“I’ve got a sense of who they are now”: Albany travel agent Danielle Hopkins takes Anzac tour through France

Albany travel agent Danielle Hopkins’ Anzac spirit was reignited by a tour of north-east France last month. Ms Hopkins, who owns Entourage Travel Albany, visited war memorials and battlefields across the Hauts-de-France region, with places like the Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery leaving her with a better understanding of the Anzac experience. “When we arrived there it was hailing, windy and stormy,” she said. “We got a real feel for what it was like for the soldiers fighting there — absolutely miserable. “You’re driving through this beautiful quiet farmland for ages and then out of nowhere comes this huge mass graveyard. “Farmers are still digging up shrapnel in their fields. “There is definitely an eerie feeling and atmosphere there.” The graveyard holds more than 2100 Commonwealth servicemen from WWI either buried or commemorated there, 600 of whom remain unidentified. The museum in the nearby Sir John Monash Centre focuses on Australia’s part in the Anzac campaigns, containing artefacts and enlistment propaganda. Ms Hopkins said she did notice one glaring detail missing from the information in the centre. “We were disappointed to see that Albany was missing on the large maps showing where soldiers had set off from,” she said. “There were more than 40,000 men who left from our port in 1914 and no one in France seemed to know. “We told our guide and I’ll be sending through some messages to the different centres to make sure we’re included.” Ms Hopkins also visited the underground tunnels in Naours and Arras, places where soldiers visited and carved their names and hometowns on to the walls. Ms Hopkins said the trip connected her to both her own heritage — having learnt her great-grandfather served in WWII with the British army — and to the history of Albany. “I will definitely be attending Albany’s dawn service again this year,” she said. “I haven’t for the past few years, but I almost feel like I owe it to them, having stood where they stood. “The day feels a bit more personal, and I’ve got a bit more sense of who they were now.”