14 June 2014 (sunny and mild with a cool breeze, getting stronger in afternoon) 97.5 km

No worries with hard partying bikers last night and we had a good nights sleep.  Made a cuppa which we had with jam on oatcakes while Pete wrote the blog.  Went across to wash up our dishes and check to see if the wifi was working (which it wasn’t) and our Aussie mate Nick and wife MaryJane shouted out to see if we wanted a coffee.  Well these two are a wealth of information and a good laugh so about an hour later we left them to go pack up our tent.  Left the campground and headed to reception to try to get wifi before we went, but once again, couldn’t get it so into Ypres we cycled.

Straight to the tourism office as we have had good luck with these sites so far and sure enough it worked.  Met up with the two Aussies again who were also looking for some info and whilst Julia downloaded photos for the blog, we sat and had coffee.

The cups were tiny, like Turkish coffee, but the barista assured me we didn’t need larger…..!

We say goodbye to Ypres with one last look at the Menin Gate

Well although it wasn’t too bad……. It wasn’t as good as coffee in N.Z. Left Ypres at 12pm, too late to hit the road really and set out toward Gent. Didn’t fare too badly direction wise but stopped on a couple of occasions to check out memorials at the roadside.
One was for The Kings Liverpool Regiment. As at the Menin Gates last night, the loss of life was substantial. We were following a numbered map where you join the dots to get you to your place of interest and it worked well.

One of the many cemeteries that dot the fields of Flanders

We’d only done a dozen km when we stopped by the roadside for lunch, with food we’d picked up on our way out of town. A guy and his son came to do some work at an adjoining property and I asked him if he knew where we could get camping gas. “I take you” he says. With that we were in his van for a two km drive to the supermarket. Unfortunately, as we have discovered, not many places seem to sell what we require in Europe. I apologised for taking him away for no result, but he said “no problem”. After cleaning away our stuff, we hit the road heading for Tyne Cot, a massive cemetery of war dead near Passendale. 

This is just the section for the 1116 NZ'ers buried here

Eventually we found it after a few false turns and wandered around the museum before taking in the graves. What an emotional experience. Amazing really. You don’t know any of these people, but after seeing and hearing of their plight, you feel connected. The cemetery itself is huge, containing over 34 000 graves, with a lot of New Zealanders.

a portion of the 34,000 dead who are remembered here.

It is an awesome, yet terribly sad and overpowering experience. The place itself is so well cared for in every respect. All the graves have tended flowers continuously and it is a credit to those who look after the place. Leaving after some time there, with bus loads still arriving, we decided that would be it for now as that kind of visit does leave you feeling very sad.

Cycling on, we were now cycling blindly, as our map had run out. The specialised cycling maps they have are great but at 7 euros a pop, pretty expensive too when we can cover one map n half a day.  And then we would have to throw the map away as on a bicycle it is too impractical to carry all those maps with you.  We have decided that next time we will have to have a sat nav, despite the problems of having to charge it, not to mention learning how to use one!  

Anyway, lucky for us most Belgians speak English and gave us good directions, however, we did end up on some busier roads.  After Tyne Cot we arrived via bike path in Passhendale where we tried buying camping gas (without success) but did manage to find a supermarket and bought some supplies before finding an old railway line bike path with the help of some locals.  Even though lots of people cycle here and it’s flat as, they are astounded when we tell them we are cycling to Finland. The railway leads us to the town of Roselare.  At least we thought it was a town…..we soon found out it is a city.  Stopped at a petrol station to buy an ice mcream and asked the lady if she knew of a place that sold camping gas and she very kindly looked it up for us online and told us they closed at 6.30 pm and was 5km away.  It was now 5.30pm so we ate our ice creams and charged off with the directions she had given us, which were bang on. Got the gas no problem and asked the guys there where was the campground.  Unbelievably there was no campground in Roselare which is the same size as New Plymouth.  Even worse, the nearest one was 44km away in Gent.  The guys at the shop were great and printed off directions for us to follow to Gent but this is where the riding quality deteriorated significantly as we had to follow the most direct route to get us there by dark rather than our chosen route via the canal which wound its way round the countryside a bit.  The directions were bang on and easy to follow and we were in our own cycle lane at the side of the road most of the time.  But it was busy and noisy and smelly and Roselare seemed to stretch into the next town and the next with barely any green land in between.  We were on the lookout for a freecamp spot and a place to fill up our water bottles with no luck on either front.  Our Belgian friend Bram told us Belgium is the most densely populated country in the world, and now we can believe it.  As we were nearing the town of Tielt, our bike path stopped but our directions told us to stay on the N35 which we did but we soon realised it had turned into a motorway.  We had no other option but to keep going until we got a road off it.  Cars very helpfully beeped at us as they sped past at 90kph but we didn’t get the opportunity to get off until after about 5km.  Oh yes, and did I mention we had a headwind all afternoon?  Got off and just guessed our way from there to Tielt where we found a lady on the now quiet streets who told us we next needed to head to Aasele. 

Monument in Tielt

Stopped in town by the closed tourist office to eat dinner on a park bench there and then set off once again with absolutely no water and at least 20km still to go and now it was 8.30pm. 

Asked a gentleman on his boke the way to Aasele and he very kindly asked us if we wanted the main road or the wiggly quiet road and we both said “the wiggly quiet one!”  He lead us to it as it was on his way and pointed us in the right direction, telling us to follow the blue signs.  This was a fantastic road and the joy of being off the main roads and probably because we now had a bit of fuel in the furnace, meant we blasted along this section of the ride which was basically farm tracks through crops of corn, potatoes, courgettes, spring onions, carrots and wheat.  Got to Aasele and found a dead straight road all the way to Deinzes, a distance of about 10km.  There we finally hooked up with the canal route and had a delightful ride alongside it on a smooth wide road so we could cycle side by side and not one car passed us.  

We were on this for about 10km and thinking we must be getting close but our lack of map had put us wrong and we had gone a bit off course and ended up in the town of Nevele (yes Mr Jans, we thought of you), where we got directions again (thank God these people speak English!), and adjusted our course towards Gent.  Luckily we were able to stay on quiet roads all the way there but by now it was getting dark and we were very mindful that a motorist may not see is.  But we had no problems with our reflective gear and after stopping and asking for directions a few more times, (everybody we asked was extremely helpful), we made our way relatively easily to the campground.  It was now 11.10pm and we had done 97.5km.  Crazy when we thought of the late start we had made and the time delays with visiting cemeteries and monuments.  We set the tent up in the dark very easily and quietly so as not to disturb our neighbours then brewed up a cup of tea and had a snack before bed at midnight.