Australia Day

On Friday, January 26, we celebrated Australia Day. This wasn’t officially established as a country-wide celebration until 1988! Australia Day has represented different things throughout history but marks the arrival of first fleet British ships in 1788 in the state of New South Wales, near Sydney. That area of land had been discovered years before in 1770 but it wasn’t until 1788 that the British set to inhabit the land with ships filled with convicts. While the holiday was initially started to mark British sovereignty here and the emancipation of British convicts, it is also recognised as the date in which Indigenous Australians had their land invaded. This has prompted some people here to suggest that the celebration of Australia as a country should occur on a different date. So far, the government is saying that Australia Day will remain January 26 and promoting the focus of celebration to be on Australia’s diversity rather than a specific historic event. This foucs connects to another important part of January 26 since it is also a big day for people to acquire their Australian citizenship. We heard that more than 13000 people became citizens this year!

So what happens on Australia Day? It’s a lot like Canada, with lots of family and friends organising barbeques and communities holding outdoor concerts, events, and fireworks to celebrate. Rob and I decided to check out the community events and headed down to the beachfront for the afternoon. There was live music in the band stand at the beach, market stalls, a carnival, camel rides, and a sand sculpture contest. All the bars also got in involved with plenty of drinks and contests, including a crab race!

Since Australia Day happened on a Friday here, it meant a long weekend for us. Rob said he was happy to finally have a day off J We made the most of the weekend, with lots of downtime in the pool, a BBQ with friends, and an afternoon motorcycle ride to Byfield, and watching the final games of the Australian Open (which we’ve been obsessively watching for nearly two weeks). It was a perfectly relaxing summer weekend!