Mat McLachlan announces 2024 Signature Battlefield Tour to the Western Front

Mat McLachlan announces 2024 Signature Battlefield Tour to the Western Front
By Zach Havard


Mat McLachlan Battlefield Tours has launched its 2024 signature Tour to the Western Front, 9-day tour departing Paris on 16 September 2024 the only tour led by Mat in 2024.

“Exploring the Western Front is an eye-opening experience, and although the guns fell silent over a century ago there are always new stories to uncover,” founder, Mat McLachlan Battlefield Tours, Mat Mat McLachlan, said.

“My 2024 Signature Tour will visit all the key sites in the Somme, from the dark days of the first day of the Somme to Pozieres and more. We then explore the extraordinary Ypres Salient – the site of the battlefields of Messines, Polygon Wood and the famous yet tragic Passchendaele, plus visit French Flanders including Bullecourt and Fromelles.”

“My good friend, historian and BattleWalks podcast co-host, Pete Smith, is also joining the tour, and together we will lead you to uncover the places that defined the Anzac spirit of mateship and sacrifice.”

The itinerary has been hand-designed by Mat McLachlan, including a host of behind-the-scenes experiences and special inclusions.

Highlights include:

· Special access to hidden rooms of the Ypres ramparts, the former headquarters of Allied generals including John Monash. These dusty vaults were impervious to shellfire and have changed little since 1918.

· Visiting the graves of Private Hunter and Sergeant Calder in the company of Mat, the two Australian soldiers who featured in Mat McLachlan’s documentary ‘Lost in Flanders’.

· Observing a replica Mark IV tank in action and exploring unique private collections of war material.

· A guided tour of Talbot House in Poperinge, an ‘everyman’s club’ that provided respite to both officers and enlisted men during the war, as well as visiting the local prison, which features cells where convicted soldiers were held before being shot at dawn and their graffiti can still be seen on the walls.

· An exclusive tour of the former Australian HQ at the Chateau of Bertangles, where General John Monash commanded Australian operations in the first half of 1918, including standing on the spot where Monash was knighted by King George V on the chateau steps.

· Explore the underground tunnels of Naours, where many Australian soldiers left their mark with graffiti.

· Unique local culinary experiences, including: a Welcome Dinner; a lunch at the Old Cheese Factory in Passchendaele and sampling of their acclaimed Passchendaele beer; the Sint Bernardus Brewery in the village of Watou to taste their famous ‘Trappist’ beer, brewed by local monks for centuries; a Farwell Dinner Cruise on the River Seine to see the grandeur of the City of Light at night, and more.

 

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