RXA

Yes I have changed the design. But as it’s my blog I can do that whenever I want and as I am a die hard Mac user, how could this not be appropriate.

Looking down the barrell

Saturday saw me turning up at the barracks ready for a trip to Bandiana (just south of the NSW border, so oxygen masks where thankfully not required).

After the four hour drive, we set up and waited for those who were traveling up under their own steam to arrive. The occasion was the anniversary of the Battle of the Nek, a battle which holds meaning to our regiment. In attendance were officers and senior NCO’s of the regiment. I was of course part of the band that was to supply the background music for the dinner.

The title of this post is to do with our dinner. Everybody has probably heard that the army is not really known for its food or even for the quality of the dining hall or ‘mess’ as the are officially known as. Well the OR’s (other rank) mess at Bandiana wins ‘The Best Mess Ever Award’.

It:

• had coke on tap (albeit post-mix)
• was sparkling clean
• served good quality food
• had seven flavours of good quality ice cream available including strawberry and choc-mint

As an additional bonus they were serving mini pizzas, steak and chips that night.

The rest of the night was quite enjoyable with the officers etc. asking us to join them for drinks afterwards. We of course accepted but my advanced age had me dropping at 0100 hours. A couple of the band did us proud and held out until 0400 but looked a little worse for wear in the morning (see the last photo from the trip, that’s all I could see of young David. I could hear him, but could not see him for a while).

Photos from the trip.