Day 434: Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin

Today's WHS was a mining heritage site, sadly not among my favourite categories! We set off from Amiens in the morning, heading north. We drove through large areas of what was the Western Front in WW1, and there were many cemeteries dotted around the landscape. Purely by chance we discovered the village of Bullecourt, where a vicious battle was fought largely by Australians. It was the 100th anniversary of this battle on the 25th of April (yes, Anzac Day), so there were quite a few Australians gathered at the memorial when we popped in to have a look.

We later discovered that Malcolm Turnbull and Prince Charles were both at the new memorial at Villiers-Brettoneux, located not that far away, though we didn't head over to see anything. One Australian asked me which dawn service we were heading too, and I just gave a vague answer about not having decided yet (I didn't have the heart to tell him I only realised it was Anzac Day the other day!).

Patriotic duties fulfilled, we got back in the car and headed for the mining site. This was an important coal mining area for France in the 18th-20th centuries, and only finished operating in the 1970s. The museum was interesting enough, though obviously most of the displays were in French. There was a large "underground" area as well - they can't take you down into the original mines as they were backfilled and it's not legal to dig them up, but they present the illusion of going underground while you're in a replica mine. It's actually quite convincing, and they had different areas showing what mining was like in different eras.

But it's very similar to what we've seen in other mining sites - the same information, the same awkwardly posed dummies in period costume, etc. A little over it.

Driving around back on the surface, it was interesting to see the slag heaps still dotting the landscape, as they're still everywhere over the coal seam. We also visited a memorial at the town of Courriers, site of the worst mining disaster in European history. In 1906, a coal dust explosion killed 1099 miners, either from the blast or from carbon monoxide poisoning. Apparently the mine was constructed rather like Swiss cheese and everything was connected to everywhere, so the blast hit the entire mine. Lots of safety improvements were made after that, like having separate unconnected shafts - and having separate shafts for gases to escape.

Video wrapped up, we returned home to our loft apartment after a supermarket visit. Microwaved savoury crepes for dinner - surprisingly not too bad!Read more