Australia Day

Yesterday was Australia Day, not that you would know it living here on the other side of the world. Australia Day commemorates the establishment of the first European settlement in Australia. It was the day Captain Arthur Phillip founded the first British penal colony at Sydney Cove (now Sydney). Today many Australians dig through their family history looking for traces of a convict past. Once an embarrassment, it is now a reason for notoriety. But no convicts in my past, not that I know of anyway.

Australia Day is also the day that the Australian of the Year is announced. This year it is the country music singer Lee Kernaghan, who also has spent much time helping rural Australians. If it is not droughts killing off the grass, sheep and cattle, it is floods drowning them. Being at the beck and call of nature , as farmers are, is not easy. I know firsthand as I grew up through droughts on the farm.

It is only because of reading Australian papers on the Internet that I remembered it was Australia day, but Monday is the Australia Day public holiday, since the 26th fell on the weekend.
Here is a couple of photographic reminders of Australia: