Gidday all
Hope all is well where ever you are. This is another blog from our recent trip to the UK.......
Next stop was Brighton where our cousin Kate lives with her husband, Mac ( an exceptional chef) and two kids, Kimi and Callan. It was great to catch up with them and get to know Brighton. For those of you that know Sydney, it's a bit like Newtown and Paddington but next to the sea. Kate really showed us the real Brighton, and it's cool, we loved it, thanks guys so much. And the lovely home cooked dinners at your place were a real treat after so many days on the road. Here we are the first night walking along the promenade..
Here we are on the beach, it was nice sunny day, Brighton Pier in the background, Connor was in rock heaven...
Here are the kids and I on the Brighton Pier, thanks again guys, we hope to see you in France sometime.
From Brighton we headed along the coast, eastward, to arrive at Dymchurch where our relatives Sally and Steve have a holiday house at the beach. Well, when I say relatives, it's pretty distant. Sally and I think we worked out that her great grand mother was my great x 2 grandmother! We're like brother and sister really. I stayed with them when I was 21 years old on the big backpacking tour of my life. It was awesome to see them again and just basically hang out, including a visit to the local seaside fair ( where I received elbow burns on the giant slide) and enjoying the beautiful wide beach there. We could see France across the Channel.
This is when the tide comes in, lovely time for a swim, here's Sally pre swim, she's heaps of fun....
Whilst at Dymchurch we took the opportunity to take a drive up to see Aunty Pat, another distant relative but someone that has been close to our family for a long time. She's doing well for a 94 year old, what's in the water up there?
Here is Sally, Jane, and Steve in front of black betty just before we headed off for. Thanks so much for your generous hospitality guys, terrific spot.
After three nights at Dymchurch it was time to head back to France. This meant our first trip on the Euro tunnel. That was an interesting experience, just 35 minutes it takes. You basically drive onto the back of a long train, fill up the train, sit in your car whilst in transit, then at the other end you drive out the front of the train. Remembering to drive back on the right hand side of the road was a bit tricking, a couple of times I did wonder over to the left, but after say a day I was back in French driving mode.
First stop was Saint Sylvester Cappel, a tiny town of about 500 I'd say where one of my favourite beers is brewed, "3 Monts"' you have to try it, you can buy it in Australia. The French are not known for their beer, Belgium is, so it makes sense this little town was close to the border with Belgium. This huge painting was in the middle of town.
I made it, my pilgrimage to Saint Sylvester's 3 Monts brewery complete!
We then drove down to the Somme to visit the grave of my great x2 uncle Robert Victor Henry Scott. We arrived late in the day at our B&B and headed straight out there. He is in the Caterpillar Valley Cemetery. It took a while to find him. This was something that I've had on my to do list for many years. I will inherent his death medal, this very large bronze medal that was sent out to the next of kin when a soldier died.
A couple of things that struck me was the number of cemeteries in the area, all with a mix of various nationalities, Aussie, NZ, Welsh, English etc, and the number of graves without a name. The next morning I went for a walk around the area near Caterpillar Valley, it's beautiful crop farm area, but you can just feel a certain presence due to all that went on there.
This photo below shows where the front line was on 1 September, 1916, 14 days later, on the 15th of September, Robert Scott was killed, he was 10 years younger than me at just 35. It was the first day the New Zealand Division joined the Battle of the Somme, one of largest of World War I. It went on from the 1 July 1916 to 18 November 1916 and "over 1,000,000 men were wounded or killed making it one of humanity's bloodiest battles".
This is an extract from a NZ memorial just near Caterpillar Valley....
"The infantry was in place by midnight of 14 September.....for the New Zealanders it was a grim prospect. They had to advance up a slope towards formidable German positions on a ridge ahead of them, swept by machine gun and artillery fire. Precisely at 6.20am the guns roared into life and the leading waves of infantry from Auckland and Otago regiments leapt from their trenches ..... By 6.50am the German trench line was in New Zealand hands."
We visited the small town of Pozieres, where a major Australian memorial is. Charles Bean, an official Australian historian had this to say about the Pozieres Ridge.... it "is more densely sown with Australian sacrifice than any other place on earth." In the battle of Pozieres 6,826 Aussies were killed, 4112 of whom are still "missing". This was what you see as you drive into town.
We also visited the huge Australian memorial at Villers- Bretonneux. It was opened in July 1938, and would you believe it, severely damaged during the 1939-45 war in Europe. It was repaired but they left some of the gun/shrapnel damage to the main tower as a reminder, as shown below. The memorial lists the names of 10,773 Aussie soldiers killed in WWI with no known grave.
Our experience in The Somme was very moving. I'm so glad we saw it. I might leave it there for now.
