The ferry seems a distant memory now and it was only two days ago! Getting off the ferry & heading north, it was straight through an industrial zone to get to Dunkirk. An eni plant and then a versalis plant (while there were many spheres, none of them looked as good as the South Sphere) followed by a large steel mill – covering nicely most of my work in the last ten years. Arriving in Europe on a bleak Sunday probably wasn’t the best idea – it was very quiet, but I managed to find lunch before sheltering from the first torrential downpour.

Eventually I was out of France, but strangely the wind and the rain were not impeded by the border. Somewhere along the way, I decided that I would head away from my intended route and go inland to visit the war graves at Tyne Cot. This had almost nothing to do with the part of the GR5-A that I found first was a complete sand-pit and difficult enough to walk through, let alone ride. Thanks to opencyclemap.org, I had a staggering number of cycle routes to choose from as I made for Iepers. I quickly found that war cemeteries, pill boxes, bukers and so forth are regular reminders to the horrors that occurred in this part of the world.

As expected, Belgium is flat. I knew that this would not be the most interesting riding, but I figured useful for getting used to bikepacking with a laden bike before I hit any sort of hills. A lot of the riding so far has been alongside miles and miles of canals – most impressively tree-lined. Yesterday particularly I was mindful as I struggled with the cross-wind, that there was a good chance that I may be picked up with my bike and deposited in a canal. I stayed free of canal dunkings – although the rain did return. The Belgian countryside was immaculate, although still seemed to be no-one about at all. I noticed that most of the houses are in pristine condition and seemed quite new, while they were very nice it all got a bit samey. When I arrived in Iepers, I found the town square taken over by a fair – so a good source of food. Wild-camping for the night was a bit close to a busy road to give much sleep – but mostly it was the insane wind that kept me awake.

With the rain around, I could see how quickly the land turned to mud – but it is still near the limits of my comprehension that so many of those lost in World War One were just that. Lost in the mud and never found again. It’s hard to fathom just how awful it all was, definitely puts my struggles with the wind and the rain into perspective. One such lost soldier was my grandfather’s uncle, Stanley. He’s the only reasonable direct relative of mine that I know of that died in WWI – Trish had given me the details of where to find his inscription, so I could spend more of the short time I had at Tyne Cot in contemplation.

One for the family

I picked my way through the myriad of cycle routes available, towards Brugge – a city that has long been on my list of weekend trips away, but for some reason was never ticked off. Immediately it was obviously older than most of what I’d been seeing in Belgium and therefore the buildings were much more haphazard in their appearance and more charming for it. I knew it would be the case, but travelling solo on a bike lends itself to a different type of exploring. Without a safe place to leave my bike, it was difficult to wander aimlessly as I like to do when in a new city. However, I managed to see enough for a brief visit and to enjoy waffles.

With still a few hours left before I needed to start thinking about dinner and finding a place to camp for the night, I continued east along canals and across farmers’ fields as the route dictated. The oddity of passing through small villages and finding not a single shop or restaurant, or that matter many people, carried on so eventually I took a marked detour to a larger town, Maldegem, which provided food and shelter for the night. It was here that I noticed that chimes from bell towers in this part of the world are much more melodic, and softer, than I’m used to. With more heavy downpours in the night I didn’t sleep much again and travelling solo means that I don’t have anyone to commiserate about low points with. Perhaps I am, as has been suggested, mad in undertaking all this!

A taste of home

Still, there was more flatland to be ridden before I could find some hills & it wasn’t going to magically just disappear. The previous night, on taking the detour to Maldegem I was surprised to be welcomed back in to Belgium – I didn’t know I’d left. As I rode most of Tuesday near the border I spent a lot of the time wondering just which country I was in. I think I had my first lunch in Netherlands (near Terneuzen – I saw the Dow plant where we used to get butadiene from, but didn’t bother to track down Kelvin Terminals) and my second lunch in Belgium. It was a real mixture of trails today – from paved cycle routes, gravel roads, across fields (always the slowest & bumpiest) and even the odd bit of singletrack. Heading in to Antwerp, I found it surrounded by pear orchards – wasn’t expecting that. After the fifth and heaviest torrential downpour of the day I thought an actual campground best as I was close to the city centre.

As I sit on my first cross-Channel ferry crossing in over twenty-seven years, it’s a little difficult to know where to begin writing about this trip that for so long was just a vague “I’ll do that one day” idea nestled in the back of my mind (plus I’m out of practice writing here as months of saving weren’t conducive to having much to write about – May excepted). But with the rather sudden and sad demise of the factory that was Work for me for two and a half years, the prospect of months bikepacking around Europe became a real possibility.

So here I am near the bow of a ferry looking out at a very grey day and multitudes of whitecaps – the remnants of Hurricane Bertha. As I can’t really see more than a mile immediately ahead of me (the French coast has entirely disappeared into the mist), so the next few months look – I have a hazy idea of a couple of places I’d like to go, but by which route I’m going to get there, what I’ll see & who I may meet along the way are complete unknowns. But my bike is loaded up, as below, with hopefully everything I’ll need (one can hope) & no doubt with things I’ll quickly find are just deadweight and can be given away or posted home.

Since work finished ten days ago it’s been a flurry of giving things away, moving what remained to London, enjoying the always great hospitality of cousin Trish & visiting other family, working through the at times daunting pre-departure to-do list, a couple of day-trips into London visiting NZ friends (some resident, some visiting) – the WWI commemorations are well worth seeing, completing the puzzle of packing a mountain-bike for three months away and then saying goodbyes.

After a Windows 8 (what was I thinking?) induced meltdown the night before departure, I finally set off Saturday afternoon by train to Canterbury. From there it was a pleasant thirty mile ride along National Cycle Route 1 to Jan’s (Trish’s sister) house just north of Dover. While mostly on very quiet roads, a little part of the route was off-road. For the largest part it was nice riding through the scores of Kentish apple orchards & the blackberries I found were by far the biggest and juiciest I’ve seen this summer – fighting the nettles were well worth it for the haul I got for dessert that night. Only when the route turned towards a stiff southerly was progress earned – that meant the last hour or so from Sandwich south through Deal (which I thought surprisingly nice – on the sea front anyway) was slow.

After a big cooked breakfast (in part, I think three months of cycling is just an excuse to eat a lot; unfortunately, my bike seems to put on weight quicker than I do) it was out into the gusts & rain – finally getting to try out my Ground Effect three-quarter length rain pants (very good so far) – as I made the few miles to the ferry terminal. An advantage of taking a bike on board is that you are the first vehicles into the cavernous deck – & therefore you get your choice of seat upstairs (there are no foot passengers on this route to Dunkirk).

Well Dunkirk is nearing, apparently – soon I’ll be heading north to Belgium, a country I’ve meant to visit for sometime. I may stick to the GR5A route all the way to Brugge, but the opportunity to make quite a detour inland to Tyne Cot cemetery to see the memorial of the only direct relative I know of that was lost in WWI is quite a draw. But, today may be a good wet day to sit eating & drinking copious amounts of waffles and hot chocolate.