Marmotte Amiens

... where you go or who you are with it really depends on the weather. Sunshine and a nice temperature can put a smile on someones face faster than winning the lottery or something. Rain can steal every opportunity from you while traveling leaving you with wasted time and wet socks. Fortunately we were able to enjoy good weather in Amiens which I think made us all enjoy our day that much more. Hopefully the smile on my face will last through the French midterm tomorrow.

... was nice enough to show me through the cemetery and take pictures. I gave him a little tip at the end for going out of his way to do that. He could have just sat in the cab and waited. One of the first nice frenchies I have found!

The war cemetery itself was incredible. So well maintained, you can see the respect they have for those who gave their lives to protect France. In actual fact, they claim that the war cemetery is actually Australian soil - France has no ...

... looking down to view everything really drives home the losses of war. It was truly a great place to visit – to sketch, and to see.

The museum closed around 6, and we arrived back in Versailles at about 8:30 PM. It honestly felt like closer to midnight. It was a tiring trip, but definitely a great experience. A bunch of times, someone would ask, "Guess where we are? France!" There were a lot of moments like that – as ...

... glass, a labyrinth on the floor, and lots of inner chapels. It also felt a lot taller inside, because there are only three divisions and the first is so stretched. There were a ton of tourist groups here, and we had a lot of onlookers while sketching, which was pretty strange. We left the cathedral at about 2 (weddings were starting at 3, collective awwwwww from the girls in our group), and took a walking tour around the rest of the city. Amiens was greatly damaged ...

At 8:30 Ade Elliot dropped us back in Calais and after a few photos we set off.

After about a mile we hit the first hill, Dave Starkey clocked 40.4 mph with brakes on! We pulled him out the hedge in no time at all, but he left a big hole.

We moved on at a good pace and as we went down into Bolougne Sur Mer Dave Shayler lost the spare pump off his bike, an old French lady was holding her head any crying so ...

We had a big day yesterday. We trained to Amiens from Paris (90 mins trip) and then another train to Villers-bretonneux. We then had a casual walk of 60 minutes along a country road to the war memorial. Met some other young aussies...very interesting but a tough walk.

Then back to ...

When I was growing up, we learnt about the ANZAC's legend and the history of Gallipoli. Back in 1915 on the 25th of April, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, hence the name, had a fateful landing and the rest is history, but there is always more. As the campaign waged on through the years, the main attention turned to the Western Front, mainly the Somme and Flanders. On the 24th of April 1918, the very first tank ...

... Our other major objective was to replace a piece of Clive that had fallen off. The cover to our extractor fan fell off a few days ago. Since it is located on the roof, with out it all there is is a large hole, so it was rather important to get sorted. The lady was rather nice and rang around to about 4 different stores to find the one we were after. The place she tried one only had one left, lucky us. After Dave had attached it with a few modifications (ok not exactly the ...

... Chinese lanterns hung from various stands as people walked by with their families and dogs.  The smell of Nutella crepes seduced Ed away from me and we got lost for a few moments until I found him about to take the first bite of his chocolate-and-banana-filled crepe.  He let me have the last few bites.    The Cathedral of the Lady of Amiens was not too far from the ...

... we are in Amiens, France, headed toward Spain... The French pastries and baguettes are second to none! We're breaking in our gear and fixing minor repairs and mumbling along with our forgotten and never-learned French, but otherwise healthy and doing great... Go ahead and check out our photo log and stay in touch! Oh, and please send email replies to us separately... anna is at: octozooks@yahoo.com kurt is at: bikegreaseandcoffee@yahoo.com and lucie is at tsunami9@rocketmail.com