Bapaume to Péronne 24.7km (13.2 walking)

We awoke to a cloudless sky, which encouraged Lois (but not Paul – he looks at weather systems), suggesting that the forecast for rain all day beginning at 9:00 might be wrong. But, no, by the time we’d eaten breakfast, the skies were grey once again and the walk was a wet, windy and muddy one.

We followed minor roads and tracks through undulating farmland, much of which was planted with fragrant bright yellow canola. We found a bus shelter for our first break in Villers-au-Flos. This town was occupied by the Germans for much of WWI and there were signs to a German military cemetery. Later, we passed another Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetry, the Manchester Cemetry. In Rocquigny, we stopped to visit the modern-looking church, where we also got a pilgrim’s stamp. The church had been rebuilt after WWI, but due to “maladie de bêton” had to be demolished and was again rebuilt in 2013. Finding another bus shelter (!), we ate our sandwiches without lingering. It was warmer to keep walking! At Sailly-Saillisel, we ended our walk and waited for a cab to take us in to Péronne.

Itinerary note: Up till now we have found the route to be very well signposted but today many turns had no signs or markers at all. Paul had downloaded waypoints for each stage from the VF site and imported them into the Work Outdoors app. This has proved invaluable.