DAY 5 -12TH SEPTEMBER-FINAL DAY

Our final breakfast of this years tour, we had packed and loaded the car, we were still in a dilema as to which route to take home. There were two clear options. The first which is our usual route which was to head north on the autoroute and come off at Armentieres and drive through Plugstreet and along the front line to Ypres and tour that area for a few hours before heading to Calais. This was our original plan, but I had seriously lost interest in it, I still find it hard to like the salient.David had a similar feeling so we decided to omit that part of the itinery this time. We decided to stick around the Somme for the morning then take the autoroute direct to Calais and get home at a reasonable time, living so close to the channel ports means that we don't have hours of travelling on top. After packing up we then drove to Delville wood , a reasonable place to park. We then decided that we were going to walk the opposite way to the usual, so we stuck off in the direction of Trones wood, we reached it and decided to walk around the west edge of it, last year we did the other side. We approached it from it's point. Before this we found just laying in a field a magnificent empty shapnel case and a fence picket, these were stashed for later!!. Trones wood holds a strong link for men of Kent, In 1916 the 18th Div fought for it, a company of the 7th West Kents were trapped for 2 days before helping the attack of the 12 th Middx to capture the wood. Ironically they had to recapture the wood in 1918, the survivors of 1916 must have been gutted. Anyhow we were walking around it, it is the same shape and position it was during the war, you cannot go ito the wood as it's private property and quite overgrown. Towards the end I found a lovely nose cose and some bullet cases, something to take home to remind me. We finished that walk, and got to the front and passed the 18th Div memorial. We walked past Catapillar valley cemetery (see pic of view from here to High wood)and out towards Waterlot farm which is now in a different place. The strategic value of all of these wood becomes clear when you walk the area, one covered the other, and provided immensely strong postions. Having walked past Waterlot Farm we got to Longueval and Delville Wood. A quick nosebag was taken as another bus party turned up, we then got in the car and headed home, we stopped down the road to chuck in the fence picket and shell case- these items were not in use they were clearly abandoned. The trip to Calais cost 45 francs on the autoroute and was achieved in under 2 hours. On arrival at the tunnel entrance we found that the weather was windy, so I was glad to go under the channel. We stocked up on whisky, it was amazing to see people virtually with forklift truck, trying to get pallets of beer into small cars, I see that the term for personal consumption is difficult to quantify!!!. Heading to the customs we were terror struck, the armed guards were out. There were we with empty shell cases in the car, not live but could be taken as a reason to give us a hard time (see my recommendation page re relics as the French have clamped down on certain types). We went along the queue, what chance had two single males got. The pulled the car in front with an innocent looking family in it, they had them out and were going to gut the car, one armed soldier looked in the back, then we were waved through, phew!!!!. We were England bound and the end of another adventure.