In the queue for the ferry at 7:50am
A Day Trip to Calais and the Battery Todt, Calais and Cap Gris Nez, France - 11th August 2004
Realising that it was time to stock up on cheese, "big Al" sorts out a day-trip to Calais. DH and Phil pile in with Nosher; Claire and Paul go with Al. There's around eight hours in France: enough time for a trip to L'Hypermarché, Le Wine et Beer Warehouse, Wimmereax (along the coast towards Bolougne) and an old German gun emplacement - part of the Batterie Todt - on Cap Gris Nez (probably the Grosser Kurfürst Battery). It's a very strange experience creeping around in the almost-total dark, seeing wartime graffiti with caricatures of Churchill and Nazi slogans on the walls, picked out by the light of a small Maglite torch.
next album: A BSCC Splinter Group Camping Trip, Shottisham, Suffolk - 13th August 2004
previous album: Cowes Weekend, Cowes, Isle of Wight - 7th August 2004
Claire and Alan do the whole 'fry up' breakfast thing
Claire roams around as everyone else peers over the side of the ferry
Under the lifeboats
DH and The Boy Phil are armed with trolleys
In the Auchan hypermarché at Coquelles
DH scopes out pate
DH looks at cheese
Paul, Phil, Alan and DH at the checkout
We eat a baguette-and-cheese picnic out of the boot
Nosher in a hat
Alan and Paul at a bar somewhere
The Boy Phil and DH have some crazy-strong Leffe
Claire and Alan
The Boy Phil
Phil looks at beer
Paul, Alan and Claire look for possible wedding wine
DH looks at wine
Phil and DH on the front at Wimmereaux
Alan and Claire
A pile of rocks
The seafront at Wimmereaux
On the promenade
We head off for a walk along the prom
Phil and DH scope out the beach
Souvenir and beach tat on the prom
Walking in Wimmereaux
Claire and Paul pass a very green house
Phil and DH stride up a track towards the Battery Todt
We look for a way in
Someone peers out of a peep-hole
DH in a pill box
DH comes out of the pill box
We find the way in to the main gun emplacement
There's a lot of graffiti inside
An old light or lightswitch
Some WW2 graffiti
A Nazi flag, dive bombers and 'against England' on the wall
The Nazi eagle
A caricature of Winston Churchill
Another cartoon of a two-faced Churchill
Nazi crosses and the swastika
DH pokes around in the concrete outside
The Boy Phil and DH look out towards England
We stand under where the massive 12' gun barrels would have been
The brutalist concrete of the Battery Todt
DH roams about
Former home of a 12' gun, aimed at Kent
Wartime graffiti
We leave the gun emplacement
Another look at the concrete
It's time for a picnic, featuring ham and cheese
The roadside picnic
Back at the ferry terminal
A view of the ferry
The massive pier at Calais
The stern of the ferry
The Boy Phil looks like he's about to hurl
Nosher and the arse-shaped chin
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In the queue for the ferry at 7:50am
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