But no. These are freshly-enlisted men of Bega (two of them seem to be having a farewell cuddle of their beloved mongrel dogs) about to sail away to Sydney and then on to the war. Their about-to-begin journey is so very different from a frivolous day excursion that at their official farewell the night before at the Bega School of Arts (reported in infinite detail by the Bega Budget) there was open discussion of the possibility they might never come home but instead might die, albeit with the great satisfaction that they had done their patriotic duty.

Visitors to the National Archives of Australia's new exhibition Life Interrupted: Gallipoli Moments must pass by a vastly enlarged version of this picture. Sensitive visitors will find themselves peering into the faces of these chaps and wondering what became of them. At their farewell one of them voiced the thought at it would be a jolly thing if the war was over before they reached its awful theatres. But of course that didn't happen, and we can be sure that some of these men, immaculate and optimistic on this day at Tathra, went on to the awfulness of Gallipoli.

The Life Interrupted: Gallipoli Moments exhibition (it was being put together when we visited it on Thursday) uses men's Gallipoli diaries and photographs to try to immerse us in their everyday experiences of Gallipoli.

Curator Anne-Marie Conde explained, with men on a Tathra wharf and on Gallipoli eerily looking out at us from photographs, that she hopes visitors to the exhibition will "get some sense of the personal experience of those who were there".

"There's deliberately no grand narrative. It's all about the guys there on the ground, wondering what the hell is going on. I hope visitors get a sense of life actually on the ground on Gallipoli, of the men [feeling bewildered], of the mixture of excitement, boredom and bad food and terrible disease but occasionally of the birds singing and the sun shining.

"The display concentrates on those sorts of ordinary things so that visitors are given a sense of involvement, instead of having to pay attention to the patriotic words of the politicians of the day. I hope people get some sense of what people there really went through, some access to that reality that most of us find difficult to imagine. I'm hoping people will try and get into the thick of that experience rather than the wrap-themselves-in-the-flag style of activity that tends to go on [in some commemorations of Gallipoli]."

Life Interrupted: Gallipoli Moments is a partnership exhibition based on a concept developed by the State Library of NSW and enhanced with items from the National Archives of Australia. It opens on Friday, July 31, at the National Archives of Australia.

The National Archives building is permanently tethered to Queen Victoria Terrace, in Parkes, but another famous Canberra institution roams, fancy free.

We resume our theme of unorthodox Australians, and especially Wollemi pines, representing us overseas. Today we report that Canberra and Australia's pneumatic ambassador, Skywhale, with its inflated sense of importance, has been delighting (and surely sometimes perplexing) the people of Galway, Ireland.

The multi-uddered creation has been at the Galway Arts Festival.

We're sure that Skywhale must have terrified some (as illustrated in our horror comic picture of it) and been scoffed at by at least some who saw her in Ireland. Surely, it stampeded some horses and put the wind up some of Galway's famously timid leprechauns?

Meanwhile, though, we pass on to you this rather gushing account of the behemoth's Irish gig. Skywhale's creator Patricia Piccinini is back from the festival and sent Robyn Archer a glowing e-mail (Skywhale was commissioned for the Canberra Centenary festivities that Robyn Archer choreographed).

"Irish people are really, really warm-hearted and took to her immediately," Piccinini has trilled.

"I feel I can say her family has increased tenfold, so much was the sentiment expressed towards her.

"Kiff Saunders [the pilot] did an amazing job in a very stormy summer and the Skywhale flew over the city four times and was sometimes tethered at the Claddagh [a famous, ancient Galway location]. She was on the TV news, the TV arts program, the front page of multiple newspapers, and all over the internet on social media. And throughout all this she continued to get the name of the Centenary of Canberra out in the public eye.

"The best thing was that people saw the Skywhale from their suburban homes, kids followed her on their bikes, people stopped their cars, families came out of their houses and waved to her. She brought so much joy.

"I have come home incredibly revitalised by this whole experience. There was not one piece of negative comment, and I think it is fair to say that she was very much the emblem of the [Galway] festival this year."

"This is a positive outcome of your bringing the Skywhale to the Australian Performing Arts market. It shows what happens when the work is allowed to stand on her merits."

There is a video of Skywhale's leprechaun-startling Galway appearances at giaf.ie/events/skywhale