So we'd heard about these parties in a german bunker on Alderney which happen once a year - so booked some time off work, packed way too much stuff into a small yacht and set sail for the Channel Islands.
16 hours of sea sickness, drunken celestial navigation and container ship dodging later we sailed into Bray harbour with a few days to kill before the party started.
We spent a few days pottering around Victorian forts and polishing off another dozen bottles of rum.
Fort Tourgis
Fort Albert
Fort Clonque
Then headed underground for something a bit different.
The Germans invaded Alderney in 1940 and over the following few years fortified the island to massive extent. Helped by forced labour from the only concentration camps on british soil the germans built hundreds of bunkers and a series of storage tunnels across the Island.
The gates to Lager Sylt concentration camp
HO1 in Mannez quarry was a pretty basic affair, a curved tunnel hewn into rough rock. Above the quarry stands an MP3 naval position finding tower.
HO2 was much more interesting. Similar rock with 2 storage chambers off to the side and a 60cm guage railway running through it.
HO6 was probably the most interesting, built into much softer rock the tunnel was unstable and wet. The storage chambers were concrete lined. There was even a turntable for the railway.
So after all that we went to the raves, which were great, met loads of locals, headed down to Sark to look at some sea caves and drink duty free ale then headed back to the Isle of Wight.....
For more information and surveys of the tunnel systems read 'German Tunnels in Guernsey, Alderney and Sark' published by Festung Guernsey.
Don't read any fabricated articles published by the Daily Mail.
16 hours of sea sickness, drunken celestial navigation and container ship dodging later we sailed into Bray harbour with a few days to kill before the party started.
We spent a few days pottering around Victorian forts and polishing off another dozen bottles of rum.
Fort Tourgis
Fort Albert
Fort Clonque
Then headed underground for something a bit different.
The Germans invaded Alderney in 1940 and over the following few years fortified the island to massive extent. Helped by forced labour from the only concentration camps on british soil the germans built hundreds of bunkers and a series of storage tunnels across the Island.
The gates to Lager Sylt concentration camp
HO1 in Mannez quarry was a pretty basic affair, a curved tunnel hewn into rough rock. Above the quarry stands an MP3 naval position finding tower.
HO2 was much more interesting. Similar rock with 2 storage chambers off to the side and a 60cm guage railway running through it.
HO6 was probably the most interesting, built into much softer rock the tunnel was unstable and wet. The storage chambers were concrete lined. There was even a turntable for the railway.
So after all that we went to the raves, which were great, met loads of locals, headed down to Sark to look at some sea caves and drink duty free ale then headed back to the Isle of Wight.....
For more information and surveys of the tunnel systems read 'German Tunnels in Guernsey, Alderney and Sark' published by Festung Guernsey.
Don't read any fabricated articles published by the Daily Mail.
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