13 June 2014 (hot and sunny) 66km

Woke at 7.30 to another hot, sunny day.  Made a cup of tea, folded our washing and packed our bags before saying goodbye to the kids as they headed off to school.  All the kids go to school except for baby Lilo, even four year old Tiezz, from 8.30 to 4.00pm.  They don’t have to start that young but they can.  They are lucky to have all the schools needed until the children are eighteen, just 300 metres from the house.  Then we sat down to breakfast with Bram and Daphne which consisted of coffee, oranges and bread with your choice of toppings from honey and Nutella to pate, ham, cream cheese and salami.  They seem to eat a lot of cheese and salami over here so it’s a good job so many of them ride bikes.  Electric bikes are big news over here and same with electric cars as they have charging parking places, (in De Panne at least) so you can charge your car while parked in town.

It turns out Bram does a lot of work for the local council and his father used to be mayor of the town twenty years ago.  He is obviously very civic minded and was in charge of ordering and putting up flags on the lampposts for the world cup.  We know this because he got a call over breakfast telling him the guys were putting the flags up backwards.

We said our goodbyes to Bram and Daphne with computer and camera recharged as well as ourselves.  Being clean and having our washing done and some good home cooked meals make all the difference to your state of well being and mean the world to you when you’re on the road.

We made a trip to the information office to pick up some maps as Bram and Daphne had recommended we go to Ypres and that there were good cycle paths along the canal all the way there.  So while Pete picked up the maps, I plugged into the free wifi and sent off some emails and updated the blog.  Then we cycled through the city one last time, picking up some lip sunscreen on the way as my lips got burnt yesterday.  Wow I can’t wait to come back here and go shopping.  Georgina you are going to love the shopping over here and Briana you will love the architecture. 

Old Town in Veurne

So we set off on a cycle path all the way to Veurne which is a stunning old town, which Bram and Daphne had said nothing about.  So it was quite a surprise when we came into the old town square with these magnificent old buildings all around the perimeter with a massive brick church looming beyond them.  We noticed one tower that was built in 1628.  Incredible.

Found the canal path to Ypres and started along there, looking out for a nice place to have lunch.  Soon found a shady spot with a park bench just off the canal path and hung our washing out to dry while we ate baked bean sandwiches and had a coffee and some biscuits.  It was a very hot day and getting hotter as we headed inland but some very thoughtful person many years ago had planted lines of trees along the canal so there was a reasonable amount of shade.  

We had to leave the canal for a while and cycled along some old farm tracks and small roads and it got really hot there with no shade to protect us from the sun.  Funny, I remember thinking about two weeks ago as I packed my jandals back into my panniers, if I was ever going to get a chance to wear them and my lightest tank top.  Today we both cycled in jandals.

Just on the outskirts of Ypres we came across the Yorkshire trench from the first World War.  We were the only people there to begin with and it is a sobering sight when you see where many of these men spent the last of their days. 

Imagining the mud, the walls constantly collapsing, the cold, the noise, the inhuman conditions, let alone the injuries, the death, the fear and the disease.  

After about fifteen minutes a busload of kids turned up so we left and headed into Ypres.

It was Friday at 5pm and there appeared to be a bit of a market day going on with all the shops having their wares out on the cobbled pavement.  We walked our bikes through and grabbed a longed for Magnum to eat while we sat on a bench in the town square.  Huge old buildings and a massive church and castle type building.  We will have a longer look round tomorrow but for now we were trying to find the campsite.  

Ypres Old Town

Had a longwinded but very enjoyable ride round the old moat and found where the old drawbridge had been which was now a bridge across to some parkland and the campsite. 

So many beautiful old buildings - it gives the camera a good workout

 A very lush, well organised camp but the office had closed so we found where all the other tents were and looked for a space to pitch ours.  It was fill of squady  bikers from England (all military or ex military ) and as we pitched the tent, we worried that they’d be partying all night.  They seemed nice enough though so we put the tent up and went for showers, which were free and fantastic.  Got back to the tent and grabbed our luggage free bikes and pedalled back into town for some food.  

We took the less roundabout way back in and came across the Menin Gate which was a huge monument to all the missing men whose bodies were never found or could not be identified so could not be given proper graves.  This gate must be about ten metres tall, thirty metres long and thirty metres wide – and it’s walls are inscribed with the names of all those men who were lost in this area during the first world war…….54,000 of them. Because there were so many dead, they built another memorial at Tyne Cot with another 34,000 names on it.

As we approached this gate, we heard all this murmuring getting louder and louder as we parked our bikes and walked up to it. We had been lucky enough to have timed our ride into the town for tea with the nightly vigil, a playing of The Last Post, which has been played every night since 1928 at 8pm (stopped for four years of the second world war) . Sometimes the ceremony is attended by only a handful of spectators, but tonight there were thousands, including the squaddies from the camp, who laid a wreath. As I stood under the huge list of names (around 1800 or thereabouts ) from The Kings Liverpool Regiment  I imagined the mothers and fathers of these boys and men, who when they sent them off to war, must have known there was a high chance they wouldn’t be coming home. 

Standing, listening to the last post played at such a venue, was extremely powerful for me and wandering around afterwards and seeing the Dolan name appear with the initials of myself, my dad and his brother, was certainly food for thought. We had all served in the forces and another time or place this could have been us.

Ypres was virtually devastated in the war but it still possesses large parts of the original ramparts built in the 17^th century. After everyone had dispersed we wandered around the structure looking at some of the regiments and names.

Decided to just buy a couple of quiches for tea and head back to camp. Once there Julia got busy downloading some photos for the blog and we sat outside reception where they had wifi to complete the task and hopefully skype home. Began talking to an Aussie couple who have been roaming the  world for the past two years in their wagon. They’ve got everything in that van and have visited 22 countries. By the time we finished chatting though, the wifi wasn’t working, we hadn’t posted the blogs or talked to the kids. So it was down to the toilets to clean our teeth before snuggling up for the night at 11.30pm.