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| Finding Charlotte's great uncle on the Menin Gate |
On day 3 we had an early start
with a tough cycle following. First we visited the Menin gate, where we found
Percy Conder from the Hertfordshire regiment (Charlotte's great uncle). From
there we had to cycle over many more hills to reach Hill 60, which is named
that because it is 60m above sea level. 21 mines were placed by allied troops
and were blown up in July 1916. We saw the two biggest craters
(spanbrokmoelen), one of which killed 300 people. The other was the biggest
man-made explosion at the time. Two didn't go off- one exploded in 1968 in a
thunderstorm and one is still unexploded and missing. We also passed the crypt
where Adolf Hitler was treated for his injuries during the WWI. We then stopped
at Ploegsteert, where the soldiers made a truce and played football on
Christmas Day 1914 and ate ice cream by a sculpture of 36 feet (the number of
men in a platoon) and a German man and British man shaking hands over a
football. After this we cycled to Bayernwald where there were German trenches
with shafts we could explore that they used to search for tunnellers.
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| Looking up from the German mine shafts |
The cycle was a bit tougher today,
so our legs are looking forward to some slightly different activities
tomorrow!
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| Amelia exploring a pill box |
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| Poppies |
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| Mr Creak does a whoopsie |
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| A quick break on a quiet country road |
