Mixing It With The Pomms!

Monday 1st June 2009

Trips today included a visit to Port en Bessin (once again looking for fuel, internet and food) and enroute we discovered the museum of "wrecks." These items have been salvaged from the ocean and are fascinating. A "marinised" tank with it's two propellers intact was one of 32 dumped into the ocean 4 miles out, all but two sunk.

The thought of all those Pommies turning up from the Channel ferry under police motorcycle escort was exciting us all day, and we got a vantage point by the gate amongst some very excited Pommies who were waiting for their vehicle to turn up. They had a bottle of champagne ready and were monitering the convoy's progress by mobile phone every two minutes or so. The 3/4 ton Dodge had taken Mark Hervey and Richard Rixon only 6 months to completely strip down and rebuild and a nice job too, congratulations guys! It was it's first trip and what a welcome Mark received from family and friends. I got some good footage of them arriving once again as they approached, led by a fully equipped Daimler Dingo. There were probably 50 or 60 of them, possibly down by half on previous years due to the financial situation. Sadly one of the motorbikes was hit by a drunk and written off. The rider is okay, but devastated. The driver tried to run away, and had to be forcibly apprehended.

It's been very easy to strike up friendships in the camp and helping Mark's partner Sonja celebrate her birthday with a drink of "calvados" - locally made apple brandy gave us our second hangover.

I noticed a sign "Rappell" 50, kept recurring as we shot through towns and I told Dale I thought we'd been through here before. It means "obey the 50kph speed limit!

Tuesday 2nd June 2009

Today we went touring with another group of Pommies, Steve and Sally Bennett and Mike and Ann Manning and Tony Fitzgerald. They are a lot more involved than us Aussies and it's interesting listening to their take on events which took place.

Today was German day, with a visit to the German War Cemetry where we visited the grave site of Michael Whitman (and his crew) who was the most decorated Tiger tank commander by whom most Allied tanks were taken out. Then, a visit to the area's newest attraction, a German subterranean bunker complex called Grand Camp Maisy or Maisy Armerie. It had one of two radar stations, the other being at Brittany. It was said that three large guns pointed at Omaha beach wouldn't have reached the beach. The complex was said to be totally self contained.

We heard that the Gendarmes were pulling up German dressed motorcylists and checking for swastickers. They were forced to cover them up or threatened to send them back to the UK.

A group of US paratroopers were admiring our Yankee Joe. They told us that bad weather and high winds were expected for the weekend which could sadly, make the big jump unlikely.