‘At some point, you’re going to shit it’.
That was a mate’s venerable advice a week before I left (I assume he means it in both senses of the phrase). He then went on to add that he thought it’d be when I got into France, realised that my handful of French words wasn’t enough and that I couldn’t understand a thing anyone was saying.
Not quite. The first day of foreign riding was quite good – it wasn’t raining. In fact, it was sunny (I even had to crack out the sun tan lotion), plus I had nice French roads to ride on; this was alright.
Flat.
It took me about 20km before I had my first ‘encounter’; riding towards Saint Omer I realised two rattled looking blokes were running down the road straight towards me.
‘KALEZZ?” he shouted, pointing towards the direction I’d come from.
“…um, yeah” it took me a while to realise he’d meant ‘Calais’.
Afterwards, I had a poignant thought (hold on); those guys were running towards exactly what I was running away from, and how privileged I am to even be in a situation where I can start cycling about indefinitely. Ladies and Gentlemen, put your hands together for the first world.
I ended up in Nieppe before I realised that Northern France is a bit of a pain in the arse to stealth camp in, with it mostly being agricultural farmland, and as such, ended up unstealthily camping in a field which was pretty much in someone’s back garden. I did have the intention of getting up and scarpering early, however, I managed to lose my keys in the grass and spent the next two hours emptying my bags, moving stuff around and comb searching the field. It paid off, I found them, I could unlock my bike, and most importantly I still have my Mariners keyring.
Looks very nice and calm, until the two hours on my knees tearing up grass in the morning.
Lille was my first experience of a fairly big city whilst cycle touring alone, and if you’ve got bike paranoia like me, it’s not great, you’re pretty much limited to outside, unless you can see your bike with all your worldly possessions tied to the sides, I liken to having a small child that has Mr T levels of gold around their neck.
In Lille I managed to cycle past a nice bike shop called Cycles Get Lost. Now, when you ride past a bike shop on a ridiculously stacked, bright orange push-rod, you get a few looks, these guys were chatting outside and everyone just stopped and stared. I rode straight past. Then I realised I needed a new innertube so I headed back, all part of my 101 in ‘How to look a Plonker’. They were nice guys in there, really nice shop, unfortunately I was in the early days of the ride and didn’t take photos or leave any contact details, but if they read this – the tube is still going strong!
Heading out of Lille, on a long ol’ cycle path bridge.
One of the good things about cycle touring is that you get little surprises inbetween the bigger stuff you intricately plan out. I rode through this tiny village called Gussignies one morning and met this old guy whilst I was taking some pictures. He told me that his village was a special place, there are no other places like it and that the river has lots of fish that he likes to catch and eat. Humble bloke.
The best village in the world, apparently.
Right then, time for continental thunderstorm numero uno. I spotted this one early afternoon, a huge dark blue Independence Day style arc on the horizon that spent the rest of the day slowly tracking me down. I got to a place called Beaumont, then decided to see if I could outrun it. I got as far as this huge lake pumping out tunes with people jetskiing and wakeboarding before finding a place in a field by a quiet layby to put up my tent. At this point I thought ‘I did it, I outran a thunderstorm’, failing to realise that said storm still exists outside of the tent, and that being in a tent supported by metal poles, next to a line of trees with a push-iron leant up next to it probably doesn’t do you any favours. It was a trouser-shredder. The lightning couldn’t have hit more than 25ft away and being laid on the ground, the vibrations from the floor gave the tent a right old rattling.
I Get Wet.
Those things are unavoidable, weather happens, you’ll be wet, you’ll get burnt, you’ll be cold, warm and so on. The next morning I managed to stand on my glasses and drop my GPS. Those things are avoidable, and as such, make you feel a right dick. Anyhow, I packed up my stuff and headed back into France through Givet, which is kind of like a well-to-do seaside resort. I also managed to contact home for the first time courtesy of McDonald’s free internet (thank you Ronald) which pulled my feet back to the ground a little.
Bet that hurt.
Tales from the Crypt
I’m starting to keep a list of my favourite roads to cycle, The first one on that list was the N40 in Southern Belgium from just past Givet to Luxembourg. It had killer hills, huge forests, and long tree-lined declines, and lead to to the last city in Belguim; Arlon, which seemed to be mostly populated by rich Americans hawking old tat to people for ridiculous prices, an apt precursor for Luxembourg then.
Rue de Luxembleurgh
N. Four. Zero
onemanandhisclog
Arlon, taken next to an Aussie couple who were having a massive bust-up. I don’t think they thought I understood a word of it.
