The lowlands

Crossing into Belgium was uneventful, as Nic has said, the only signage being to advise of French speed limits. There was more notification on the England to Scotland border that we recently crossed.

In Belgium we spent 2 nights at Bruges allowing us a day to the explore the city. Our campsite neighbours (in a very flowery tent) just happened to be a young couple (pictured below), recently engaged who initially greeted us with Flemish and after drawing a very blank look switched to flawless English in which we proceeded to discuss things including the themes of Whale rider and Once were Warriors. Again our unilingualism was embarrassing.

Karin just happened to a Dutch junior doctor and her fiancee, Jerven, from Belgium was finishing a PhD (in history not engineering though) so we had a lot in common and had a great couple of nights chatting.

Belgium as a country confused us with its language line between the French and Flemish speaking parts and with the divisions these languages have caused within the country since WWI when officers were French speaking, soldiers were Flemish speaking, leading to major communication breakdowns. Having dinner with the history PhD was very useful in helping to understand this, although coming from a country whose borders are so clearly defined by oceans we still struggle to understand why the French part of Belgium doesn't just join France...... or Luxemburg.

Belgium was not the best country for cycling. Although pretty much flat, (we rode over the side of one of their famous mountains, Kemmelberg, on the first day - all 156m of it), the roads and cycle paths are made of concrete leading to a wonderful judder bar effect every 20m or so. Some of the cycle paths were not great but drivers objected if we tried to use the road so we didn't particularly enjoy it. Nic also did not much like navigating off the maps we bought having ditched our trusty France road map.

The cities of Belgium however were beautiful – particularly Ghent(left) and Bruges (below). Lots of canals and beautiful old stone buildings. We also being the cultured couple we are, loved the very reasonably priced Belgium beers. Considering the heat (30 degrees plus), we were experiencing in Belgium we found many an excuse for these! Our last night in Belgium had us in a campground that was a bit of a mission to find but pretty amazing. Situated in the old grounds of an abbey with the toilet block built against the old wal, (and a bar on site),l we had a very pleasant evening.

Moving into the Netherlands, we were less impressed with the campsites, encountering for the first time in over 40 nights of camping, pay as you go showers in 2 out of the 3 campgrounds we stayed in. Again adopted by a Dutch couple who introduced us to Stroopwaffels, (the best bike food ever – biscuits with gooey caramel in between), we managed to confuse them and ourselves trying to figure out a scenic route to Amsterdam. Eventually we were advised that if we wanted to see Holland then we had to see Kinderdyke – where the windmills are. We duly visited windmills and I was impressed by the level of engineering completed in 1750s. Now all replaced by one big electric pump. The fact that a large proportion of the Netherlands would be under water was brought home that night when our campsite ended up being on the about 3m below and near the edge of a lake – in the rain. Approaching this campsite I, then Nic, were overtaken by a pink bag carrying ~ eleven year old girl on a bike who was racing home from approaching rain. It says something about the size of our bags and this nation of cyclists as I like to think we aren't that slow after 2 months on the bikes! We got caught in this thunderstorm but got some shelter under a petrol station.Above is an example of a house (one of many) with a real drawbridge!

While staying with our mothers at the gite in France we had been told by Gabriella one of the owners to get in touch with her son who lives in Amsterdam. Hesitant to take up a slightly secondhand offer of accommodation (although I guess I offer my parent's house up all the time), we were much reassured when her son, Guillaume, contacted us via the blog and repeated the offer. We were incredibly grateful to be heading for a roof considering how the weather had changed to what was considered to be more typical of the area and reminiscent of home, (rain on and off). Guillaume met us at his apartment that he shared with his girlfriend and introduced us to Dutch stairs (about as vertical as possible without requiring the use of all fours)– 5 flights of them.

Their apartment was right in the centre of Amsterdam, a couple of blocks from Anne Frank's house. I insisted on standing in the rain to visit Anne Frank's house and was surprised by the size of it. Very interesting display on human rights and how certain rights are causing conflict when they are denied for well intentioned reasons particularly the freedom of speech (eg. Denying the holocaust) or freedom of religious expression (banning of Muslim headscarves in French schools). We went onto visit the Rijk's museum which despite being partially closed had enough Rembrandt's and Vermeer's for us. In Amsterdam we were incredibly well fed with French food and look forward to repaying the hospitality shown someday when they get to NZ.

