Thursday, 10 September
With the push to get back to the UK, we visited Rouen and
Amiens today. I had hoped to see the spot that Joan D’Arc was burnt but we only
saw her Tower where she was held for a while. We also visited the city’s train
station because it looked fabulous.
Visiting Amiens, I was hoping for more signs to memorials
but we had to drive into the city centre to find the address of the
Franco-Australian Museum. The Museum was 30 minutes out of town and is situated
in a school that was donated by a school in Victoria after the original one was
destroyed in the war. It felt like being a rural Australian school. Not that I
can compare what a French school is like but it made me a bit homesick regardless.
The Museum is being renovated for the upcoming anniversaries and is temporarily
housed in a smaller room.
It was nice museum but we were hoping to see a memorial or
actual site. It was just an assumption that the museum would be near one of
those 2. We then drove to the camping ground we had planned to stay that night
for decent showers and wifi.
I was able to get some wifi, although the logging on was
painful, before going out for our last French dinner. The manager of the
camping ground gave us an address of the street with the good restaurants and
after a bit of negotiating the roads and finding a car spot, we settled for a
tapas bar called, “Mannekin Pis” or “The Pissing Mannequin” Little Cupid-like
statues had the beer pulls attached to them and the toilet’s sinks had the
same. Very charming. For dessert we went to another, more refined, restaurant
which was fabulous. I think we offended the waitress as we found an unoccupied
table and sat down. I think they normally escort the diners to their seats with
tables that have cutlery. Opps.
We came home about 10pm and the girls went straight to
sleep. I tried the wifi to get a Paypal account created check our bank account
and see if I can make another ad for Springy as we haven’t had any hits yet on Gumtree.
Unfortunately, the wifi connection, that I paid 10 Euro for, didn’t but I was
able to mooch some connection off an unsecured wireless network and do some FB
things but it wouldn’t let me do the important things.
Friday, 11 September
The five things we had hoped to do today we did with various
levels of success:
1.
Visit Azincourt.
Our first touristy thing for the day. We decided to have a late morning
tea which turned into an early lunch before seeing the museum. The museum was
great. Very interactive and informative and gave the visitors a good
understanding about the situation before and after, as well as during. We also
looked at the fields that the battle took place 600 years ago.
2.
Return the French Gas bottle we
bought/contracted. Much more difficult to return the bottle than I had thought.
The main problem was we contracted the bottle through one company that didn’t
have many branches that actually sold/swapped gas bottles. The rest of the day
was spent looking for the shop with the bottles. At the end, I just handed the
bottle over and told them to tear up the contract. If they actually could swap
bottles, I could have received a small refund on the contract price but at that
time, I just wanted to get rid of it.
3.
Visit Ypres. This we did without much trouble.
The Flanders Field Museum had an upgrade 3 years prior and came with nifty
wrist bands and good displays. Dee thought the display we saw in 99 was better
but I found it hard to say. They had different styles certainly but I enjoyed
the new museum as it gave the history as well as the personal stories. We could
have spent much longer there but we were hoping to catch the 6pm ferry from
Dunkirk to Dover.
Springy played silly buggers with me,
saying she was running out of fuel when really she had a quarter tank left.
It’s little things like that I don’t need to happen when racing to catch a
ferry and also just before trying to sell her.
4.
Catch the Ferry to Dover. As we had a flexible
return fare on the ferry, we could try and catch any ferry 3 days either side
of the original date. I had hoped to catch the 6pm but with the various delays
during the day, we caught the 8pm instead. So far the crossing is pretty smooth
which I’m very grateful for but the wifi is awful with hundreds of people
probably trying to use it at the same time. Hopefully, the pub we’re staying at
is really only 10 minutes away as advertised.
5. Spend the remaining Euro we have. All except 47
Euro cents have been spent on Toberone, a power adapter and a bottle of water. Buggered
if I know where the Australian to European adaptor went to. I’ve a horrible
thought I left it in the wall at a service station 500km away. To work around
this, I’ve bought a UK/Europe adaptor to plug into my Australia/UK adaptor. It
seems to work so far. I wouldn’t be so concerned but we’ll need it when going
to the US next week. It’s a shame as we bought the original adaptor back in 99
for our first trip.
Anyway, time to pack up and get ready for the docking
happening soon at Dover. I’m looking forward to a British cider!
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