We arrived about ten on the barriers of the Champs Elysees. I left for some food with Sharon guarding the spot and came back to a big argument between a Belgian we had befriended and a French woman who tried to muscle in on our spot. She was a tough old bird and wouldn’t budge but being little she didn’t have much impact on our view which was front row. After the sponsors caravan passed, the riders rattled past on the cobbles, BMC and Cadel leading the peloton for the ride up the hill to the Arc d’ Triomphe. We had a good spot for no sooner had they passed us, they were back on the other side of the road going down the hill. And didn’t they go down at a fair pace. In the mountains I could run with them, and when we saw them a couple of weeks ago they were on a right angle bend, but this time they were at full tilt. Great to watch. They came past us about ten times, which was twenty all up on the downhill. On the final pass we relied on our Belgian friends to interpret the result from the loudspeakers for us. We shared our chocolate with them for it was his birthday, 51, and we caught the train back to Amiens. What a day! Tomorrow we fly to Dublin.
Lows and Highs
We drove through the Valley of the Somme today from St Quentin, to Peronne where we visited the museum, then on to Pozieres to the Australian Memorial. As we drove we passed numerous large and small military cemetries and memorials on the side of the road. I just shook my head at the waste when I read at the Ausralian Memorial to the 1st Division at Pozieres that they lost 22 000 casualties in the weeks they were there. It so happened that the attack on the place where the memorial was later placed occurred on the 23rd July, 1916, today’s date.
Just down the road a couple of kilometres, was Mouquet Farm. It was a quiet little place with sheep grazing on the low hill, a row of trees along the ridge and a small farmhouse near them. Potatoes grew in the fields and wheat shone in the sunshine below the storm clouds. There were 5300 casualties when the Australians attacked this farm where the Germans were in a maze of tunnels and trenches.I felt a lot of ghosts here. Like yesterday It is hard to realise this place was any other way.
The thing about driving through this area is that it’s a such a beautiful place. We stopped on the banks of the Somme where some men were camped, fishing under the willow trees. Worth fighting for, I guess. Driving back to Amiens, I thought I could have been travelling between Toowoomba and Warwick.
We listened to the Tour on French radio so made a bee-line towards the hotel and watched the last half hour of the race on TV. Cadel Evans wins Le Tour. Can you believe it? The Australia II of cycling
A hurried plan was made.
1. Book another night in Amiens.
2. Catch a fast train to Paris.
3. Sit on the pavement of the Champs Elysées and tick off another big moment.
Western Front
A quick drive on the motorways brought us around lunch to Villers- Bretonneux where we visited the museum which is attached to the Victorian School. A sign explained it was built with donations from Victorian school children after WW1. The school hall is made of Australian timbers and had carvings of Australian animals on timber columns around the walls. The Australian Memorial was just outside the town on a hill which gave a good view of all of the surrounding countryside of rolling hills of wheat. It reminded me a little of the Lochyer Valley. The very top of the memorial has a lookout which had chunks taken out of it from fighting during WW11. The tower gave an even wider view to the many small villages dotted around this area. We saw Le Hamel, another village famous in Australian wartime history, and took the five minute drive to the Australian Memorial to that battle. The memorial is new just having been opened by Quentin Bryce. We had the memorial to ourselves and it was peaceful looking over such lovely rolling farmland and it was difficult to.imagine it any other way. Small red poppies were sprouting where the wheat had just been harvested. We thought we might drive to Fromelles tomorrow.