We stayed our last night at Naours. That morning at breakfast, a man came inside. It was to be our first contact with another Australian, here for ANZAC day. Jeff was from Mount Gambier (South Australia). He walked in the dining room, we said our "Bonjour" then he spoke. I thought for a minute how to introduce myself to him. I told him I could have acted as though I was French and he said he would have believed me. He told us that he rented a car to get around, and that that morning he had to collect his tickets for the dawn service in Glissy. He was very pleased to see us, as he needed directions. He told us that the GPS in the car was giving him trouble. As Cyril was coming at 9 am to take us to the underground city for our visit, I had to rush to make a map for him to follow. In the process of drawing the map to help him, talking to the other people in French and being in a huge rush, it was very exciting. As I had felt terrible about the situation the day before, this was the complete opposite. Speaking French either got me in a really excited state when it was working for me, or the opposite when it was not. He was very appreciative of the help. He told me that he thought after all that effort to draw the map, he thought the GPS would work again. Before we left, I said that we would surely see him tomorrow.

So this would be one of the main events of the trip to France. Not only to see the grave of Charles, but the whole exciting reason of staying in Naours - his inscriptions on the walls of the underground city of Naours. We were due to be at the site at 10 am. When we got there, it was overwhelming to say the least. There we had discovered quite a large crowd of people at the visitor centre waiting for us. There was two local newspapers, the Courier Picard and L'Abeille de la Ternoise, and one radio station. I went back the car to get my spare battery, but I didn't know they were all waiting for me.

There was Gilles Prilaux, the archaelogist, the mayor of Naours, who is also the Vice President of the Somme Department for tourism, all the journalists, there was Paul, an Englishman who gives English tours of the caves, he came to be a translator as well for us. It was really good to have him there, as he later took us on a bit of a tour of the underground city. He also spoke to one of the French journalists afterwards. I made a small but useful contribution to her article - neither of them knew how to translate New South Wales into French, but I did (Nouvelles Galles du Sud).

Then the formalities began. Gilles introduced the story of how he, as a child, discovered some markings in one of the rooms. He explained how he made his first discovery of the inscriptions left by soldiers during the First World War. It was a very small marking that he discovered. We couldn't even see it when he asked for us to search for it. Then he took us and all the journalists to the caves where the markings of Charles Edward Fitzhenry and his commanding officer, Alister Ross. They had set up the lights on the ground that illuminated the inscriptions on the walls. The first thing you realise, is that the markings are quite small. The pictures we had seen before of the inscriptions seemed quite large. But his markings were very clear. Then we saw the other inscription that he left, this time in his alias, William Doyle. There is another marking, made by Alister Ross, of a windmill. This moulin was present at the time they made their markings.

Gilles then proceeded to show the rest of the underground city. After this, they took us to another room when they presented us and Lucie with some gifts. They presented Dad with a plate with reproductions of the markings, me with the book written by Gilles, another French author and two Australians, a husband and wife team who all co-wrote the book The Silent Soldiers of Naours, compiling the stories of some of the soldiers who wrote their names on the cave walls. They presented Lucie with a gift pack that included some history books and other gifts. They presented us with a reproduction of the signatures from the wall, including postcards and reproduction of old maps of the caves made during the nineteenth century.

After the official ceremony, we met the two Australian authors of this book. Currently it is in English, however there will be a French version. We then had a short interview with the radio station. Paul then took us on a further tour of the cave system. He showed us more about the caves, including the markings of one of the soldiers who drew an image of an Australian digger. The caves were used since the sixteenth century, as a place for the locals to shelter. It was used mainly during the nineteenth century, by the local priest where they had Mass. Many of the rooms were used for this purpose, including the chapel and the place where there is an altar and a tableau with the feast days. You can see in one of these photos that the top of this list has been preserved, but not the bottom. You can find markings made by soldiers all over the cave system.

That night we stayed the first of two nights at Josie's BnB in Flesselles. This place was hidden amongst a tall hedge which some very curious flags in the courtyard. The most interesting flag was one with a lion signifying Normandy, but this is Picardy. Apparently it is a Picard flag, but the meaning wasn't explained to me. This was the only place we stayed where the owner didn't speak English, so it was a great opportunity for me. She had quite a few house rules, such as leaving shoes at the bottom of the stairwell. It bodes well for non-verbal communication when Dad realised she was instructing me about this rule when we first got there, whereas I didn't. Since the next day was the 25th, we had to sleep early. Usually we wouldn't finish dinner at the Greff's place until 11 pm, so this day we had to get back to Josie's earlier. As we had to get up at 1 am, we had to be very quiet. There was another guest upstairs, which was difficult due to the creaky floor boards. I gather this is common for these kinds of buildings in France.