(11,248 km)
\nA cold night, and a lot of dew!! We needed provisions so made a quick stop at\na convenient Aldi, where we chatted to a couple of ladies in the carpark.\nToday turned out to be quite the day for making friends.....
\nA very flat day though, along lots of canals and railway lines. We arrived in\none town when school must just have finished (do they do half days on\nWednesdays around here??) - complete chaos with bikes everywhere but great to\nsee. I really think the UK could take heed, I am sure Belgium has similarly\nuncooperative weather!!
\nWe had our lunch by one of the canals, and took the opportunity to dry the\ntent out. We often do this, and find it helpful to actually put the tent up so\nthe inner airs properly. So I guess we were sitting there, cooking pasta on\nour stove, next to our tent......however, I don't think we really looked like\nwe were camping. That did not stop someone actually reporting us to the\npolice! Yep, a nice young policewoman turned up in her police van and had a\nchat with us. She took zero convincing that we weren't actually camping, and\ndeparted with a smile! Random. You really would have to be quite brazen to\ncamp in this particular spot, right next to a popular cycle path, at lunch\ntime.
\nAnd if that wasn't enough, we spent today's water detour making friends in the\npark! First, we met Dirk, a seasoned cycle tourist who swapped stories with us\nenthusiastically. We are now blog friends :). And then we met lovely Francois,\nwho insisted on feeding us biscuits!! Funny really - not so many people\nexchange greetings here, but if you stop, they can't help but chat to you.
\nWith our hearts warmed, we still had a long way to go! We encountered some\nbusier sections, for example around Mechelen, but our node-navigated route\nworked well once again. It became very straight on the approach to the Dutch\nborder, and also very busy with cycle-commuters! Fun to see, although I expect\nwe were in the way. We passed one bivakzone, but pressed on due to our wish to\nsample the Dutch version.
\nA quick detour to Lidl (alas the amazing bakery section has not made it to\nHolland!) and then headed into the woods. They are called something like\n'paalkamperenterreinen' here (apologies if that is spelt horribly!). It\ntranslates as 'pole camping' - a pole marks the spot, and you can camp within\na 10m radius. This one had just a pole, a pump and a bench.....and some other\nguests! A young dutch guy, who had hiked there for one night from his front\ndoor, and another guy with his young (10??) daughter. The latter were bivvying\nunder a tarp, and cooked their dinner using a wood-stove made in a large tin.\nCool Dad, cool kid!!
\nIt was a chilly evening and we arrived late after all our adventures, so we\ndidn't sit out for long, brrr.
\nOur route today: https://www.strava.com/activities/1910737853
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