Australian War Memorial
Trip Start
Nov 25, 2007
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Trip End
Jan 31, 2008
Happy Australia Day!! And what a great day to go to a village in france that has strong tries and respect for Australia called Villiers-Bretenoux in which many streets our named after Australian cities and places and the Australian flag flies proud. This town still displays its thanks to Australia for saving them during World War One. Just outside the town lies the very large and beautiful Australian War Memorial that is a must to visit for Australians to understand to efforts and sacrifices Australia made in World War One. There are rows and rows of headstones some with names some without and up the top of the green slope lined with these headstones is a massive structure with thousands of Australian soldiers names who were lost in battle and their bodies never found and as you look around to gentle inclines and flat plains of farm land that surrounds the memorial you can not help wondering were they fell and their remains lie. But enough of the serious stuff as we then headed back in the town and went to the Franco-Australian Museum which was great and contained numerous photos that were taken during the battle around and in this town. It was absolutely amazing the quality and quantity of the photos when you consider it was over 90 years ago. The photographers must have also been in the line of fire many times risking their lives to cupture what was happening around them. In the afternoon we went for a drive through the the fields and farmlands were the Battle of the Somme took place and visited another memorial site which still has some trenches surrounding it and then to a massive hole in the ground which was made by an exploding mine that was planted under the german trenches via a tunnel. We then headed off into the west to the Normandy region.
