|
Trawool, Victoria, Australia
The initial training camp of the 2/22 Battalion. On the last Sunday in July survivors, family, friends and other camp followers picnic by the side of the Tallarook road to commemorate the formation of the 2/22.
Rob Mitchell writes in One Bloke's Story, page 21:-
Camp Site No 26, Trawool overlooked the Goulburn River. It was one of those flat boggy corners of ground that always seem colder and more miserable than anywhere else nearby. It was at the base of a large, steep, treeless hill 8.4 km from Tallarook on the Yea Road. The camp site consisted of 109 tents, 4 marquees, 2 store tents, 5 mess tents, 1 HQ tent, 1 PO tent, 1 CWA tent and 1 YMCA marquee. The only real building on the site housed the kitchen in one end and the shower block in the other. The camp had been left in good order by the previous occupiers, the 46th Militia ...
He describes life at Trawool, page 23:-
Through to mid September life at Trawool consisted of basic training both day and night, physical training, and route marches interspersed with the odd concert in the YMCA tent.
It was a wet camp site. It rained, on average, one day in three for the first month. At night you could hear men coughing in their tents, young men made ill by the lack of hot bathing water, blankets and a warm dry place to sleep. A few died.
One of the least popular forms of PT was running flat out, with full pack and wearing a gas mask, up the steep hill behind the camp. In all this the men found time to rearrange some large light coloured stones hight on the hill to form in giant characters '2/22'
The land is now home to the Traawool Valley Vineyard.
Related Entries
|
 2/22 Memorial at Trawool
28 July 2002
 2/22 BBQ 28 July 2002
 2/22 Stones at Trawool
28 July 2002
|
