Wednesday, 15 September 2010
Today was kind of easy, or so we thought, with first following the LF5 and then where it meets the LF51 just follow LF51 into Antwerp. The first part was through forest again and, with the recent rains, lots of mushrooms around:
The paths were muddy in places but generally very picturesque,
the signs a little ambiguous (soixante neuf on a bike?)
and the buildings rather rustic
By lunchtime we got to the spot I had so carefully worked out on the notebook the night before but there was such a confusing array of signs and roads and path that we ended up cycling on the wrong side of the canal and, with the strong wind in our backs, made up quite a distance before we realised we were wrong and had to backtrack. We entered Antwerp through an industrial and thus a not very scenic area, managed to find a supermarket and then found out we had to get through a pedestrian tunnel under the Schelde, the St Annatunnel. This was quite an adventure going down two escalators with the bicycles and of course on the other side up again.
When we emerged into daylight again it was only a few kilometers to the camping ‘De Molen’ where we first got a hut with a broken stove, of course we only discovered this after we had unpacked everything, but fortunately we could move into another hut with a working stove. No amount of walking around the camping got me a decent enough wifi signal to do any internetting though.