Day 11

(835km from The Hague, 250 km south of Paris)

Having a rest day tomorrow is cancelled, as we thought today would be a better day. We both felt pretty tired this morning, and had pretty bad muscle fatigue. This campsite is also by far the nicest we’ve been on this trip, so the decision was easily made.

Already day 11, and we are making decent progress. Theoretically we could have been a lot farther, but the elements are against us. Except for the first day in Holland, we’ve had rain every day, headwind, and it has just been extremely cold for the time of year. Of all the things I’ve brought, my raincoat and warm coat have been my best friends.

Let me just start right from the beginning; the anti-climax of leaving on a year’s cycling adventure; the kick-ass Africa trip. After a great farewell, goodbye, good luck, and good riddance at the Prins Hendrikplein, we we’re super psyched. It was finally beginning…. However, at the end of the day we were 100 km south somewhere in Vrouwenpolder, Zeeland. Not exactly Africa. We anticipated it, but it was nothing but a regular day of cycling through Holland. We found a small campsite and finished our first day with Pizza and a few beers. That morning, rain had come. Packing all your stuff wet is incredibly annoying, but we were heading the right direction, so we thought …..

Belgium, our first, and probably smallest foreign country on this trip was a disaster. The moment we hit the Dutch – Belgian border it started pissing it down, not to stop until we crossed the Belgian – French border somewhat 20 hours later. And I mean, properly pouring. When we arrived at a place called Tielt, we thought it would be time to set up our already wet tents, change ourselves into some, soon to be wet as well, clothes, and find something to eat. We asked some locals about campsites nearby, but they told us the nearest one was around 50 km away (I guess that would be in France). Damnation, buggeration, bollocks…. On a nice day it’s bad to hear you need to do an extra 50 km, but when you’re completely drenched and freezing cold, it doesn’t sit well. Unfortunately for us, there was supposed to be cycling event that day in Tielt, but it was cancelled due to bad weather. The tourist information office, which had kindly called all local B&B’s to see if there was any place available, told us to go ask in the church, since they sometimes hosted people. A nice Belgian lady, Lieve, said that she could arrange something, but we needed to come back in an hour and a half. Upon return, we were welcomed into a 400 year old monastery where we had a hot shower and our own room.

France is a different challenge.
After cycling through Holland and Belgium in 2 days, France is somewhat bigger. The flat roads of The Netherlands have made way for the hilly roads of central France, and the possibilities of going the wrong way are endless here. We are only allowed to cycle on the so-called D-roads. These smaller local roads tend not to go in a straight line south and tend to be hillier as well. This means that even though you may have cycled 100 km, you’ve only gone 60 km south, which sucks pretty badly seeing the scale of the country. However, after several days of puzzling, we are starting to understand how to deal with these roads.

Lille to Paris was rather uneventful. We stayed on campsites, got wet, packed our gear wet, set it up wet, and watched the French landscapes pass us by. The tiny French villages, cute as they are, are also boring as hell. Supermarkets close early, bars and restaurants shut at 7 or 8, and during the day you’ll never see anyone outside, unless they’re in a car. Basically, we needed to adjust to the French way of life, and stack up on enough food and drink to last us to the next bigger town. The first big town we came to was a place called Paris ;) This massive city was our first destination, the first leg of our ridiculously long trip. At about 550 km after leaving The Hague, also a good place to rest up a bit. Cycling through Paris is challenging but fun, specially the big roundabout at the Arc de Triomphe. There is also a big campsite just at the western side of the centre of the city. So, for about 10 Euro a night, you’re staying in the heart of Paris. However, we did a lot that day off, but calling it a rest day is a blatant lie. We walked around town all day, went to a bar and got wasted watching Holland crash against the Danes (they better mess those Germans up tonight, or that will be one sad sorry Euro Cup), ended up running like hell trying to catch the last bus back to the campsite (midnight), and then fell into a semi-drunken coma. Rest day…. RIGHT!

Getting into a city is easy, just follow the sign saying Centre Ville; getting out is a whole different challenge. It took us quite a while to find our way out, making sure we were heading south again towards our second major town, Clermont-Ferrand (another 150-200 km south from here). Once we properly cleared Paris, life went back to normal again; long stretches of woods or fields, hills, small towns, and lots of clouds and rain.

Anywho, we keep on going south, hoping that at some point the weather will get better. But first we’ll enjoy this day off, then cycle in towards the mountains before heading into Spain. However it all looks, it most definitely beats an office-job ;)

Let’s keep rollin’ on…….

Kors & Saab