Amanda and I rode into Belgium today. Just as we were getting setup at our campsite in Antwerp the heavens opened and have not let up. Very high winds (a few other tents blew away) and lots and lots of rain.
I will post more later but the highlights include crossing the border, a great tailwind all day, a nice lunch in Heide with some British ex-pats and a Canadian soldier, getting toured around Antwerp by a local, fixing Amanda’s bike for her at the fietfikser, riding thru puddles in the rain, SpaghettiWorld, and crawling into a dry, warm tent at the end of the night.
We hope to book train tickets for Thursday from Brussels to somewhere. It is about 100km ride to Brussels tomorrow. No pics right now because inter web bandwidth is limited.
Ps- anyone have a waterproof jacket that Amanda can use?
Amanda writes:
93.6 km
5:13 in the saddle
Left camp by about 9:30. Had a light breakfast at camp from the bakery purchases the day before. The LF2 bike route was great today. It was well marked and easy to follow. If we missed a turn it was because we were to busy sightseeing. We left the Netherlands and crossed the border into Belgium before lunch. No crossing or anything, we only knew because of the name of a town. The most notable difference was the decreased quality of the LF2 bike route. No more paved roads. Instead pave (cobblestone) and gravel.
We stopped in Heide for lunch. Met a nice family who moved to Belgium from the UK ten years before. Heide had a statue of a Canadian soldier and a Canadian flag. We asked why and were told the Canadians liberated the town – cool! The family wished us well and predicted rain by five pm. Wow they were spot on.
We arrived in Antwerp in good time and hooked up with a helpful cyclist who rode us to a local bike shop. They were about to close for their holidays which is so awesome. I really respect that time off trumps work and running a business. They gave us directions to another shop. The other shop was great. They let Andrew use the bike stand, shop and tools and sold us a bottom bracket. Andrew replaced that bracket and bent my frame back into shape (damage from the plane). Now I have all my gears for the mountains. Thank goodness Andrew knows how to do repairs. We left and went to a campground which was close by.
We arrived and started to set up. It started pouring rain. Not Vancouver rain of a consistent light rain. Instead a torrential down pour with lightening and big winds. Another site nearby hadn’t staked down their tent and it started to blow away. We managed to get our panniers under the fly and everything in the tent in perfect timing. Everything was dry except for us. We were absolutely soaking wet; and hungry. We decided to stay wet and go for dinner. We hopped on the bikes and went back to town for a great dinner. We brought dry shirts which was good. The tunnel to get from the camping to town and back was nice. It is for bikes and pedestrians only. It is so old it has an escalator for pedestrians made out of wood – it looked so cool.
We learned there was hail in the forecast which at this point was just fun. The tent was still there when we returned from dinner which was nice. Others were not so lucky which will suck when they return to find their tent upside down pinned against a fence.
We got in the tent and changed into dry clothes. We had so much fun in the rain – Andrew was wired! Maybe it was that and the coffee he had at dinner. I fell asleep and he read until late.
A good day.
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