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Monday, August 5, 2013

The USS George Washington...

Recently here in Queensland our local army base at Enoggera played host to this year's Talisman Saber war games.  'This year's scenario pits a joint US and Australian force against a fictional enemy who has invaded two small 'countries' in Queensland and Northern Territory...' The actual war games were held  north of Brisbane.
When all that was over, the USS George Washington docked at Luggage Point on the river here in Brisbane. We saw a news story about it where it was said that there were 6000 personnel on the ship...so we reckoned it must be somewhat large! It is also nuclear powered. So DH and I went to have a look last Thursday afternoon. Now the closest that the public could get was on the other side of the river...no public tours of this ship...
We had to park on some rough ground near the bank of the river...

And then we walked to the river bank...below is our first glimpse of this big war ship...


We weren't alone...this is only some of the other onlookers...

Now a couple of views to our left, down river and to our right, upstream...

 Looking back up the river...

Now...just a bit of 'zoom' ...

Let's keep zooming in on that ship...look at all those planes on the aft deck (?)...back of the ship then!


And this is the bow...and more planes...and helicopters !



And here's a shot taken of the 'middle of the ship'... 

Now apparently while Brisbane residents were having a 'sticky beak' at this warship, many of the personnel from the ship were having some R&R onshore...hope they all had a good time!

3 comments:

Noela said...

Great photos Maria. Hugs......

Susan said...

Thanks Maria - one of my USA blogging buddies has a son on that ship!
I will pass this onto her.

Aunt Marti said...

Maria, I am the aforementioned blogging buddy. And my son is a Mass Communication (public affairs) specialist on the USS George Washington. I can assure you, they had a *wonderful* time in Australia, many of his friends on the ship said it is their all-time favorite port call! They report "everyone is so friendly and helpful." Thank you to ALL Australians who made their port call and the exercise such a success!