Patriotic Australians
Trip Start
Oct 22, 2005
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100
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Trip End
Ongoing
London,
United Kingdom
Saturday, April 22, 2006
The tradition of the dawn service originated from an operational routine that is still observed to this day by the Australian Army. The half-light of dawn plays tricks with soldiers' eyes from the half-hour or so before dawn, with all its grey, misty shadows, hence it became one of the most favoured times for an attack. In order to have soldiers ready they were woken before dawn so that by the time day break approached they were alert and ready for an attack should it come.
So in memory of our fallen comrades, feeling as though we were making a difference, we forced ourselves out of bed at the ungodly hour of 4am and caught a bus to Hyde Park. The Park, as we discovered, is eerily quiet at that time of the morning with the tree branches, barren of leaves, casting eerie shadows onto the dew soaked grass. Unsure of where the Monument was we initially wandered around the outskirts of the Park where we felt safe being able to hear and see the sparse early morning traffic. However unable to see or hear any hint of activity within the massive Park's grounds we decided we would have to venture within the gates and search around. Wandering around the seemingly deserted park we began to get more and more confused as to where all the people were and why we couldn't hear anything at all.
01 - Kensington Palace
In contrast to what we had imagined, the Park was absolutely silent with no movement besides a startled fox running across the path away from us, perhaps concerned by the tone of our frustrated and confused voices. As daybreak approached we continued to search in a frenzied manor, hoping it was just a trick of the eye like the soldiers of past experienced. We walked as quickly as possible and tried to cover as much of the 350 acres which obviously is near impossible. Still we expected to hear the Last Post sounding out on the bugle across the Park, but eventually after and hour and a half, defeated and confused, we abandoned our good intentions and left to find some breakfast.
After breakfast we quickly cheered up and took the opportunity of such an early start to head to the Portabello Road Market in Notting Hill. Arriving very early as the stall keepers setup their wares we wandered around until the street market began business. The majority of the day was then spent wandering around the colourful stalls and still discussing the fact that we couldn't find the dawn service.
Tiring of the market and feeling like it was 6pm we were to surprised to realise it was just after 2pm so we headed on the train to Wimbledon as Megs had spotted an Aussie pie shop from her bus to work a few weeks ago. What better way to celebrate being an Australian? We wandered in the sunny spring day through the leafy suburb of Wimbledon and found our way (eventually after a very long detour around a private golf course) to the hallowed turf of centre court. Well kind of, we didn't want to pay to go in so we just looked through the gates and imagined the court.
Wearied travelers we headed home stopping at our favourite local Thai restaurant, The Pepper Tree, on the way for some take away dinner and collapsed on the couch for an early night in.
For those of you that haven't guessed already, ANZAC Day was in fact on the following Tuesday the 25th. Obviously the Dawn Service is on that day not the on the Saturday when we so devotedly got out of bed and hiked through a deserted Hyde Park. But hey, how many tourists can say they have hiked through Hyde Park at 4:30am and survived to tell the storey? And no, in case you were wondering, we didn't repeat the performance on the Tuesday for the true ANZAC Day so I guess we aren't as patriotic as we think (unfortunately we had to work...).
