Blogs from Picardy, France, Europe - page 8

Today is a rest day. After six days of riding I think everyone is ready for a day out of the saddle?! Breakfast was at 8.00am as usual, but we then had about an hour to finish getting ready to leave the barge rather than the half an hour we have been getting between finishing breakfast and heading off on our bikes. We were due to be picked up for our tour of the Somme battlefields at 9.30am. We wandered up to the bridge over the canal at about 9.15am and Brian arrived in the minivan at about 9.20am. We headed first to the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux. The memorial is an imposing white stone monument that was unveiled on 22 July 1938 by King George VI. It bears the names of 11,000 Australian soldiers ... read more

Bonjour mes amies! We are here ready to begin Ians epic bike ride. He will start from Arles in the South of France and ride all the way home to Cambridge. We set off from Dover yesterday and stayed in Troyes last night. Today we are setting off for Avignon another 6 hours drive and then we will be ready to begin. Watch this space for further updates about our adventure. Au revoir for now Madame xxxxx ... read more

After yesterdays 58 miles turned into almost 70, mostly uphill, we decided to stick to the faster D roads. Colin (can we stop for a cake) & Paul (can we stop for a wee) set the pace whilst Michael cruised in our slip stream. Crossed the Somme & had our first roadside repair - Colins inner tube sticking through his supposedly puncture proof tyres. After baguette & chips (carb loading) in Roye, Michael took up the lead for the last leg and pushed for home as the others flagged. I'm only doing 15 mph he said until it was pointed out we had been going uphill for the last 5 miles. Nice & sunny & much less wind so relatively pleasant, explored the town in the evening which was very nice and enjoyed a few cold ... read more

I don’t agree with war and I honestly don’t understand why one would enlist in the armed forces. Patriotism? Money? Job Security? Death Wish? Don’t get me wrong, some of my closest friends are enlisted and I respect that decision but it doesn’t stop my heart from skipping a beat when I see updates on the news. At school we learn about WW1 and WW2, wars that tore our country apart while not being of any actual threat to our shores. We learn about the Anzacs, Hitler, the Kokoda trail, land mines, and chemical warfare. We also learn that our involvement in these wars has been for little reason other than to keep our allies on side. And it’s not to say I’m not patriotic. I don’t have any Australian descendants but that has never stopped ... read more

We were surprised by the openness and vastness of the Somme region - similar big sky’ feeling that you get in the Australian outback. It gave us a small appreciation of how vulnerable the soldiers must have felt. We visited the major sites plus the towns where A’s grandfather’s division had spent time (according to the war diaries): Franvillers, Corbie, Fouilloy, Villers Bretonneux, Le Hamel, Proyart and Bray-sur-Somme. The morning as very foggy and meant the view from the Australian Memorial tower (see pic 1) was particularly atmospheric. We had many of the sites to ourselves but saw a couple of mini-vans advertising tours with names like ‘cobber tours’ and ‘true blue digger tours’ which provoked some cynical conversation between us. We ended our tour in Bellenglise at the rarely visited memorial to the 4th Division ... read more