We also went to Le Hamel but my camera had run out of batteries… those photos are on another card.

We were told that the soldiers names cemeteries after something familiar.  We wonder if the poor men burying their mates had some connection to our home town…

There are literally hundreds of cemeteries.  There are signs for them everywhere.  Most are like the ones below, in the middle of a paddock with crops right up to the fence line.  They are all extremely well looked after with manicured gardens, well kept cemetery logs, visitor books and not a piece of rubbish or anything else out of place.

The two days we spent at the Somme have left us shocked at the loss of life, the conditions in which our diggers were fighting and how simplistic and ill-thought out some of the battles were that resulted in the most significant loss.  At some sights thousands of Australian’s were killed fighting over an advance of just a kilometre.  Australia owes much to the men who lost their lives on the Western Front and the sacrifice they made.  This story should be a mandatory part of the Australian School curriculum,  Perhaps then the youth of today might take a second thought before conducting themselves in a way that suggests they are owed something… The truth is we owe it to those men to make Australia a better place.