Friday, 17 May to Saturday, 18 May 2019
At 0615 Burt fired up the engines and we waited for the bridge to lift so we could travel up the canal to the port of Vlissingen.
Here we left the barge to board a ferry across the inlet to Breskens. We had a headwind for the first 5 km and we started to appreciate how good we have had it the last week.
Conditions improved when we left the coast and cycled along more country roads.
Morning tea was at IJzendijke and lunch at Phillipine. We had a long conversation with a local lady in Dutch and French. Unfortunately we understood very little of what was said but she seemed happy to talk to us regardless.
We then cycled across the border to Sas van Ghent in Belgium where we boarded the barge and motored to Ghent.
After dinner, Captain Burt suggested we go into town to visit a bar that had 500 beers. If you order a yard glass then one of your shoes is taken to make sure you don’t souvenir the glass.
We had a good night and took in the lights of town as the sky darkened. Spectacular.
On Saturday morning, we headed back to Ghent where we had the morning to look around. We visited St Baaf’s Cathedral and viewed the 15th century triptych Mystic Lamb by the van Eyck brothers.
After morning tea we headed off and cycled 48kms to Machelen. This was along the canals and passed many very impressive private residences.
Unfortunately our group was late back to the barge for the sail to Kortrijk and the lock was closed! We then had to backtrack to find a mooring for the night (not very picturesque I’m afraid)
