Skip to main content

/Day 85 /04 -06-22 /Remersdaal-Halle

The roosters of the nearby farm thought it was a good idea to wake me up at 5.15. I waited until 6.30 to get out of my bed and breaking up my tent. There was nothing to eat so early on the camping so I left on an empty stomach around 7.20. For the first time in 85 days I misread my GPS and started descending a road, unfortunate the wrong road…After I realised I took the wrong road I climbed the hill back up via an other road to eventually arrive on the correct cyclepath.

Today I would cycle to Halle, 140 K away,  via the outskirts of Liege, through Limburg, Haspengouw, Heuvel land and “the green ring” around Brussel. I also passed Borgloon to say halo to Rudi, a docent of my art academy, who has a solo exhibition in the Graethempoort.

It was great cycling most of the day ; mostly small roads, through fruit orchards, 2 bigger forests, great views, small villages.The closer I came to Brussels though the more I was confronted with the lack of decent and safe cycling infrastructure …cycling on poor roads along busy roads, cycle paths that suddenly disappear, car doors that are thrown open,…compared to most countries I cycled the last months Belgium will  not  be in the top 5. 

It became also warm/hot today. Around noon it was 26 degrees easily. Although the sometimes poor cycling infrastructure and the warm weather I made good progress and I arrived around 16.00 in Halle at the door of Hannah’s apartment..
It was good to see each other again, although Oscar was not so convinced……After a shower we went to Halle city to have an Ice cream….Great ice cream in Halle…
We had early dinner and around nine it was time to go to sleep.This night I will have the company of the house - rabbit Pip. I hope Pip has not seen Monty Python’s The Holy Grail….

Tomorrow I will cycle to Dilbeek, Schellebelle and further….heavy rain is expected….





























Lessons learned :
  • The camping restaurant was really good and clearly deserve the best camping-restaurant of the year
  • The cherries are almost ripe.



Comments

  1. Leentje Vanlee6/4/22, 9:21 PM

    You're almost home! Your wife and kids will be so happy!
    I will miss your stories and photos 😢

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous6/4/22, 10:23 PM

    De twee laatste !

    ReplyDelete
  3. Liliane vanlee6/5/22, 8:11 AM

    Zo bijna thuis, oscar zal niet goed geweten hebben wie daar voor hem stond.
    Ook mooie laatste fotos, hopelijk niet te veel regen voor vandaag en goede thuiskomst morgen.
    Veel groetjes

    ReplyDelete
  4. Lieve meirsman6/5/22, 10:11 AM

    genoten van uw verblijf bij Hanah en morgen genieten van vrouw en kinderen. Ikzelf heb heel hard genoten van uw avontuur. Ik heb het al eens gezegd maar zeg het nog een keer, ik zal uw verhalen en foto's missen.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

//the start

I n 2018  I ran from Ghent (my hometown in Belgium) to Santiago The Compostela in Spain .   An adventure which took 4 pair running shoes and 73 days of running to cover the 2700 km. The reasons for my Santiago adventure was the urge to complete a physical challenge (I could have opted for less healthy options to manage my  mid-life crisis), experience  the state of rural France after having seen a documentary on the topic and the need to disconnect from my day to day professional live.  During my trip I managed a blog with photos I took with my iPhone combined with personal observations on my day-to-day life as runner/traveller to Santiago. It was during this trip I discovered my interest in photography and shortly after my return I enrolled myself into the  Ghent academy for fine arts   to study photography. Around the end of 2020 I started thinking to undertake a new adventure. Not longer with the objective to physically challenge myself but to investigate and document photographical
10 comments
Read more

//Day 1 /12-03-22 /Ghent - Passau

It was with little sleep I got out of bed this morning. From 2 o’clock in the morning I was a in semi-awake state only to fall back asleep again 5 minutes before I had the set alarm clock. Today, I would finally leave my home and family to start my long planned cycle tour though the Balkans. With a heavy heart I said goodbye to Jo and the kids and to Eric and Katrien (who came to wave me goodbye, real friends Jan) and stepped into the car of Wim which would bring me to Ko ln to take the direct train to Passau. Thanks to  Germany’s efficient and  modern train infrastructure I was soon waiting on the platform to board the train to Vienna. The train was 6 minutes late so not sure if german efficiency is still a thing.  I’m writing this blog whilst riding a comfortable train through sunny Germany looking at a landscape slowly changing from hilly to flat to hilly again. Besides the changing landscape I’m observing the other travellers typing on their smartphones,  listening to a Belgian rad
6 comments
Read more

//Day 18/29-03-22 /Negotin-Vidin

I needed to cycle only 65 K today, from Nigotin to Vidin, a small city near the border with Romania in Bulgaria. So I stayed in bed until 8.30, made an espresso and sat on the terras of my chalet-studio. Bojan, the owner/host, promised me he would arrange breakfast around 8.30. Around 9.00 he brought me a filo based  pastry filled with a green vegetable (which I did not know) and cheese, real espresso and some fresh orange based limonade/juice. All was perfect again, totally in line with the level of service received since I arrived at Bojan’s place. After breakfast I slowly packed and was ready to roll around 10.15. Bojan asked if he could join me to the border and taking me via a route through the hills to the border. I happily accepted. I was somewhat surprised that for my stay, the welcome beer and breakfast the cost was only 14 euro. I would have paid without any questioning the double.  The plan was to go to Vidin, Bulgaria , and tomorrow follow the Romanian Eurovelo 6 route via
3 comments
Read more