WW2 fortresses
21st July 2018
Don't imagine I will keep daily travel reports going for too long but I figure whilst I have the luxury of a full car battery to keep my phone charged with I may as well make the most of it.
A very quiet night where we were yesterday, no other vehicle stayed overnight and indeed, only a few cars containing dogs and their human exercisers came and went in the late afternoon and early evening. Funny five minutes at dusk with four male youths though. Looked to be late teens or early twenties and three of them, giggling like lunatics, were being hotly chased all over the dunes by the fourth who was yelling his head off in a rather primeval way. Narcotics, presumably - either that or care in the community!
Haven't travelled very far today having recognised a place I once overnighted with the wolves at. In fact, I think it may be the first place I ever wild camped with them and I slept on the beach whilst they slept in the truck. There is a WW2 concrete German fortification right on the beach and I drove the truck inside it with the wolves but now think that was a very risky option vis a vis high tide so have parked on a grass verge at the end of the public access road to the beach where the tide, or pissy policemen, should not trouble me.
The entire coast hereabouts is simply littered with WW2 German concrete structures and I have to say it must have been strong stuff as, in many instances, the ground on which they were built has suffered the effects of time and tide and the building are no longer perpendicular but the concrete they are built of is still very much intact. It's also very thick, presumably to withstand shelling, and I can't even begin to imagine the amount of materials, labour and logistics it must have taken to erect them all.
Much of it now covered in graffiti and it's hard to reconcile today's spray can welding youth with the folk of WW2. I wonder how much of their recent history the current generation actually know, but anyway I suppose if there is one lesson that history teaches us its that we don't learn from history!
Here are the GPS coordinates for tonight's location from which you will be able to determine that the beach here is simply vast. Out and about this afternoon the roads and town were very hectic indeed but at 4pm on that beach you would have thought everyone in France was taking their holidays elsewhere as it 'appeared' to be deserted.
My Location:
Google Map
50.595289
1.581124
GPS precision : 3 m
50.595289,1.581124
Just to the immediate north of here all the land bordering the coast is extremely well heeled private property. Lots of tracks from the main road heading due west towards the coast but all gated and locked. We explored a few possibilities earlier but eventually gave it up as a hopeless task, in a vehicle at least. Money, as they say, may not be able to buy happiness but apparently it can get you an utterly fantastic location by the ocean well away from the horrendous many headed beast of humanity.
Not that I care per se, but it does irk me that absolutely everywhere seems to be 'owned' by somebody these days and those few bits that we public are allowed to access are regulated, controlled and policed ad nauseam.
Do I hear the Russian forests calling me? Probably just the same there too!
And a bit chilly in winter at my time of life....