Hope all is well where ever you are. This is another blog from our recent trip to the UK.......
Next stop was Brighton where our cousin Kate lives with her husband, Mac ( an exceptional chef) and two kids, Kimi and Callan. It was great to catch up with them and get to know Brighton. For those of you that know Sydney, it's a bit like Newtown and Paddington but next to the sea. Kate really showed us the real Brighton, and it's cool, we loved it, thanks guys so much. And the lovely home cooked dinners at your place were a real treat after so many days on the road. Here we are the first night walking along the promenade..
Here we are on the beach, it was nice sunny day, Brighton Pier in the background, Connor was in rock heaven...
Here are the kids and I on the Brighton Pier, thanks again guys, we hope to see you in France sometime.
From Brighton we headed along the coast, eastward, to arrive at Dymchurch where our relatives Sally and Steve have a holiday house at the beach. Well, when I say relatives, it's pretty distant. Sally and I think we worked out that her great grand mother was my great x 2 grandmother! We're like brother and sister really. I stayed with them when I was 21 years old on the big backpacking tour of my life. It was awesome to see them again and just basically hang out, including a visit to the local seaside fair ( where I received elbow burns on the giant slide) and enjoying the beautiful wide beach there. We could see France across the Channel.
This is when the tide comes in, lovely time for a swim, here's Sally pre swim, she's heaps of fun....
Whilst at Dymchurch we took the opportunity to take a drive up to see Aunty Pat, another distant relative but someone that has been close to our family for a long time. She's doing well for a 94 year old, what's in the water up there?
Here is Sally, Jane, and Steve in front of black betty just before we headed off for. Thanks so much for your generous hospitality guys, terrific spot.
After three nights at Dymchurch it was time to head back to France. This meant our first trip on the Euro tunnel. That was an interesting experience, just 35 minutes it takes. You basically drive onto the back of a long train, fill up the train, sit in your car whilst in transit, then at the other end you drive out the front of the train. Remembering to drive back on the right hand side of the road was a bit tricking, a couple of times I did wonder over to the left, but after say a day I was back in French driving mode.
First stop was Saint Sylvester Cappel, a tiny town of about 500 I'd say where one of my favourite beers is brewed, "3 Monts"' you have to try it, you can buy it in Australia. The French are not known for their beer, Belgium is, so it makes sense this little town was close to the border with Belgium. This huge painting was in the middle of town.
I made it, my pilgrimage to Saint Sylvester's 3 Monts brewery complete!
We then drove down to the Somme to visit the grave of my great x2 uncle Robert Victor Henry Scott. We arrived late in the day at our B&B and headed straight out there. He is in the Caterpillar Valley Cemetery. It took a while to find him. This was something that I've had on my to do list for many years. I will inherent his death medal, this very large bronze medal that was sent out to the next of kin when a soldier died.
A couple of things that struck me was the number of cemeteries in the area, all with a mix of various nationalities, Aussie, NZ, Welsh, English etc, and the number of graves without a name. The next morning I went for a walk around the area near Caterpillar Valley, it's beautiful crop farm area, but you can just feel a certain presence due to all that went on there.
This photo below shows where the front line was on 1 September, 1916, 14 days later, on the 15th of September, Robert Scott was killed, he was 10 years younger than me at just 35. It was the first day the New Zealand Division joined the Battle of the Somme, one of largest of World War I. It went on from the 1 July 1916 to 18 November 1916 and "over 1,000,000 men were wounded or killed making it one of humanity's bloodiest battles".
This is an extract from a NZ memorial just near Caterpillar Valley....
"The infantry was in place by midnight of 14 September.....for the New Zealanders it was a grim prospect. They had to advance up a slope towards formidable German positions on a ridge ahead of them, swept by machine gun and artillery fire. Precisely at 6.20am the guns roared into life and the leading waves of infantry from Auckland and Otago regiments leapt from their trenches ..... By 6.50am the German trench line was in New Zealand hands."
We visited the small town of Pozieres, where a major Australian memorial is. Charles Bean, an official Australian historian had this to say about the Pozieres Ridge.... it "is more densely sown with Australian sacrifice than any other place on earth." In the battle of Pozieres 6,826 Aussies were killed, 4112 of whom are still "missing". This was what you see as you drive into town.
We also visited the huge Australian memorial at Villers- Bretonneux. It was opened in July 1938, and would you believe it, severely damaged during the 1939-45 war in Europe. It was repaired but they left some of the gun/shrapnel damage to the main tower as a reminder, as shown below. The memorial lists the names of 10,773 Aussie soldiers killed in WWI with no known grave.
Our experience in The Somme was very moving. I'm so glad we saw it. I might leave it there for now.
Best wishes
Jane, Sophie, Connor, and I
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