To Wezel: - first dry day and we found camping, yeah!
As is their way, Wil and Lili provided us with a wonderful breakfast to start the day. Lili made us a special egg/bacon dish that was delicious. A variety of breads, fruit, yogurt, meats and cheeses, preserves.....There was no way we could eat it all. Lili insisted that we make sandwiches and take whatever we needed for lunch and the day ahead. In all of our years of travelling, this is a first.We are really enjoying being in Holland for a short while. We do find that the people are less reserved and freely extend a warmth and friendliness to us. We also find that the cycling paths are superior. As the route meanders close to the border of Holland and Belgium, we have decided to find our way along the Dutch side for as long as we can.
Wil and Lili, our hosts at B&B Hunsael. They clearly love hosting visitors and welcome you as part of the family. It was a pleasure staying with them.
Wil and Lili are proud of their large family of children and grandchildren. This collage features their grandson who is a cycling champion and now attending university.
What a surprise it was to come across this breeding bird reserve. The sounds drew our attention and the colours of the birds, like this Rote Ibis, were amazing.
In the past she and her husband had enjoyed cycle touring (Rome, Spain, etc) and she was determined that the accident would not prevent her from riding.
She was so excited to see us cycle touring and she encouraged us to carry on as long as we can.
The Flandern Route is well signed (follow the green/white L5 route signs) and is used mostly by peletons of local racing cyclists, groups of locals out for a pleasure ride and a very few touring cyclists. We would like to see better signage for the infrastructure, such as accommodation and camping. We are finding that camping can be hard to find, not always available for tenting and not reliably listed in the guidebooks. We have found few reasonable camping spots - most are mega sized and very expensive.
A coffee break along the canal. We have a thermos that we carry with us and our morning ritual is to fill it with boiling water. Coffee or tea whenever we need a break and it's a bonus when a patisserie is nearby
We have lost count of the number of rivers and canals we have ridden along this trip. They have all been a delight and we enjoy seeing the working boats, pleasure boats and fishermen.
A pretty section of the route along the canal today. Also, we are happy to report that there are very few gates along these canals - and when we do encounter them, there are easy to ride through!
We have seen the effects of flooding in this area the past few days. Farmers must be concerned as we see fields of crops that have been destroyed. This should be a field of corn.
We had an interesting roundabout journey to find this campground. It doesn't appear on any of the maps, including the local recreational maps along the route that show campsites. But it was on our GPS and we were determined to find it. The confusing bit was that none of the roads led to it. We rode for some time through a nature reserve on the advice of a local, but finally discovered that it is quite conveniently located by approaching from the village of Wezel.
