Alexander Harvey was born in Deloraine and went to school at Dairy Plains.

At the age of 22, March 1916, he enlisted with the 40th Battalion of the AIF.

He proceeded overseas in July 1916, arriving at the Western war front on 23 November.

He was killed less than two months later, on 19th January 1917.

The loss of his life devastated his family, including my young grandmother, Nellie Harvey, then aged 20.

A few years later Nellie married James Saward. Her first born was a male in 1921, and she named him after her brother.

Alexander is buried in Northern France at Armentieres and today we visited his grave to pay our respects.

Something I’ve always wanted to do.

I have a precious possession of Alexander’s. His bible. It is leather bound, thin gold leaf pages, Old Testament.

It was given to me by my father when I started scripture lessons (Roman Catholic) at PumchBowl Primary.

Little did I know then how sentimental a gift this was.

I’m glad that I did treat it well as a young six year old.

When my Uncle Bern passed away (nephew of Alexander), my cousins Angela and Steven gave me a large picture of Alexander, plus an AIF framed work. They were my Grandma’s and I guess her parents before that. More sentimental treasures.

To visit Alexander’s grave, we had an adventurous day.

We left Lille via the citadel gardens, which are the most pleasant part of Lille. A population of over 1.2 million, its interesting but from the cycling perspective, a pain in the butt.

Cobbles galore, narrow streets, people…

We are heading to Ypres in Belgium. Within 20 km or so we crossed the border at Comines, by the river La Lys.

No signs, just car registration changed from F to B, and the flags changed colours.

The peace of the river as we approach Ypres.

There were at least two of these large covered cement structures. Presuming from the war. Very long and would have housed many men.

This is an interesting fountain!

On the outskirts of Ypres are ancient ramparts.

These are the best preserved fortifications in Belgium, dating from the 10th century. They survived WW1 mainly due to their structural thickness.

It is a pretty area of the town.

Ypres, or Leper as it is known in Belgium was annihilated in WWI. All that was left were a few tall spires.

The town was totally rebuilt in the early 1920’s following pay,ent of reparations by Germany. The buildings were constructed following the original blueprints.

Heading out of town, plenty of bike signage. By chance, we’ve followed the Front Route 1914-1918 a fair bit.

It goes past many small war cemeteries.

Then my day took a tumble. Right by this paddock, adjacent to a war cemetery, I tried to make my way in front of a parked van.

I failed to see there was a stinging nettle filled ditch, and bike and I both went down, quite a steep ditch.

I screamed in pain as my right leg was hurting heaps. But worse, my bare arms and legs had nettles all over them.

When I finally wriggled my way out, blubbering, annoyed with myself, I had welts and blisters on both arms and legs.

The worst case of stinging nettle I have ever experienced.

Two blokes that were in the van came out from the cemetery, working for the Commonwealth War Graves.

They noted I was bleeding and insisted on finding their first aid kit and rendering bandages.

They had been working on a wrought iron gate. The bloke on the left is a carpenter, the one on the right a blacksmith.

They had been at my Great Uncles cemetery just a few days before.

It was so nice meeting these blokes, but not in the way it happened.

I was shaking and in pain. I took two anti histamines. Big mistake as I became very drowsy, dizzy, nauseous, vomiting and had two consecutive migraines.

With the migraines, I get the visual aura where I can’t see properly, dizzy and it is triggered by bright light, knocks to the head or stress. I also get a form of epilepsy with a few triggers similar.

We stopped a few times so could just close my eyes.

It was a tough 40 km ride back to Lille. We did manage to make a few tweaks to shorten it.

We ended up doing 82 km vs 88.

This area of Belgium is beautiful. A few more hills, very green open fields.

Killing fields once, the scene of far too many men dying.

Thought this looked like Prince Philip.

Beautiful region.

So many war graves.

Finally we make it to Armentieres. Here he is buried.

I cried. I was feeling miserable anyhow, but was surprised that I was crying for his senseless loss of life. People say that the loss gave us our freedoms, but I seriously hate war.

There are over 2,200 buried in this cemetery alone.

It is peaceful scene now.

I bid Alexander farewell, and we headed back to Lille.

An emotional day.

I’m slow in writing this blog, as when we returned I went to bed and slept for 13 hours straight. Unheard of for me. I’ve awoken early to try and write it.

My back is bitching and I’m drinking black coffee, sitting in cool air to ‘wake me up’.

We have 82 km today. We will see how I feel as there are train options. It might be that we ride to Tournai and reevaluate, as the cool air ( and I think tail wind was forecast!) might help.

We will see.

Thanks for reading 😊🚴❣️