We stopped at Dunkirk to see the beach that the evacuation took place from during WWII. We were very pleasantly surprised to find that it’s a really lovely beach – long, white sandy seaside. I guess we had visions straight out of all the best war movies of rolls of barbed wire and masses of soldiers. We managed to find a camping ground that has a back gate leading out onto the beach. I went for a swim when we first arrived; Gus is not feeling 100% so he stayed and had a sleep.
The next day we biked into town and visited the Memorial du Souvenir War Museum. It was a really good exhibition about the battle and evacuation in 1940. Having just been on the beach and through the port where the evacuations took place; it was really hard to imagine that all this happened on what is now a beautiful and popular swimming beach. This Spitfire engine was dug out of the sand after the war.
I was also very taken with these lines of changing huts. I’m sure the wall is mainly to stop the town being flooded but it also serves as a great place to cycle/walk along the beach. As we got closer to town the path got quiet crowded and there were lots of cafes etc.
We must be about ½ way between Paris and London here because we can see masses of vapour trails from planes concentrating in two different directions. We’ve noticed this a lot whenever we are near major cities but it’s the first time we’ve been close enough to see two at once.
There was a spectacular sunset on the first night – I ended up taking a photo (or 20) but deleted ½ of them so my friends and family won’t have too many ‘sunset’ photos to sit through... I’m not sure what the girl is saying to her father but lots of expression going into it!
The second day we decided to bike down the beach wall to see some shipwrecks on the beach. We came to the end of the wall and saw that other people were biking down the sand so decided to give it a go. They have a huge tide here and the tide was well out so it was relatively easy biking – on nice hard sand – quite a good workout still though, a bit harder than on a path.
The shipwrecks were from boats used in the Dunkirk evacuation, some of them were deliberately beached so that the troops could use them as bridges to get to boats and ships further out. There were also concrete gun emplacements along the beach. It was a lovely day and a beautiful view: so many people using the beach for walking, playing sports, cycling, running, playing, as well as swimming of course. We had a coke and cake at a cafe overlooking the beach and biked back to camp.
The next morning we caught the ferry back to England – back to driving on the left hand side: felt very strange to start with, especially going round the roundabout the ‘wrong’ way. It’s nice to be back in an English speaking land though, almost like coming home! Since then have got a service done on the Enterprise; finally got the side window repaired (it got broken back in Scotland, 3 ½ months ago!); and have booked our ferry crossing to Ireland for Friday. While we were waiting for the service we went for a walk in a small wood and saw lots of squirrels scampering through the tree canopy – they are so fast!
Last night we had tea in a pub, The Red Lion, next to the campground. It’s the same pub we had lunch in when we first picked up the Enterprise! The accents of the locals had us smiling at each other, not quite home after all... I didn’t notice last time that there are historical stories and pictures on the wall involving the pub – some dead bodies were laid out on the straw floor after the ‘last uprising in England’. There were also 2 framed newspaper pages from 1835 – I’ve got some old newspapers at home but not in the same league!
Now we are on our way to Ireland, we’ve decided to head over there with the campervan for 2 ½ weeks – that still gives us a few days to sell the camper and get ourselves to London for the flight home, via Vancouver. We stayed near Pembroke at Angle Bay (in Wales) and are now on the ferry from Pembroke Dock to Rosslare.
The camp we were at was quite hard case – there are about 20 campers/caravans but they are so spread out over a large field that it looks empty. Out the other way there was a big oil refinery in view – there were another two in the distance. The camp only costs 6 quid a night so very cheap! Gus, making conversation with the elderly man who greeted us and collected our money, asked if he farmed here. The answer was “No, not me, Mr Lewis is the farmer and owns the camp – I just look after the place and give the money to him”. We were quite amused by this ‘Mr Lewis’. I don’t think any NZer would refer to their employer as Mr!
Yesterday we biked down to the nearest beach, after finally escaping from an elderly man in the caravan next door who was telling us he’s been coming here for 4 weeks for the last 14 years. He and his wife used to bring the grandchildren. He even went to Ireland once, 65 years ago... We took a walk around the beach, there are two forts that were originally guarded the vicinity. Even though the weather was cool, there were a few people on the beach and even a few hardy children in the sea. I have been quite intrigued by seeing at least one person on most beaches we’ve been to using a metal detector – I guess in a place with so much history you never know what may turn up.
The weather has now turned revolting with wind and rain – we hope this isn’t the precursor of weather in Ireland! Just before we left Gus saw 'Mr Lewis' trying to get his bulls separated from his cows so couldn't resist going over to give him a hand - turns out he's about 1/2 the age of the man calling him Mr Lewis and his name is Rowan...
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