When Robyn and I first started to plan
this trip we had three major sections in mind: Ireland (for the
worldcon and Rob’s family history); Iceland (because we always
wanted to go); and France (to visit some of the World War I memorials
and to visit our friends Eve and John Harvey). We were now heading to
this third portion of the holiday.
Our 5am taxi was there as ordered and
we made the airport with plenty of time to spare for our flight to
Paris. Neither of us wanted a repeat of our Belfast rush.
Security at Kevlavik was vastly
different to Belfast as well. Whereas the people in Northern Ireland
went through everything, the Icelanders were way more laid-back. No
hassles with laptops, no shoes to be removed, personnel being
friendly and joking rather than stern and fraught. Seemed like old
times all over again.
The only thing we had planned for the
day was to be at the Sir John Monash Centre – an Australian museum
concentrating on Australian involvement at the Western Front – near
Villers-Bretonneux. We had booked in to collect an audio guide at
4:30pm and figured a quiet drive of 90 minutes or so from the airport
was going to give us a bit of leeway.
Well, that was the plan. Charles deGaulle airport was achieved with a minimum of fuss and then
everything seemed to stop. We found our baggage carousel and waited
and waited. Forty-five minutes later the bags started to appear, and
fifteen minutes after that we were at the car hire place.
I always book my rental cars in advance
so can’t understand why anyone would take the chance of turning up
at an airport and only then deciding on what car to rent. I had two
of these in front of me so another thirty minutes of queuing time
wasted until I got to the desk.
“I’m sorry, your car isn’t
available at present. But we do have another premium car ready if
you’d like that?” “Okay, what is it?” “It’s an Audi, but
it will cost more.” “Then, no thank you.” “So you only want a
compact?” “No, I just don’t want to pay more for a car that I
rented 6 months ago.”
Fifteen minutes later I was wandering
around the rental car area looking for my vehicle getting a total of
zero help from the office staff. We were now about an hour later than
I had planned and would probably be cutting it fine to make it on
time.
Luckily the exit to the motorway only
took a few minutes and shortly after that we were dodging through the
traffic with a speed limit of 130kph. Needless to say there were
still people in the fast lane flying past us like we were standing
still. Robyn didn’t look happy. Front seat, wrong side – not a
good combination for her.
As in Ireland my new GPS friend was
very helpful in directing us and we pulled up at the museum with
about 10 minutes to spare.
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| Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux |
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| WW I tunnel sign |
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| Tunnel entrance to the Centre |
The Sir John Monash Centre is located
behind the Villers-Bretonneux memorial which was built in the 1930s.
The signage to the museum isn’t that good but we found it and then
spent a very informative, though emotional, 90 minutes or so
pottering around the facility, checking out the exhibits, and
listening to the audio commentary. There were only about another half
dozen people wandering around and I gather the museum hasn’t been
visited as much as Australian authorities would like. Not sure why
that is. It is certainly a place I’d recommend to people.
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| Centre interior |
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| Main screen |
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| French and Australian flags |
Robyn had booked us into a local B&B
so we dropped off at the supermarket for some supplies before we
checked in. Once we had finalised that we headed off into town
looking for something to eat.
The town was shut. We figured there
were probably five or six eating places in the area and all were shut
for Monday night. Oddly enough this didn’t dampen our liking of the
town. We’d had a good day except for the airport hold-ups.
Rotisserie chicken, salad and a few glasses of wine for dinner and we
were done for the day.
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