Le Quesnoy: The New Zealanders' Ladder, the Ramparts and the Mormal Forest
Hauts-de-France, France
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Le Quesnoy Ladder Climber
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250
XP
+100 France
= 350 total
2 days
Le Quesnoy: The New Zealanders' Ladder, the Ramparts and the Mormal Forest
250 + 100 XP
On 4 November 1918, a week before the Armistice, the New Zealand Division was given the old fortress of Le Quesnoy and its garrison of a thousand Germans, who had refused three calls to surrender, one dropped from an aeroplane. Rather than flatten the town, the New Zealanders ranged their guns on the rampart tops, and in the south sector Second Lieutenant Leslie Averill and a handful of men raised a ladder against the wall where the town mill's sluice still stood and went over it. The Te Arawhata museum, 'the ladder' in Maori, opened in the town on 11 October 2023.
Required Activities
1
of 4
In the New Zealand Liberation Museum – Te Arawhata in Le Quesnoy, touch the pounamu cleansing stone at the door, then climb the stairwell alongside Te Arawhata itself, the 7.4 m ladder Weta Workshop built through the height of the building
2
of 4
Walk the ramparts of Le Quesnoy from the New Zealand memorial, Félix Desruelles's relief of 1922 set into the curtain wall between the Gard and Saint-Martin bastions, round to the south sector where Averill's party got their ladder up at the old mill sluice
3
of 4
Walk in the Forêt de Mormal, 9,163 hectares and the biggest forest in the Nord, through oak stands replanted after the whole wood was cut in the First World War, and listen for the red deer — the only herd in the old Nord-Pas-de-Calais
4
of 4
Find the 189 Commonwealth war graves in Le Quesnoy's communal cemetery and its extension, all of men who died in November 1918, and pick out the 49 New Zealanders among them
In the New Zealand Liberation Museum – Te Arawhata in Le Quesnoy, touch the pounamu cleansing stone at the door, then climb the stairwell alongside Te Arawhata itself, the 7.4 m ladder Weta Workshop built through the height of the building
Walk the ramparts of Le Quesnoy from the New Zealand memorial, Félix Desruelles's relief of 1922 set into the curtain wall between the Gard and Saint-Martin bastions, round to the south sector where Averill's party got their ladder up at the old mill sluice
Walk in the Forêt de Mormal, 9,163 hectares and the biggest forest in the Nord, through oak stands replanted after the whole wood was cut in the First World War, and listen for the red deer — the only herd in the old Nord-Pas-de-Calais
Find the 189 Commonwealth war graves in Le Quesnoy's communal cemetery and its extension, all of men who died in November 1918, and pick out the 49 New Zealanders among them
Before you go
The New Zealand Liberation Museum – Te Arawhata, 18 rue Achille Carlier, opens Wednesday to Sunday, 10:30 to 18:00, and is closed Mondays and Tuesdays.
Maroilles, the village whose abbey gave the cheese its name, is about 15 km south across the Forêt de Mormal — worth the drive, but a trip of its own rather than part of this day.
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Challenge Location
XP Breakdown
Challenge XP
250 XP
France country bonus
+100 XP
Potential total
350 XP
Country bonus earned on completion of your first challenge in France.
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