Madhouse diaries : A wintry walk along the beach

A couple of weekends ago, Sophie announced that she wanted to go for a walk in the dunes and look for World War II shrapnel and relics. That may sound unlikely but we live in Dunkirk and, as it's been windy lately, the dunes have probably shifted a fair bit and may well have uncovered some bits and bobs that have been lying under the sand amongst the bunkers for all that time. We bundled up in jumpers and headed off to the bus, getting off at the maritime hospital/sanatorium stop. This took us to an area I'd never seen before - the site of Military Cemetery #2. There is nothing left here now but reading the sign, we learned that 120,000 soldiers were treated here in 1940 and 803 died of their wounds. By 1948, there were 936 graves, including 130 British, 794 French and a handful of Belgian, Spanish and Dutch victims. These have now all been relocated and buried elsewhere but it's still spine-tingling thinking about the scale of the loss of life during those dark times. 

Fortunately, the fabulous views at the beach lifted our spirits. After following a winding path, you can't see the sea at all until you reach a section cut through the dunes giving access to the beach.

It was a chilly day so we had the beach pretty much to ourselves, apart from the seagulls braving the icy water.

Within a few metres, we started spotted big blue jellyfish washed up on the beach - we'd seen a news report a few weeks earlier warning about these Portuguese man of war jellyfish that have a vicious sting.

We often see transparent jellyfish swimming around in the port of Dunkirk but these blue ones are bigger, much firmer, more compact and they hold their shape in perfectly round disks. The kids were fascinated, flipping them over with their feet to see the wibbly tentacles. 

We also started spotting dozens and dozens of these things, which I think are sea urchins, washed up on the beach. The kids loved the starfish shape dotted on the top and collected some to take home, but we soon discovered that they stink of rotten fish !

It was only just after four o' clock but the sun was starting to sink lower in the sky and I wanted us to move along, so that we'd be back by the more civilised end of the beach, away from the bunkers, before it got dark.

Down this end of the beach, you always feel like you're the only people in the universe, alone with the big sky and the ghosts of all those World War II soldiers who never made it home. 

You could walk along the beach as far as Belgium (a few kilometres away) without barely seeing another soul.

The tide was on the way out and we could see the remains of one of the Operation Dynamo wrecks peeking through the top of the surf. Not as good as the one we spotted back in the summer but nevertheless still pretty impressive that it's there after all this time.

Pierre and Juliette had fun climbing up and jumping off the smaller bunkers on the beach. It always makes me smile to see them using the sad remains of a major war as a playground.

They are also frequently used as a canvas for street art and existential graffiti to contemplate as you walk along the beach.

They have been there for the best part of eighty years but I get the feeling that nature is slowly starting to break them down. We spotted more cracks, a few parts seem to have fallen down on the beach that we think were up in the dunes before and this one is flooded when the tide comes in.

They are stark remembers of what went on on these glorious beaches.

Some of them are actually quite picturesque, in a strange way, framing the seaside views behind them.

This is one of the ones that seems more broken than the last time we saw it, with the whole front wall section on the ground.

And another one, whose front wall is now separate from the rest of the structure.

I wouldn't want to be standing too close when these things fall apart !

I mentioned that we'd had strong wind and exceptionally big tides lately and we were shocked to see a whole new building sticking out of the base of the dunes that we'd never spotted before. It makes you wonder what else is hiding under the sand and the sea in this area - I already know that there are about a dozen wrecked ships left over from Operation Dynamo in the shallows that have been charted.

It's hard to spot in the photo but Sophie pointed out a rainbow in the clouds - this is called  an iridescent cloud and is caused by the presence of very tiny ice crystals or water droplets in the air, which cause light to be diffracted or spread out. They're supposed to be quite rare but we see them at least a couple of times a year, for some strange reason.

The sun was starting to set so we picked up the pace for the last stretch of beach.

The "disco ball" bunker covered in shards of broken mirror always looks spectacular but at sunset, it is particularly stunning.

The kids couldn't resist taking selfies with their shattered reflections.

I was more interested in getting fragmented pictures of the landscape.

This is one of the less dilapidated bunkers so you can go exploring inside, as long as you're careful.

This rather sinister picture painted just inside the door put the kids off though - they are quite creepy places, even without the street art !

Just as the light started fading, our bus came around the corner so we headed for home, and a nice mug of hot chocolate to warm up !