After a drought of decent swell through March, things have started getting back to a normal Autumn in the last couple of weeks. Things clicked into place on Saturday morning when a north swell with north west winds almost made a left hand “point” break light up as good as it gets. This spot is in the middle of a long beach, but turns into a grinding Kirra-style barrel in the right conditions with the water sucking the sand bank dry in some spots and rides of up to 200m possible.

Looks like the entire east coast was going off at the same time…

We decided to do a spontaneous road trip up to Canberra on Saturday afternoon, primarily to take Dane to some museums, and for Emma to get some “city” time. Unfortunately for Emma, we didn’t think through the logistics far beyond booking a motel room to share, which meant she was stuck in a confined space with three snoring (Me), farting (Dane), boob-seeking (Theo) boys for the night.

We also didn’t think much beyond taking Dane into a museum, which was easy compared to trying to get him out amid howls of protest for “one more game” at Questacon (a science museum with loads of interactive exhibits).

It was a worthwhile trip despite all this, with Dane getting to see Kevin’s office (Parliament House), Kevin’s house (The Lodge) and us visiting the War Memorial for the first time to go and see my great uncle Norman Forster’s name on the Roll of Honour. He was my Grandmother’s brother who died in the siege of Tobruk at the age of 21 where he was posted as a medic. She’s never gotten over losing him, but did get some closure by going to Libya and visiting his war grave at the age of 90 a couple of years ago.

The National Archives now has a scanning service where you can pay $16 and have anyone’s war records scanned and published online, so I tracked down my granddad Harry Leonard Lansbury’s name and just got notified they’d finished the scan.

You can download the whole thing as a PDF here (5mb).

It’s pretty bureaucratic reading, but it does confirm he was in Darwin during the first wave of Japanese bombings that took place there in February 1942 - the biggest hostile attack on Australian soil in history. He also managed to rise through the ranks to become a Warrant Officer, which appears to be a decent rank for a Non Commissioned Officer.

He was only in Darwin for a couple of months before returning to Alice Springs where his unit was at a Supply Depot, and had to write letters to the Army for 10 years to try and get an active service medal, which was eventually awarded.

My Dad reckons this was the most exciting time of Len’s life, and he always seemed bored with living back in the suburbs after the war until his death in 1969.

We’ve had some great stormy nights recently, with the morning sun punching through the misty forest at first light…

Theo just started smiling properly this week in response to us talking gobbledygook to him. Of course every time I actually tried to take a photo of him I’d either miss it and he’d go back to his “what are you fools looking at?” face or the shot would be out of focus - So some poor quality ones will have to suffice for now. Almost got some cute ones of him and Dane too before they both started pulling faces for the camera…