It is Saturday night, 9pm and Gary has just fallen asleep – oh we do lead an exciting life!!! We are getting tired - not necessarily physically but more mentally. No, we are not in bad spirits - quite the opposite but to do this walk we had to adapt our lives to a completely new routine and have found that we need to go with the daily flow to keep ourselves sane. We had agreed to meet up with friends and family before the walk - we also had this idea of pre-arranging private accommodation with kind people. But it turned out that we needed to be fairly selfish and single minded to do what we are doing. We needed to listen to our bodies, see what the terrain asked of us and adapt the length of our walk accordingly. We tend not to think ahead more than a day, as it seems that we can not cope with much more. My apologies to everybody we did not meet and the nearly forgotten 40th birthday of my brother-in-law Tony. Happy birthday again!!!!!!
Since Belgium and finding accommodation is tricky, we now at least try to book the next night ahead. Last night we stayed at the Holiday Inn in beautiful Leuven, as I was able to get a rock bottom deal for the night and there are two things you can rely on at a Holiday Inn: surly receptionists and two double beds when you ask for a twin room. We had a very quiet room and this morning over a good breakfast we started fantasising about staying another night, having a better look at Leuven and resting up. So we decided we would like to stay if you could get the same deal for another night. Said receptionist took great delight in telling Gary that there was no room at the inn for the likes of us.
We did some quick re-framing and decided that the room was a little gloomy anyway, the wireless LAN overpriced at 30 Euros for 24 hours (they really are taking the biscuit with those kind of prices – I am saving the full rant about the inconsistency of W-Lan pricing for another blog ). Last night we had bought just two hours connection time to write our blog, check the mail and book the next accommodation and the connection was lousy, it kept dropping. AND after our fabulous meal yesterday evening we could do with a good walk. So we packed our bags and did a very quick 29 km. Apparently I was storming ahead at unheard of speeds on our dead straight walk along the canal that connects Leuven and Mechelen. It seems that Chardonnay and three course celebratory meals are working like rocket fuel for me!
Mechelen is another old Belgian town we can recommend for its stunning city center. We are really impressed with the beautifully renovated buildings and the towns huge market squares. Who would have thunk that Belgium has so much to offer!
Part of the reason we walked a little faster was to arrive whilst Tourist information and book shops were still open, as we needed to buy a map for the next part of our journey. Doing that we realised that we have run into the old problem again. The well sign posted cycle network is going to run out half-way through tomorrow and we are probably again reduced to walking on busy roads. It seems to be a county by county issue if they maintain these well posted cycle routes or not. I believe they will be available again around Bruges which leaves us with about 70 km of a problem. I am sure we will find a way!
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