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Day 07: Never trust the GPS...
Day 07: Never trust the GPS...
Saturday June 20, 2009, 42 km (26 miles) - Total so far: 276 km (171 miles)
Saturday June 20, 2009, 42 km (26 miles) - Total so far: 276 km (171 miles)
So we were meant to have a short-ish day today at only 38kms... the weather didn't look fantastic, and even the guy in the hotel in Arras said that he was expecting rain... and it was very up-and-dwwn all day, though we didn't get rained on until we were locking the bikes up at the hotel in Albert, so that was very lucky....
The route was quite rural, though not meant to be as 'feral' as before... though one of the two GPS brainfarts today sent us across the top of the tallest hill in the area along an unpaved road...!!!.. and it seemed to be hunting for as many hills as possible, but Drew coped very well, and only fell off once today...!!
I case anyone's interested, here's a few facts about the ride so far that I haven't really touched on....:
Lost Items: 1 - Baseball cap
Punctures: none (touch wood!)
Mechanical failures: 2 - Drews legs
Useless equipment: 1 - Drews washing line
Best item I brought on the trip: GPS
Worst item I trusted on the trip: GPS
Best food: Flemish Beef Stew
Cheapest food: baguette and pate from a corner shop (and tasted great too)
Worst hotel: Ibis Dunkirk by a long way
Best Hotel: Cerise Bethune (half the price of an ibis, free internet, room as good as an ibis)
... and now on to todays story..... so we got up a little later than usual, after I was skyping with Laki and Kat in australia and set off about 9:20am... we had a few hills to get through before we'd even properly left the town, and this was where the GPS took us through the local version of a council estate, and we got to enjoy the view of a local burning wood in an oil barrel in the street... and then a few turns further on, the GPS took us to a cul-de-sac, telling us to proceed across the field of wheat in front of us....!!! (Brainfart #1)... but we found a way round that and continued on our merry way.... here's a few photos of the countryside and Drew on his bike...
We came across a signpost for an indian and chinese cemetary... the interesting thing about this cemetary was that a lot of the dates these guys passed away were 1919, so we were guessing that illness killed them...?... and the insciptions were obviously different than the usual British ones too...
We had a short stop at the Bucquoy road cemetery, where there were a lot of seamen and new-zealanders, but the weather was not looking brilliant, as you can see from the clouds in the background of some of the photos... and does anyone know why the Lincolnshire regiment has 'Egypt' on their crest...??... this confused us a lot, but there must be a good reason....
... and then, after the second GPS brainfart of the day taking us across the tallest hill on an unpaved road, we made it towards pozieres, but first we came across a few things all in the same place... a memorial to the tank corps, the australian memorial to the windmill near pozieres, and a signpost that was very interesting....
The Thiepval memorial can be seen on the left of the picture, as a pimple between two sets of woodland on the horizon...
This was the view standing on top of the earth and broken concrete mound that was once the windmill near vimy ridge...
Just after the village of pozieres, we stopped at the british cemetary in pozieres, where a friend of Drews has a relative named but has never been able to go and see it.... so we found the name... Sergeant Richard Elton of the 13th Gloucestershire regiment... these are the photos of the memorial and the name... I hope you like them Barry.. and Drew has some video for you as well...
This photo was for a guy who was a private in the same regiment as Richard Elton, and may well have known him...
... soon after that we got to the hotel (that bit was downhill...!) and rested for a bit.... then we got hungry, and since the hotel was sooooo unfriendly about the bikes (you will have to leave them outside, despite everywhere else we've been able to put them inside somewhere...!!)... I resolved to find somewhere else to eat other than the hotel... and I'd seen an eye-catching signpost for a well known health-food eatery on the road on the way in and found that it was only just across the roundabout...!!.... here's the photos... see if you can guess which foodie establishment we enjoyed....?
It's a shame that they don't serve it like this in England any more... they've got rid of the paper straws (that you can blow around the place by ripping one end off...)... but they have lots of sauce to put under the handles of the tray for the unsuspecting cleaner to get on their hands.... and the chips come with tartare sauce as well as tomato sauce.... much nicer....
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