ANZAC Day

ANZAC Day fell on Easter Monday this year making for an extra-long holiday weekend.  This holiday commemorates the landing of Australian and New Zealand troops on the beaches of Gallipoli on April 25th, 1915.  ANZAC Day now honors all of Australia's military.  To us, it seemed like a combination of Memorial Day, July 4th, and Veteran's Day.

ANZAC Day is often commemorated by dawn ceremonies.  However, that was a little early for us, so we settled for celebraing with the parade in Perth.  Unfortunately, I left my camera behind.  These pictures are courtesy of WAtoday.

The parade was impressive, and lasted over an hour.  Many different branches of Australia's military were represented.  Specific areas of operation and their Western Australian contingent were also represented.  There were even veterans representing the United States and Canada!  There were many different marching bands, some with bagpipes which were particularly impressive.  Overall, a pretty good parade, and we got some souvenir Australian flags to wave!