Pau and Eurotunnel : 2014-06

We took a short trip to Pau and the Eurotunnel. The trip to Pau was cool, but it takes 5.5 ish hours to get there. We visited a special operations unit, had some briefings and they gave us a pretty good demonstration in one of their training facilities.

These are pretty cool pics. The iPhone stopped the blades almost perfectly. nice. The Gazelle (upper left) was the gun ship flying cover while the Caracal (right) brought in a majority of the troops. The shot below (left) is the Gazelle dropping off one or two troops right on the building. The Caracal troops used ropes to drop to the building. Below right is the bar car on the train. Cool car, but it was closed. They're hardly ever this empty.

Eurotunnel...

I haven't been through the Chunnel so it was a good opportunity to at least see where it enters/exits France. And we were able to see inside the service roadway. They have an airlock because the ventilation is so strong. It's was pretty amazing.

And these are the massive pipes which feed the ventilation system. They come up out of the ground, bend about 90 degrees (which you see here) and then plummet into these massive pits. Pretty amazing really. I can see why the it is a modern wonder of the world (according to the American Society of Civil Engineers).

- mm -