August 1, 2024
Boulogne sur Mer to Calais
Munich to La Manche
At Hotel Londres, Madame La Guillotine is quite joyful this morning. Perhaps she’s grateful we’re clearing her hotel entrance way of our bikes.
I have already made a clandestined sortie to find breakfast and lunch supplies and we’ve managed to brew up coffee on our jetboil without setting off any alarms.
Our first mission after leaving to a chorus of bonne journēes is to find the Military Eastern Cemetery and visit the WW1 grave of my father’s cousin. The ride isn’t far but involves some steep uphill grades. It takes us up past the old town’s walls. We find the cemetery easily enough and while Ann puts the coordinates into her phone, I take off doing a visual search as āla Eli Wallach in ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’. One of us is much quicker.
Dad’s cousin, Clive Aorangi Scadden died aged only 21, probably in the final big German offensive on the Somme. We know little about him, compared to my grandfather’s two brothers killed in the same year, but the poignancy of such a young death strikes home.
It always leaves a lump in the throat to think of these young men so far from home, whose lives were lived on a knife edge in brutal living conditions. A few years back, in 2013, Ann and I found the graves of my mother’s uncles- two brothers killed within a month or two of each other near Amiens. The news reaching a small farming community so far away in the South Island of New Zealand must have been devastating.
After signing the book at the graveyard, we head back down to the port area and easily locate the trail.
It’s a busy day down here, with school kids on tours, tourists wandering about and the roads full of people looking for a parks. The traffic is queued up for quite a distance. We get good views of the harbour entrance and people swimming at the beaches as we leave. We’d like to swim too and hope to at Calais as the campground has beach access.
Compared with yesterday, the route to Calais is a little easier, though it still has some long uphill stretches followed by good downhills.
To start though, we’re on the coast, and Wimereux, our first stop for breath, is not far north but is an another pretty seaside town.
The day is growing hot but there’s a sea breeze while we’re along the coast. EV4 continues to be well signposted and the writing on the road continues too.
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At Audresselles we stop for lunch though shade is hard to find. The sea breeze keeps us cool. In the distance we can see a beautiful bay where people are swimming. Our route now takes us inland in an effort to cut some chunks of coast. We are entering the territory of the two caps.
We are taken completely off-road by EV4 and find ourselves passing through small villages and in one section, on farming roads between fields of cut grain.
By mid afternoon, it’s ice cream time and happily this coincides with the 3pm end of the lunch break, and our our arrival at Wissant. This is quite a busy spot, but very pleasant with an old church that has been renovated- not too well really, since modernisation has destroyed the simple character.
Our final big climb is made more arduous because we can see the road winding upwards in the distance. It trails between two massive fields and though the surface is smooth, eventually we’re pushing the last 30 or so metres on foot. There are other cyclists about because it’s a popular area for cycling and, after all- it’s holiday season.
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Calais comes up in the distance and there’s no mistaking what city it is. We really enjoy the final kilometres coming down to the coast- EV4 does a marvellous job keeping us safely cycling on a beautiful surface.
Camping Fort Lapin is a beautiful little campsite compared with our Berck experience. Reception has a complet sign, but not for cyclists. We find a comfortable grassy spot and set up. After a trip down the road to the Carrefour, we’re back and cooking pasta. It’s a calm, warm evening and eating dinner next to our abode is no hardship. After dinner we use our combination to open the gate to the beach and go for a dip. The sea isn’t chilly, but refreshing enough.
We’re then off to sleep- we’re planning on catching the morning ferry, so we’ll have an early start. Ferries and trains - each has its tricky bits.
Today's ride: 53 km (33 miles)
Total: 1,611 km (1,000 miles)
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