Day 31 End-Of-Term

Tuesday 6 August 2019

Check out from the Lace Hotel is 11am. We wander around Bruges and find a small cafe for breakfast, then back to transport all our gear down to the bikes. Thank the Lord they have a lift!

We have five hours to kill before boarding and it is only 18km to the ferry. But no drama required today. There is a real end-of-term feel and we don’t want anything to go wrong.

So the plan is to go find the nearby coast and a nice cafe to while away the spare hours. 
This part of the Belgian coast is a popular holiday area but the sea is screened by a high bank and there seems to be no road along the top. Instead there are hundreds of hotels and apartments which create a makeshift concrete sea defence. We never do get a sight of the sea until we go to the ferry.

Cafe in De Haan

We ride into Blankenberge but it is busy with roadworks and holidaymakers. Lots of roads closed so we spend a confusing 20 minutes trying to get out of the crowded centre.
So we ride south-east a little further down the coast to De Haan which is quieter, and find a pleasant cafe where we settle in to waste a bit of time.

Waiting for the ferry

We arrive way too early for the ferry and are through the first checkpoint only to find that immigration/customs does not open until 4.30pm.
We spend a boring hour waiting to board but finally we are on, the bikes are strapped down and we dump our minimal overnight gear in the cabin before heading up to the bar.

The seas are flat calm and the boat leaves on time. Totally anti-climactic. Just want to get home now.
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