Packed up and said goodbye to Ruben. He’s a cool guy.
The weather a bit grey and then later so rain, then more rain, then sunshine.
Route a bit boring. All flatness carried on from france. As a positive i saw some little forests that would have been campable.
Into Belgium and no change geographically.
Arrived at campsite and set up. Nice to have flatness in this field.
Into cafe around six and got a beer. Got talking to Inge and Nancy, 2 very friendly dutch women, who had met through their shared love of painting stones and leaving them hanging around for people to find, photo and post on facebook.
They and their fellas were all wearing the same outfit with the number 81. Turned out they were Team Albert, another camper, aged 81, who had just last week cycled up Mount Ventoux via its 3 ascents in 3 days. Met him. He looked about 60, decked out in a camouflaged tracksuit. Small and lean.
Team Albert had made tshirts for them all, got albert his own special cycling jersey and made a giant wall poster of him cycling up the hill, complete with the names of their kids and dogs.
Inge is a nurse and had a hard time working through the first wave of covid. Recently off work with a replacement thumb joint, something I’d never heard of.
Very friendly crowd. Said they’d all follow me on fb.
Distance today (km) 13, total 891