Introducing... the "EuroPig"!

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Bonjour!

The last blog left us in the french town of Le Puy en Velay - we were going to pick up the camper one evening but it was snowing too hard and the taxi wouldn't take us out to the farm, so we went out and got it the next morning. From there we got on the road straight away and made a move towards Paris to meet Jacko. It was snowing heavily and our trip north was looking a bit dubious, but luckily the weather has calmed down since.

Jacko's flight was cancelled, so we ended up chasing eachother around Europe for 24 hrs before meeting him off the train in the town of Beauvais - abut an hour north of Paris. So now he stays with us and eats our food, so nothings changed really. In Beauvais we stayed in a campground that was covered in snow, so it was a mad dash to the showers and back.

So we continued to the town of Arras in the north of France, where the western front was for most of WWI, and several battles, including the Battles of the Somme. All the towns in this area were decimated in the war, so nothing is very old, and all the churches etc had to be rebuilt. There is evidence everywhere of the war, pockmarks in the landscape, old trenches, and the farmers regularly dig up live munitions. One dude was digging to build a septic tank and found 5 german bodies, and they dug up a bunch of bodies when they were digging foundations for some of the memorials. Its unreal. A couple years ago, at one of the memorials, someone found a boot sticking out of the ground, and it turns out it was a body of a soldier.

Miillions of people died on the western front, including heaps of New Zealanders, and we went on a tour so see old battlefields and the memorials. We can't even imagine what it was like in the trenches back then, it was freezing just walking around!

Au revoir!

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Photos

Le Puy en Velay
Us in the snow in Le Puy en Velay - and on the way to buy Gin a beanie!

Le Puy en Velay
Le Puy en Velay - and I have a beanie!

Le Puy en Velay
The Rock and Chapel of St Micheal - imagine climbing that to get to mass!

Le puy en Velay
The weather on the night we were supposed to get the camper...

Le Puy en Velay
Renton driving the camper

Le Puy en Velay
And the weather outside

Le Puy en Velay
The mighty Euro-Pig

Beauvais
Brekky in the camper

Beauvais
Introducing... Jacko! And eyes front Renton (and he wonders why I complain about his driving!)

Arras
Renton and Jacko in front of the grave where the unknown warrior was taken from, before being flown home to Wellington

Arras
Us in front of the NZ memorial near Bepaume. It commemorates the NZ soldiers who fought and died in the Battles of the Somme.

Arras
One of the many cemeteries of the British forces near Bepaume.

Arras
Snack time in the camper

Arras
One of the few remaining German cemeteries. Most of them disappeared or were built over. This photo shows two of the four mass graves, that alone contain around 17,000 bodies.

Arras
This is the last original remaining tree in this forest where the Allied forces hid from the enemy. The forest was decimated and they estimate between 1000-2000 bodies still remain under the forest. Its pretty small, only about the size of Hunters bush.

Arras
In the quarry that the NZ tunnellers dug to house 27,000 soldiers before the Battle of Arras.

Beaumont-Hamel
Overlooking original trenches at Beaumont-Hamel, where about 800 Newfoundlanders (Canadians) launched an attack, and no one made it past the tree you can see slightly to the right. Only about 80 people survived.

Comments

[anonymous]

awesome photo's.
looks bloody cold though Heaps of history. love your beanie gin looks real cool. your jacket looks warm matt

[Possum]

Look out its two yobos