I was awake at five this morning, by the sound of “ duff….
Duff…..duff….. from, I can only presume were the idiot “ boy racer “ types we
encountered on our way into town last night at 11.30pm.
They were doing wheelies and doughnuts and generally just
ripping up the tarmac and playing loud music the whole time. It had been going
on for about an hour and I figured I wasn’t going to get back to sleep. So up
and over to the shower, while Ju slept on
peacefully. Took the tablet to charge up as in the shower unit there were
plugs.
No one else up at that time of day, so sat in the cubicle
writing yesterday’s blog….! After finishing a portion of it I went back to the
tent an hour later and found Julia stirring. I pottered around and made us a
coffee, whilst she blogged. Oiled the bikes, threw out excess stuff, info no
longer required and while Julia showered, I went back to the toilet block to
charge some more.
Tent packed, teeth cleaned we wandered around to the
reception to pay.
And my “ Prat “ of the day award goes to the stupid fat cow
on the desk. Walked in, told her we’d like to pay for last night because we had
arrived very late and just pitched tent, as reception was well shut. You would
have thought we’d have breached some kind of treaty.
“That’s highly illegal “ she says
“But we got here at 11.30pm” says I.
“You cannot stay without booking in. Where is your green
slip?”
Since we weren’t auditioning for Riverdance, we hadn’t
brought our green slips with us on this occasion so were left feeling
confused. So we simply replied
(logically to our mind) “We got here too late…..you were shut. How much do we
owe you ?”
“I need your passports before I can tell you”
I didn’t get that one, but, decided to oblige.
She took down the details and charged us E.U. 24.50
We paid and walked out. Saw a price list outside and the
bitch had charged us E.U. 5 over the top. Virtually $ 10 . So you miserable
excuse for a woman……. I hope you fell over today and broke your bloody neck.
And if to my misfortune you ever come to N.Z. may I run you over, without
damaging my car….!
Off into the city centre (not as easy as we had thought )
but eventually we followed the canal into the most awesome city. Couldn’t stop
taking photos. We were sure we’d come to Gent years ago, but if we did, we
walked around with our eyes closed. Founded in 630 A D it has basically stood
the test of time. It truly is a beautiful city. However, during the two world
wars, Belgium arranged a deal that would stop any damage being inflicted on
those historic buildings.
Cycled round ( the only way to see a place ) and enjoyed all it offered up. Visited the
tourism office and uploaded the blog. Couldn’t skype there so went in search of
a café as by now we were starving. Picked up a couple of goodies for later on
but decided on Starbucks for wifi purposes. Got in, ordered,
The Belgians have this brilliant cycle route system where
they have numbered every spot where two bike paths cross. You can buy a map of each area with all these
apparent random numbers all over them.
You look at the direction you want to go in and pick out all the
numbered dots in that direction. Then
you follow the dots like Dot-to-Dot on bicycles. At each intersection you have signs pointing
to the next neighbouring
dot. This was a dream to follow and we had a very
cruisy first couple of hours following the route the lady had mapped out for
us. It was a bit zig zaggy but took in
lots of little lanes, alleyways, farm tracks and some of the most beautiful
housing in the area.
We had our route mapped out all the way to Antwerp and with
Stopped for lunch at 4pm sheltering from the crosswind by a
small farm building. Right after this we
hit our first section of cobbled bike path which after about ten seconds became
a literal pain in the arse, however it didn’t last long and we were seeing
areas of Belgium that the average person wouldn’t get to see.
It was shortly after this that we started to
encounter some problems with lapses in concentration and forgetting what number
we were on and had to backtrack a few times, but not too far. We had estimated an arrival time in Antwerp
at the campsite of no more than 8pm. At
8.20pm we came upon a ferry crossing we didn’t know was part of our route and
luckily we timed it well and only had to wait ten minutes before being
transported about 200 metres to Hoboken, a district of Antwerp. Of course Julia was quite thrilled to be here
as for those of you who don’t know, her maiden name was Hobo (I’m not kidding)
, and her father is from Rotterdam in the Netherlands which is not too far from
Antwerp and is most probably where her name came from.
By now our directions were up the chute and after asking a
motorcyclist on the ferry, we were none the wiser and spent the next hour
riding the streets of Hoboken. Let me
tell you right now, at 9.30pm you do not want to be riding the streets of Hoboken. As someone who grew up in the middle of
Liverpool, I am not uncomfortable in inner city areas. However, we were encountering some very dodgy
looking people, very few of whom were Belgian.
When we had almost given up hope of ever finding the campground, we were
sent an angel in the form of Enya, a lovely young Belgian girl on a bike, who
not only told us where it was, but took us there as well.
Upon arrival, we wondered why we had bothered coming here,
to both the campground and Antwerp. It
was dirty, neglected and lacking in any form of facilities or hot water. There were a lot of German mobile homes, but
no tents. By the time we had pitched the
tent it was 10pm. Cooked up a nice meal,
finished with a coffee and planned our escape in the morning.
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