Valkenburg to Solt, Belgium

Monday October 15, 2018, 35 miles (56 km) - Total so far: 6,873 miles

(11,061 km)

We had a sprinkling of rain this morning, first time in a while! It didn’t amount to much, other than accelerating our packing up. Then we realised that we hadn’t charged our battery pack fully, so delayed departure while we topped it up, as we’re planning three nights camping at ‘bivakzones’ (with no facilities).

Finally we set off, and ambled over the last few lumps before things started to get as flat as you might expect from Holland. We soon approached the Belgian border, and realised we needed to cross the river…..from the map it appeared we would be taking a ferry. However, the ferry only runs on weekends at this late stage of the year! So we then put the node navigation system into good use to find a way around, and onto a bridge. Took us a while to achieve this as we ended up under said bridge in the first instance!

Soon enough we were in Belgium again, and cycling along a canal - flat flat flat. We paused to buy provisions, including water, as we hadn’t managed to find anywhere to fill our bottles. Very irksome to be reaching for the single use plastic, but we weren’t confident of the water supply at the bivakzone.

We shouldn’t have worried. This bivakzone has a pump - which we knew, but who knows if these things will work! It’s clearly marked as not drinking water, but we figure we’ll UV treat enough to top up our supplies for tomorrow.

The bivakzone is great - not very remote, but it has a platform for tents, a pit toilet, and a picnic table - oh the luxury!! There are also spots to hang hammocks, and plenty of ground for more tents (although it looks quite lumpy). It’s right on the edge of the forest and next to a well-used track, so we’ve seen a few horses and mountain bikes. No one else camping though…..at least not yet!

Our route from today:

https://www.strava.com/activities/1906291757