I've never really been in the North of France that I could remember. For some reason there was always a better reason to drive down south towards the Mediterranean as fast as I could. I never really thought off stopping at the north side. One of the reasons for this is that the weather in the North is often not really the winner.
So with the weather turning for the better, and not having the desire to head out very far (Haute-de-France is just a couple hours away from the Netherlands) this was actually a very attractive destination to head out to.
Walking around with the doggo
I took the doggo on the trip with me for some extra walking reasons. The nice thing about going with him is that he really likes to roam along the beaches. The bad thing is that he really wants to head out into the ocean really bad. And with the tides and the waves around the channel here, it sometimes was a bit challenging to keep him out of the gigantic waves.
The beach is with pebbles and the sound of the waves pulling back the pebbles every time was like a sweet swoosj. I never really knew that the walls of limestone were so big here. They just fall into the ocean creating these gigantic cliffs.
With the spooky skies and the big waves this was actually a really calming setting even though the weather was really rough.
This was with super high tide, and you can see not a lot is left of the beach to walk on. I suddenly understood a lot better how these cliffs were formed. Pieces just fall off into the ocean every now and then and there we also a lot of signs to watch out for falling rocks.
What the storm had brought.
It was super stormy when I arrived, but a day later when the clouds had passed again it was time to head to the beach. The tide had turned to low tide and the waves were small. I was thinking for a nice walk on the beach and maybe even a small swim.
The skies were so clear it was even possible to see the white cliffs of Dover in England in the distance. All of a sudden the beach was 300 meters wide and I was looking forward to heading out on a good walk.
All of a sudden a lot of police (gendarmerie) and ambulances arrived and the beach was cleared out. I had no idea what had happened and thought maybe a boat had sunk, with meaybe leaving some victims in there.
The gendarmes didn't looked all of that stressed out so I decided to have a little talk with them on what was going on. It turns out that because of the high tide a bomb of the second world war had turned up ashore. If this was because of the strong current, of because if just the rocks above had washed away that was unclear.
But regardless, the whole beach was cleared out and evacuated and this was the beach where I just had walked a day earlier with the doggo. Hmmmm....not something to take lightly.
It was strange to see how this beach had so many different faces in such a short time. From stormy weather waves and gray skies to a calm beach with endless views in the distances, but with bombs underneith there.
This seemed like a good start off my journey of exploring!