In a town most Australians couldn’t find on a map, something remarkable has happened every evening for ninety-seven years.
At 8:00 pm in Ypres, Belgium, the traffic stops. Not because of a red light. Because of a promise.
Buglers from the Last Post Association walk beneath the Menin Gate — a massive stone memorial arch — and play the Last Post. They’ve done it every night since 1928. The only interruption was the German occupation during World War II. On the evening Ypres was liberated in September 1944, before the rubble was cleared, the ceremony resumed.
Inscribed on the walls of the Menin Gate are 54,395 names. These aren’t the names of soldiers buried in neat rows. These are the men whose bodies were never found. Swallowed by the mud of Flanders. Destroyed by shellfire. Lost in the tunnels and trenches of the Ypres Salient.
More than 6,000 of those names are Australian.
If you’ve been to Gallipoli, you know the weight of standing where Australians fought and died. The Menin Gate carries that same weight — arguably more. Australia lost 46,000 men on the Western Front, compared to 8,700 at Gallipoli. The Western Front was the main event, but it’s Gallipoli that dominates our national memory.
The Menin Gate is where that gap closes.
On Fairways & Frontlines, we don’t just attend the ceremony. We lay a wreath. It has to be booked months in advance through the Last Post Association — it’s not something you can do on the night.
The next day, we play golf at Palingbeek — a course literally built on a WWI battlefield, 3.3 km from Ypres, with historical panels at every tee box. Then we visit Tyne Cot, the largest Commonwealth war cemetery on earth.
Golf and heritage. Side by side. That’s what this tour is.
14 places. September 2026.