Tuesday 16 June 2009

Day seven.

Contrary to belief, this is not the damage caused by Jonno's curry the night before but in fact the scar on the Earth caused by Durham miners to mark the start of the assault on the battle of the Somme.
Never a truer word.

Memorial at Thiepval to commemorate the 72,000 men still missing in action during the battle of the Somme.

The magnificents roaming the trenches at The Somme.


Day seven:


Bonjour.

Today we started with a lie in which was rudely disturbed by the cleaner lady who burst in, hoover at the ready, and then promptly left.

The day would continue with many fits and starts as we visited the Somme battlefields not on our bikes, but via car, driven by the Harley seniors.

We firstly visited Albert, a town ruined by the by the battles of WW1. We entered a museum commemorating the great battle of the Somme, and were amazed to find many of the relics for sale in the shop at the end of the tour.

We then left Albert and headed for La Boisselle. At La Boisselle lies a crater 100 meters wide and 30 meters deep. It was created by miners who tunnelled towards the German lines and stuffed the final part of the tunnel with tonnes of TNT. It was detonated 2 minutes before the Somme assault took place. Phenomenal.

After the Great Hole came an Australian memorial from which Gav noticed what looked to be a British memorial. We made our way to find a cemetery with hundreds of graves and plaques covering the walls with that of more soldiers killed. T'was very humbling.

However, the memorial at Thiepval was truly unbelievable. There are 72,000 names of men still missing in the Somme battlefields. A huge monument symbolises the men lost to the fields of France.

And finally, to raise us from our sombre moods, we then visited a series of former trenches, which had a deer screaming from a rock and something called the 'danger tree', so it wasn't all bad.

Anyway, back to cycling tomorrow. Toodles for now.


Peace.




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