The Great War

Prior to leaving home we had done resarch on Marilyn's grandfather who had enlisted in 1916 and with the 6th Battlion had fought in France. We thought it would be good to vist some of the places he fought. It was about a 2 hour drive to the Somme and as soon as we got close we started to see war cemetries. A memorial at Poziers was quite emotional as a plaque descibed the battle for the bunker where 6th battlion were clearly involved. The huge loss of life was staggering and wasteful given that the ground won was lost back to the germans later in the war.

We had some luck at lunchtime as we chose a little tea house for lunch After a beaut lunch the owner asked if we wanted to see the trenches. At the back of the tea rooms some original trenches were discovered during a house building and these had been kept as close as possible to original condition we were able to wander through these and imagine the difficulties the soldiers faced. On the way to Villers-Breteneux we stopped at the huge Australian memorial. The area is beautifully kept and the huge number of headstones again got us quite emotional particularly those un-named listed just as a soldier of The Great War

Villers-Bretoneux is a town that has over the years made an extensive effort to remember the Australians. Our Flag was flying at the Town Hall . The pub is called the Le Melbourne The school is called Victoria. Their cemetery is called Adelaide and we saw the Koala Club.