Tuesday 30 September 2014 • LONDON • ‘Meet and greet’ at the tour hotel at 2.00 pm for check-in. • Mid-afternoon to dinner: at leisure to explore this part of London on foot. • Pre-dinner drinks with tour manager Julie Reece and driver Richard Wardle from ‘Hardings’ Coaches. • (D) Wednesday 01 October 2014 • LONDON - SALISBURY • Depart London for the Salisbury Plains to begin your WW1 parallel journey with “Jimmy’s Anzac Pilgrimage”. • Visit the villages of Sutton Veny, Codford, Stockton and others where Australians trained, were hospitalised and buried during WW1. • Travel to Salisbury. • Time permitting, visit the Salisbury Cathedral. • (B) Thursday 02 October 2014 • SALISBURY - CANTERBURY • Visit the National Memorial to the Few at Capel-le-Ferne (the Battle of Britain Memorial) on the famous white cliffs between Dover and Folkestone at Kent. • Travel to the Roman, Viking and medieval centre of Canterbury. • Time permitting visit the Canterbury Cathedral. • (B) Friday 03 October 2014 • CANTERBURY - DOVER - AMIENS • Morning tour of the Secret Wartime tunnels at Dover Castle. • The tour will tell of the story of the planning and execution of the evacuation (‘Operation Dynamo’) and how it was operated from this location. • Ferry to France. • Drive to Amiens on the Somme. • Check into your hotel. If time allows, visit Amiens cathedral which is in the heart of Picardy, and is one of the largest ‘classic’ Gothic churches of the 13th century. • (B & D)
The Somme, France
Sunday 05 October 2014 • AMIENS & THE SOMME Rod Bedford guiding. Personal commemorations at cemeteries and memorials will be built into the itinerary as requested. • Today we visit the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux, the location of one of the most significant victories on the Western Front on April 24/25 1918. • After visiting the Australian memorial which has 11,000 names of Australians who have no known grave, and is now the site of the annual Dawn service each Anzac Day, we will visit the school and the museum dedicated to the memory of the Australian contribution to the war. • Most of the village was destroyed during the war thus the buildings are all post WW1. The school “Ecole Victoria” w as built using money donated by Victorian schoolchildren and the Victorian government, in the 1920’s and a plaque in honour of the Australians (mostly Victorians) who died in the defence of the village, is at the front of the school. • After lunch visit Le Hamel: the site of the great victory on July 4th, 1918 under the leadership of Major General John Monash who was knighted in the field by the King. • (B & L) Monday 06 October 2014 • DAY OFF IN AMIENS • Free day – Driver’s rest day – no coach available. • Today is at leisure to explore the town of Amiens. • You may wish to visit the Cathedral or stroll along the canals and water gardens. • Perhaps enjoy lunch at the famous Saint-Leu canal region or follow the trail tracing the locations featured in Sebastian Faulks’ novel Birdsong. • (B)
Canterbury Cathedral, Canterbury
Saturday 04 October 2014 • AMIENS & THE SOMME (Battlefields experience guide Rod Bedford will lead our group). Personal commemorations at cemeteries and memorials will be built into the itinerary as requested. • Our battlefields guide Rod will lead us through the story of WWI. • We begin the journey of the infamous Battle of the Somme where on the first day of fighting July 1st, 1916 the British Army lost 60,000 casualties including 20,000 dead. • Visit the Lochnagar Crater at La Boiselle a massive 200 metre x 30 metre crater, the outcome of British engineering expertise which initiated the start of the underground war and was one of 19 mines blown up that day. • Pozieres – the battlefield where the AIF lost 23,000 casualties in 7 weeks, one of Australia’s greatest military losses in history. • We will visit the memorial to the 1st Division and the Windmill position. • Visit the location of one of the most heavily shelled places on the Western Front – Mouquet Farm. • Before ending the day at Thiepval Memorial and interpretative centre, Julie to read a passage from the Sebastian Faulks’ novel Birdsong under the Thiepval memorial. • (B & L)
Tuesday 07 October 2014 • AMIENS - FROMELLES - YPRES Rod Bedford guiding. Personal commemorations at cemeteries and memorials will be built into the itinerary as requested. • We check out of the hotel and travel north out of the Somme valley to Arras. • Visit the Canadian Peace Park at Vimy Ridge where the group can go underground on a guided tour and learn of the construction of these tunnels from December 1916 to April 1917 when the battle for Vimy Ridge took place. • Drive to Fromelles, the site of the first battle experience Australians had on the Western Front on July 19-20 in 1916. It was our worst military loss in one day of our history. • The bodies of many soldiers were never found until 2008 when 250 Australian and British soldiers’ remains were finally located. • Visit the new Pheasant Wood cemetery which was completed in time for the reburials of the lost soldiers during January 2010. • One of the men identified is Birdwood boy Raymond Pflaum. Birdwood student Flo Bourke wrote and recorded a song in his and his mates’ honour called “Known Only Unto God” which will be played when we visit his grave. • Depart Fromelles late afternoon for Ypres. • (B & D)