London-Gillingham-Dover-Dunkirk-Ieper (Ypres)-Ghent-Brugge-The Hague-London
GPS route (.gpx) available for Kingsdown to Dover ferry terminal, and Dunkirk to Ieper camping ground.
GPS route (.gpx) available for Kingsdown to Dover ferry terminal, and Dunkirk to Ieper camping ground.
A freezing morning to wake up to in Kingsdown, and it was
supposed to be August. It was an early start, with needing to ride 10km to
Dover by 7am, and have first breakfast, and pack up the tent. Set the
alarm for 5:15, and stayed in my sleeping bag to eat breakfast and make the
coffee. It was freezing.
Once on the road, it was nice and sunny and rolling through
golden wheat fields. There wasn’t a single car to be seen and the route is mostly
along the main road. I hit Dover, and took the direct route to the docks. This
is a mistake. The direct route takes one down hundreds of stairs, descending
the cliffs, which is difficult with a loaded bicycle. It’s better to take the
route through the town and on the road.
Dover docks is a mess on a bike, and probably in a car, too.
It’s one of the busiest ferry terminals in the world, packed full of multiple
lanes of moving trucks and cars, and some bridges. The instructions for
cyclists are confusing – but you just need to follow the red line for cyclists
painted on the ground, which takes you through border control. But then it
takes a right bend, with inadequate signing. At that point, you depart from the
cars and go towards an empty-looking booth and park your bike and a person
looks at your ticket. Then you finish at the booth and move with your bike on
to another building, where they also look at your ticket. Then you rejoin the
rows of cars.
The idea was to have a second breakfast on the ferry, and skip lunch. It was an 8am sailing, coming in to Dunkirk at 11:30am France time.
Second breakfast was had, and then I rolled off the ramp at Dunkirk, and
remembered to ride on the right hand side of the road. Even though my route
goes east along the coast, I went with the flow of the traffic for a bit, until
it was safe to dismount and cross the road and head back. From here, it’s very
quiet and easy cycling behind the dunes and along the tarmac-ed beach. They ashphalted the beach, so that now you can conveniently drive right to the water's edge (and further if you want to). I don't know what the culture is like in France, in terms of the north, but I suspect that this may be a northern thing, with a fine appreciation of industry. Entry to
the town itself was via its docks and heavy industrial area, but it was all
quiet cycling. The town is a fair way from the ferry terminal, perhaps 30-60
mins riding.
In Dunkirk itself, there was a statue of Winston Churchill, who for some reason is revered in that part of the world, along with Britain. They might have a statue to him in Dunkirk, but I doubt the Singaporeans would be inclined that way (or perhaps they might rightly hang him upside down).
On leaving Dunkirk I ran into a summer festival on the waterfront, with so many people around I had to get off my bike and push. Then I discovered that my GPS route was sending me through the dunes. After checking I was in the right place several times, I conceded that I programmed a bad route (a heavy bike and soft sand doesn’t work), headed to the main road and legged it to the Belgian... to get out of France.
On leaving Dunkirk I ran into a summer festival on the waterfront, with so many people around I had to get off my bike and push. Then I discovered that my GPS route was sending me through the dunes. After checking I was in the right place several times, I conceded that I programmed a bad route (a heavy bike and soft sand doesn’t work), headed to the main road and legged it to the Belgian... to get out of France.
The French food offerings at the border weren’t to my liking, so I
proceeded a few hundred metres up the road to a supermarket, with the expected
advantage that they were in Flanders, so would be happy with speaking English.
The sign ‘Tabac. Prix belges’ should have told me. The supermarket was running
a genius idea – operating in French for a French clientele, to take advantage
of presumably softer Flemish law.
And it was my first experience of Belgian cycling. After not
too long, I was heading down canal paths, which are so quiet in terms of
traffic that they are effectively nice smooth bike paths. And on to the camping
ground/caravan park in Ieper, seeing the Menin Gate. Ieper is great as a first
point on the continent for a trip because there’s an Aldi just near the camping
ground. But of course, being Belgium, nothing’s open on a Sunday, or
potentially ever.
Sunday in Belgium:
Cadets from Essex (for the nightly service at the Menen Gate):
