After the mountainous fun in Chamonix we bused to Geneva to pick up our car and then Mark took the challenge of driving a left hand drive car on the right up through France to Reims. A little nerve wracking, particularly the rule of “priorite a droite” whereby you may be travelling along what seems to be the main road and have to give way to cars joining from minor roads from the right! We knew the rule for the roundabouts but didn’t realise it extended beyond this. Luckily the whole of Northern France seemed deserted for the holidays so there was not much traffic on the roads.

Adam: The Champagne cave was really cool. I liked how the chalk walls kept everything cold and damp. There were thousands of rows of bottles filling the chambers. And I liked the champagne too- I thought I would like a small bottle for my birthday

Tessa: The Champagne tour was informative. I learnt a lot about the way to make Champagne. I didn’t particularly like the wine though .

We spent the rest of the day and the next exploring the area of France that had been the Western fronts for World War One and Two. It was all gently rolling farmland now and it was hard to see how a relatively small rise or hillock would give one side the advantage. We listened to the Nga Tapuwae Western Front Trails app which gave a guided tour of the area and led us to monuments to the NZ soldiers in the area. We found the cemetery that the unknown solider in Wellington was exhumed from

Adam: Le Quesnoy was historic. Climbing around the old town walls after a picnic lunch was fun. Seeing All Blacks place in France was a bit surprising- even though we heard the story of the how the NZ’s helped during the war.

Tessa: I was really interested in the defences of Le Quesnoy and how the NZ forces hadn’t seemed to had much resistance from the Germans. It was kind of weird having people we’ve never met or even seen before be so nice to any New Zealander. There were signs in some of the shops saying New Zealanders welcome.