Day 6 - Zeebrugge (Belgium) to Lille (France)

Not keen on Ferries, in fact even just to look at a boat, never mind get on one, I feel sea sick. However, pills prescribed by my doctor did the trick and even allowed me to eat the 'all you can eat ' buffet with a couple of drinks thrown in. It had to - it was a 14 hour crossing! Luckily the North Sea was relatively calm but these cabins are a tight squeeze ( the toilet forms part of the shower), which forms part of the sink.
By 9.30am we were through passport control and entered the country of Belgium through the port of Zeebrugge. Less than a minute on the road and we encountered a lorry crash. We navigated around the pummelled front end of the lorry - (no sign of what he hit though) and headed for the quite flat country lanes of Belgium.

As you can see from the photo on the left the countryside is as flat as a pancake which is great for cycling!


The sun shone again and the temperature was a mild 21c. We had calculated a 67 mile cycle today so it was time to up the pace a bit. Knee, and ankle holding out quite well at this moment - was really worried before I left Edinburgh as I could hardly climb a stair 6 weeks before but physio helped sort out that issue.


















The satnav on my bike took us over a canal that can be seen by the picture on the left.








While we were fiddling about taking photos etc the alarm went on the bridge and before being part of the canal itself we scurried across to the other side before a barge made its way through.

We then cycled to our lunchtime stop at Torhout where it was time to try a Belgium baguette. 30 mins later we were off again and found a strange statue that can been seen to the left.

Notice the missing arms?

Eventually we arrived at the town of Menen and stopped for a light refreshment before crossing the border in France with approx 15 miles left to run to Lille.

The above video shows us crossing over a canal in Belgium just south of a village called Meetkerke. Our lunchtime stop is showed here in the town of Torhout before heading on to Menen and crossing over into France for our night stop in Lille.