HMAS Choules (or Mallacoota) gets adopted

On 10 March 2021 HMAS Choules came back to Mallacoota to adopt the town as its ceremonial (perhaps spiritual is a better word) home.   We saw her well from the Lagoon boardwalk on our morning walk.  I had wondered about the name of the ship: all is explained in this very interesting Naval page.)

From the material copied to the Mallacoota Community Facebook group it was apparent that the main event was due to happen at Bastion Point at 2pm.  Just before 1pm things got a little noisy at home.

I had assumed this was an eminent person arriving but it was in fact one of the helicopters (an MRH -90 Taipan I think) used in the aftermath of the fire, being flown by the crew who flew it at the time. They had re-united for this event.  It was the pilot's last day in the Navy and he put on a show for the town.

As things were happening I took myself down to Bastion Point a little earlier.

The helicopter zoomed around quite a bit over land and sea ...

.. before going for a snooze on the afterdeck of Choules.

(A little out of sequence: I had ridden down to the ramp earlier and found this rubber duck checking things out.)

In the afternoon this landing craft (I believe used in 2020 to transfer evacuees to the Choules) was used to bring crew ashore.  Showing they trusted people in Mallacoota, they had left the key in the ignition.

Crew, chopper and the Howe Range

Quite a good roll up for an event in midweek with relatively little warning. ( I first became aware of it the day before.)

The blonde lay was the PR person from East Gippsland Shire who had managed the event.  I was a bit worried about the volume of her speaking notes but most of the paper was agenda and cast list.  Her comments were effective and brief.

The Mayor of East Gippsland (Cr. Mendy Urie) also spoke.  Again effective and brief.

The longest speech was by the former Captain of the Choules, Scott Houlihan.  I apologise to him that I didn't take his photo so I have cribbed this one from the Navy.  (Our local Commonwealth MP Darren Chester MP, also in the photo, had set the event up but didn't come out to Bastion staying at the Oval.)

Captain Houlian's speech was very interesting and mainly about his view of the events of early January 2020.  He, and the other speakers, made a point of talking about the 130 dogs and other pets which accompanied the ~1300 human evacuees.  somehow that made it a very moving event.  He  also talked about getting the Choules in action for the evacuation.  As it was around New Years Day most of the crew were on leave and scattered around, and he tasked someone with trying to round up enough crew to be able to sail.  In the event only 2 of the crew (out of, I think, 170) couldn't make due to being overseas.  The ship sailed from Sydney 17 hours after receiving its orders.  Quite astonishing.

The Taipan had landed at the Oval.

It seemed one needed to be in (school) uniform to get into the cabin!

So I contented myself with peering into the cabin.

An excellent event.