Day 6 begins with the wreath laying at Vimy Ridge. We assembled on the back side of the monument and with Maj Morris leading, we marched to the front of the monument to pay our respects to the fallen. The RSM, WO Anderson and Sgt Cooper were our wreath party. After a few photo ops, we then changed out of our uniforms and had a guided tour of the trenches at Vimy. Like Beaumont-Hamel, the visitor centre at Vimy is manned by bilingual students from Canada. There is only about 250m of actual trench that has been re-inforced with concrete to help maintain the look and feel of the trenches. It was dark and fairly cramped. The floors and walls were originally made out of chalk, which is quite porous - sound traveled quite easily, so the troops had to stay extremely quiet while in the trenches and the 'subways'. Chalk when mixed with water becomes kind of sticky, so given the weather conditions at the time, the ground floor was a gooey mess of mud that clung to the boots and made movement much more difficult. Within the subways, they also had a railroad system set up using wooden planks to assist in the transport of supplies, which made movement that much more difficult.
After a delicious lunch at the Cafe d'erable, we made our way to Neuville-St.-Vast, the largest German military cemetery, containing close to 48000 soldiers. It was mind boggling to see the sheer vastness of the cemetery. It was a sobering moment. The German cemeteries are not maintained like the ones in the Commomwealth.
To lighten the mood, we headed towards Ypres for waffles and Belgian chocolate time! I think the cadets bought the entire stock of chocolate from Leonidas that night.
After going back to the hotel for a delicious dinner of curry chicken with pineapples and unlimited fries (of which the cadets were ecstatic to see), tomato soup and 2 scoops of ice cream for dessert, we headed back into town to scout out the Menin Gate's Last Post Ceremony.
Thus ends our sixth day of the tour!
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