Mullberies

Sunday saw us begin our winding way homeward. For a change, we decided to head north towards the beaches & one of the first sea-born sights to greet us was the remaining pieces of the Mulberry Harbours; an amazing feat of engineering born of the realisation that it would take time for the invasion army to seize & repair a sizeable port so they needed to take one with them. The “Mulberry” off the American beaches is no longer there being badly damaged in the “Great Storm” in mid-June 1944 & then cannibalised to repair the one off the coast of Arromanches in the British Sector.

On JUNO beach

On arrival at the coast, we passed through the Canadian sector of JUNO beach where we took to our feet & stepped onto the sand. It’s only when you get there & realise just how big these beaches are & how difficult it is to walk through the sand dry-shod & carrying nothing but a camera when you begin to think about the initial forces invading on the morning of 6^th June: wet, tired, scared, carrying around 60lbs of gear and having to run up the beach all the time whilst being shot at! No wonder they’re deserving of our admiration!

Pegasus Bridge and the Cafe Gondree

We arrived for a quick stop at the Cafe Gondree next to Pegasus Bridge where it was great to see a couple of veterans of No 3 Commando being treated so well by current serving soldiers as well as tourists.

Just as we were about to head off over the bridge, the barriers came down & we fairly quickly saw why the canal had been widened post war.

Thunderstorms and beer

Then off towards Rouen & the Brasserie du Chant du Loup. On the way, we passed through one of the most awesome thunderstorms I’ve seen – the traffic on the motorway coming to a complete stop as it hit the wall of water coming down. We’d arranged with Patrick, the owner, to eat a meal with them & he’d initially prepared to have outside as it was a very warm evening, but then the temperature dropped as the rain came again with such volume & noise that we decided to move inside. A short while later, a nice sunset! Still, the beer was good!