Travel Day 17 - Amiens

My two Aussie buddies went off today to the Australian war cemetery and I took the train to Albert to visit the 1916 war museum. It was down under the town in a wartime tunnel and told quite a bit of the story of the first world War. 

The Germans got as close as 30 km's of Paris, before being driven back. It was a skies and bloody fight here in the French countryside. One Company sent 800 men over the trench top and on in to "no man's land", on into a barrage of machine gunfire that 30 minutes later had Al but 68 of the 800 lying dead or dying there on the battlefield!

Sadly for one young soldier his life came to end at 10:58. m. on the 11/11/2018, just two minutes before the First World War ended. George Lawrence Price was the last British Empire battle casualty, killed in action, by a sniper of the "Great War" . I'm sure he and his family never considered it great.






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Travel Days 23 - 25

Image
My final days in London where I'm so fortunate to be able to stop with Ian and Lone, I have so appreciated their hospitality. Wednesday was a lovely day spent with their four grandchildren Mia, Archie, Oliver and Benji - they're ages are very similar to Lily and Tyler's and they're all great kids.  Thursday I have the bike a thorough clean and went to the shops and finished outfitting myself with some more new clothes and on Friday I popped along to Kingston before collecting a bike box from the local bike shop on the way back. Friday afternoon I weighed the bike, box and my gear to ensure the bike box was close to the 25 kg baggage limit. Which it is at 25.8 kg and hopefully I won't get penalised for the extra 0.8 kg. The rest of my gear (including the new wardrobe) comes in under the 7 kg cabin luggage limit. Friday night Lone and I went to the West End and saw Tina - The Tina Turner Musical. It was " Simply the Best" and I loved it. Saturday, I went and...
Read more

Day 52 - Little Malvern to Hereford - Ride total 3,780 k, 24,250 m

Image
After spending the last three days with Steve and Sarah they were kind enough to drive me and the bike across to Little Malvern where I began my ride to Hereford with a climb up onto the Malvern Hills and along the ridge to get a 360 degree view of the countryside all around - a huge expanse of rolling hills and plains stretched out below on both sides of the ridge (the pics do not do justice to the view in real time). Never say to me "you must come and stay" - unless you mean it, coz I do! In 2017 when I met Steve when we were both doing LeJog (Lands End to John O'Groats) and along with Peter became riding buddies along the way. Steve like me was staying on in Scotalnd and holidaying in the Outer Hebredies with Sarah where I met up with them again for a meal as I was out there as well. Somewhere they must hace said to me"if you are ever in the Cotswolds come and visit". The beautiful Cotswolds are the whole reason for me getting into these journies by bike as w...
Read more

Day 57 - St Paul's to Richmond - Total for ride 4,136 k, 26,235 m

Image
My last ride of this adventure was a short but very "So London" ride as I left Sir Christopher Wren's 1735 St Paul's Cathedral, through the city to the banks of the Thames, past Big Ben, the Museums, up the Birdcage Walk, swung by Buckingham Palace and on through the Wellington Arch and across the Hammersmith Bridge via Hyde Park. And all that was without even trying or amending my cycle.travel route. The day was lovely and warm so I just took my time soaking up the last few km's of the journey. A lovely ride to finish the amazing journey that it's been.  Another cyclist on his way to work through Hyde Park commented on the "great kit you've got there" as he checked out my Aero Spyder rear bags, then when he learned this was my last day of a ride from Rome he was most impressed. I arrived at Ian and Lone's a bit before 11:00 a. m. and it was lovely to catch up with them after last seeing them on their NZ holiday when they were on one of the l...
Read more