Leaving Amsterdam we had a relatively long cycle to the Hook of Holland to catch the overnight ferry to Suffolk. After ~95km ride along the canals then the first hills we found in the Netherlands – sand dunes on the North sea bike route(below), we got to the ferry building at 4pm and were glad to find out that we had got the last cabin available. Being us we hadn't bothered booking (had had no problems in April with this when we came over although it had crossed our minds July might be busier). Unfortunately for our wallets but much to my delight this last cabin was the premium cabin with much needed ensuite shower and an INCLUSIVE minibar. We had a very pleasant crossing.....

The photo (right) is of me riding onto the ferry very excited as had finally got another passport stamp - only one since catching the ferry over! (Despite looking for the tourist office of Lichenstein).

And the judges votes are in

We recently crossed from France into Belgium, an event marked with not even a notifying sign. It seems Europe really doesn't have borders anymore. During the roughly two months we spent in France we must have stayed in something like 40 different campsites. Unsurprisingly, the quality of these campsites varied quite considerably. The purpose of this post is to describe those that were outstandingly good, and also those that were outstandingly bad.

There is no scientific methodology or objective rationale behind my judgements. The French have a star rating system for campsites, but this has very little relationship to the actual quality of a campsite. The reason for this is that it is based on such things as the presence or absence of lit pathways and pretty flowerbeds rather than on whether the campsite gives you toilet paper or cleans their showers regularly...

Instead, the list below is based only on the experience we had at the places listed. In no particular order:

The worst

Toulouse

See Rowan's post for information about the Frenchmen who were overly proud of their endowment and thought everyone else might be interested too. Noisy, dirty, not particularly safe feeling. Mae bearable by the wonderful Dutch couple we met there.

Orange

Not actually a particularly bad campsite – it had a nice pool on a scorchingly hot day, some nice people to talk to, and a nice grassy pitch for our tents (we stayed here with Michael as well). The problem was the place was gougingly and unjustifiably expensive. As in 30 euro for the night. Even when accounting for the extra person, this seemed too much compared to our average of about 14 euro. The method of calculating the price was particularly aggravating. First charge for the pitch. Fine, the ground needs to be rented. Then charge per person. Also fine, we each put a demand on the (not very clean) facilities. Then charge per tent. Say what? How can it be justifiably more expensive for us to use two small tents rather than one large one???

Arras/ Plouvain/ La Rochefoucauld

The common feature of these three campsites was that they each made us ride 10-20 km further at a time when we really didn't have the energy. For Arras this was because the campsite no longer existed. For the other two, the general feel of the campsites was just not nice - “travellers” or white trash seemed to comprise a significant proportion of the inhabitants, and we were keeping an eye on our wallets just at the front entrance. The bright side of the story is that in all cases we eventually got to very pleasant campsites, just slightly more knackered than was planned.

Bayeux

Our first night in France. Probably not a bad campsite really, but minimal sleep the night before and a very cold day meant we were pretty low on energy. Got the tent pitched in dry,pleasant conditions then went for a trip to see the tapestry, during which it started raining. This lead to a very trying evening cooking dinner in the dish washing area (only available cover), scuttling around trying to stay reasonably dry, and most importantly working out how to keep all our gear dry without getting water into the tent. Questions were asked about why the hell we were doing this for pleasure!

The Best

St Martin d'Aubigny

Our second night camping and almost a disaster due to a complete lack of water in the taps. Once that was sorted this became a great spot. Less like a campsite and more like a small field where we were allowed to stay. Completely empty except for us and just really nice to be at.

St Martin Lalande

The end of a long hot day, and absolutely stunning. Views from the shower blocks to the Pyrenees, and completely deserted except for the two French cyclists who showed us where it was. We almost started planning our route by looking for St Martin's!

Beauvoir en Royans

As close to perfect as we've found – cheap, great grass to pitch tents on and rest on, located high above a river valley for stunning sunset views, and set within the remains of a ruined chateau. Hence right next to the campsite we had photo ops like this!