiers served (all volunteers). Of those 330,000 who served 221,000 were killed or seriously wounded.

Deb and I went for a drive along the Old Glen Innes Road which runs from Grafton one of our local towns up through the Nymboida Valley to Glen Innes.

The road has been bypassed by the new highway further north so it is pretty much in the same state as it was when it was opened in1867.

Much of the way it runs along a cutting perched above the Nymboida River.
At one point where a spur comes down to the river side it dives through a tunnel that was excavated by hand!

I paused at the other end to catch this piccie of a vehicle coming through. To give an idea of the size of the tunnel and just how narrow this old road is.

Further along we turned off up a side track which took us up to "Tommy's Lookout"
 
The view from about 1,000 feet above the river gives an idea of what the country is like. You can't see the road from up there but it snakes along parallel to the river.

The track up to the look out is suitable for 4x4 vehicles only and is not for the faint hearted.
Deb snapped this piccie through the windscreen on the way back down.


Back to the subject of ANZAC day. At the ghost town of Boyd Newton stands a lonely ANZAC memorial.
The local tale is that all the military age men volunteered and not one returned. Whatever happened the village was abandoned soon after, leaving nothing but the memorial.

In Which Al tricks his Audience.

Well no one guessed what this image was. Some people got part marks for the power-line in the background. But no one guessed a statue! I suspected when I cropped this part of the Digger's leg (wrapped in puttees) that people might guess a palm or coconut palm. It does look something like a palm taken out of context. This statue of a Digger (Oz lingo for an Aussie Soldier) is atop the war memorial in a tiny little town called Bonny Doon.
I guess he is suitable for an Australia Day post for two reasons: First copies of this statue (or a version very alike) are on memorials scattered through almost every small town across Oz (and many suburbs in bigger cities). He is an iconic Oz image. Second I actually posted a piccie featuring this Digger two years ago on Australia day. Which reminds me I showed a memorial of a different kind in that post. A memorial to three policemen murdered by “armed criminals” in 1878. I said I might post about those criminals later, but never did. Well strangely one of those three “armed criminals” has been back in the press again after over 130 years. I guess I should finally get around to keeping my promise and posting about them!