September 19 2018 Neiuwpoort Belgium to Lille France

Yesterday’s tremendous tail wind was today’s head wind.  The total ride was 85kms with a climb of 155 meters. 

Ken Juerg and I headed out this morning and headed south east along the road which we rode into Neuiwpoort on before turning south on a bicycle path.  The bike path was an old rail bed which leads inland from the port.  As we were riding through open fields we were exposed to the south wind.  This path continued on for 10 kms before we took a side road through a village where we rode past the Dodegang trenches.  These trenches are a recreation of the trenches which were occupied long the cannel.  There were not open until 10:00 AM so we rode on after taking a few pictures. 

By now we are headed almost straight south and the wind which is a steady 20 km is coming out of the SSE.  Fortunately we turned onto a bike path which was alongside of a cannel which had a lot of trees on either side so we were sheltered from the wind.  Riding along the cannel was beautiful as the sun filtered down through the trees and dappled the path and cannel.  Every so often we would come across a monument so we would stop and take a picture. 

One of the stops was the Essex Farm Cemetery which was the field hospital where John McCrea wrote in Flanders Fields.  This was a pretty special stop as this is a poem we learned in grade school and is very often repeated.  The three of us were also wearing our poppy jerseys which made a splendid site. 

We rode our bikes to the Mannheim Gate which has 50,000 names inscribed of British soldiers who were missing in Flanders.  It was tremendously impressive monument.  From there we rode into the center of the town of Flanders where we had lunch.  Agnes, Betsy and Sally were having lunch opposite the Flanders Field Museum which is in a huge cathedral.  They had spent most of the morning there and were intending on spending the afternoon in the museum.  Juerg decided to go the museum but Ken and I were keen to ride on as the wind was steadily increasing. 

By 2:30 Pm Ken and I were in Lille and as the Airbnb host was meeting us at 3:30 we sat down in a sidewalk café and had a beer.  Sitting enjoying the sunny day and a beer was just great.

Terry