Arrive and Drive - France and Belgium

Blog 6 - Bonjour, baguette: here it is the Western Front.

After possibly the worst flight ever (turning the lights off mid-flight does NOT necessarily mean everyone will sleep) everyone was pretty haggard by the time we landed in Paris – except for Jason who slept the whole trip.

We met Mike, our new tour guide, after grabbing our luggage at Charles de Gaulle airport. We were a bit worried about Mike after having the world's best tour guide, Toy, but he turned out to be a decent guy who eased us into our tour de France by taking us to a roadside diner, where we had out first croissant.

On our drive north to Belgium, the tour bus detoured to Compiegne, where the Armistice was signed in 1918. We were able to walk around the replica of the original rail carriage where the Allies and Axis powers signed the cease-fire at 5.00am on 11 November 1918.

Having seen where the war ended, eventually, travelled to Belgium, land of goodness, and stopped at our first cemetery, the Rampart, which is set on the edge of Ypres. It really is very beautiful cemetery, with a relatively small number of graves.

I guess this really helped to make it a personal place.

After our first of many cemeteries for this week, we walked to Menin Gate. It is an incredibly imposing place and is filled with names of Allied soldiers, killed in the battles around Ypres, but whose bodies were never found.

For me it was very emotional as my digger's name was on one of the walls along with a few other members of the groups diggers.
We only spent a short time at the memorial as we would return several more times. We then walked a few hundred metres into the town centre and it was there we saw a huge replica of the Cloth Hall and tower, which was destroyed by the Germans in the battle for Ypres. We also saw lots of chocolate shops and some more beautiful buildings in the town square.

It was here that we had our first Belgian lunch and it was good except for the fact that it was one massive omelette.

We visited a cemetery called Menin Road South for Sam to commemorate her adopted digger. She told us about the life and death of Leonard Errey and how that family name is quite well known in Camperdown, where she comes from. A few of us had a little cry and it definitely wasn't the last we would share.

Even though we'd flown for 12 hours and been on buses for another 6, we were on a roll at this point and we travelled to Hill 60 for a history lesson from Professor Bruce and to pay tribute to Darcy's digger.

At Hill 60, we found a blockhouse that was surprisingly intact and the experience was really strengthened by the fact it started to drizzle.

It was time to drive back into Menin and settle in the for the nigt.
Tomorrow was a big day. And so would the next six days be.