Day 4 / Mortagne du Nord - Le Quesnoy / 39.93 km

Yesterday no WiFi (Vive la France) so hence the delay.

The next 4 days I have planned 40 km / day. This is not driven by testosterone but rather with the fact that limited options to sleep are available in the region where I will be the next days.

Today is also special as I will say goodbye to the river De Schelde, which was my companion for the last 3 day’s. Sometimes she was on the left , sometimes on the right. But always present. As real companions do. If you look well on the photo below you can see De Schelde for a last time on this blog (except if you would read the first posts again).

The day started with a breakfast. And then again it was time for some running.The objective was to reach Le Quesnoy. Slightly from the route in order to find some sleeping. Not only it seemed I was saying goodbye to the Schelde today but also to the nice paved paths in Belgium. As from now the path was unpaved, which is more gentle for the knees but somewhat harder work. Luckely the weather was dry. 

One of the other things I noticed quite quickly is the amount of waste dumped by people in nature. In Belgium you can also find dumped stuff but based upon the volume of dumped stuff and litter I saw over 5 km, France is definitely playing in the duming Champions League. All kind of stuff is dumped. During the day I encountered plastic bags with unknown content, toys, empty barrels,cars, caravans,....I probably overlooked the dumped mother in laws . It really made me sad on how people are treating nature and lacking any form of responsibility. 

I left the Schelde after 12 km in Vieux Condé to welcome my new friends : hills. I like hills. Especially when covered with snow and accessible with a chairlift. As I will need to climb them running the next weeks and spend a lot of time with them I will need to re-adjust my relation with them.As any relation I expect we will have or high’s and low’s. I’m happy to say that my relationship with the hills during this day was fine. Thanks to hours spend on treadmill I did not encounter to much problems. 

I did not buy any food in Vieux Condé (Yes, now I will share  my first beginners mistake) as  I want to limit any additional weight I’m carrying and in the understanding France, as developed country,  has shops available.Even in the smaller villages. I had some chicken and cheese left from the night before so my was plan was to buy bread in a bakery  along the way. In order to be sure bakeries were available in the villages I was planning to pass I checked Google in advance. The great Google god in the sky informed me that some of the villages I would be passing had bakkeries available... .

The first bakery village : bakery existed in a nearby past but not anymore.

The second bakery village : bakery existed in a nearby past but not anymore.

The third bakery village : a bakery still existed but was undergoing renovation.

In the meantime I had ran 27 km so getting a “little” hungry. I asked in village nº 3 if the next village had a bakery available or any other shop with food (at this stage I was open for anything eatable) and more importantly if the bakery was open. Which was confirmed. I got a the “marathon final km feeling” (e.g. euforia) and started running again.

The open bakery


The open bar-resto

Bakery closed. Bar-resto closed. Even the barber was closed (I could have eaten hair at this stage). As  I had also ran out of water I went into the “Mairie”. As it was afternoon it was not open but finally someone came outside. After some explanation they provided me with water and 3 stale chocolate truffles.....which I ate together with the chicken and cheese I had. I’m still deliberating if it was the worst Lunch I had ever had. Luckely the weather was sunny and even slightly warm which helped to digest my lunch.

After lunch I continued the route to  Le Quesnoy. The road was varying in quality and ascent. Sometimes I even felt Flandrien-like.

4 km before Les Quesnoy I needed to run alon a “Route National”. For those unfamiliar with a “Route National” this is the road where all the French Psychiatric patients gather which are still allowed to drive a car. Besides having undergone a lobotomy, driving fast and “se en merde” of all the other people on and near the RN are mandatory pre-requisites to be allowed to drive on a “RN”. Fortunate I finally arrived safely at the place where I wanted to sleep.

Before going to Chambre Hotes  I went into a a bar to have a weldeserved (non-alcoholic) drink. At the bar I met Louis, Alora (his wife)  and her sister Marieke. All language teachers celebrating a week of holiday. Not only did they pay me a drink but invited me to sleep at their place, which I happily accepted. After some more drinks were consumed we headed to Louis home, an old farm some 5 km away.But not before we stopped at the local vegetable vending machine.

In the evening local cider was  served together with a local specialty called Luculus : fois gras with layers of other meat. Great stuff.

Marieke & Alora

After the cider and the luculus were consumed, and the host soundly asleep in his chair, I  and went to bed to sleepte well. I hoped my hosts would be awake in the morning to drop me off at the place we met so I could continue my Pelgrim journey.

I was counting on Nelson to make sure his master would be up in time. Nelson knows he is cute :

Lessons learned : 

- Be prepared -have always food available

- I miss WIFI when not available but learned I can survive without ( I just checked the WiFi where I’m writing the blog and it seems beyond slow. Help....)

- People are generally nice - except when they drive a car on the “RN” - but probably they are not people.

- I need to take the bed-Picture when I arrive as I forgot to take a picture of my bed at Louis place.

- 39,93 km is not 40.

- I want to dat more Luculus.

Song of the day : When the going gets though, the tough get going - Billy Ocean (the song was played on Radio 1 - at the moment I had an argument with a hill - not a great song but it brought me on top of the hill).

T.

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