Well, our last day is even hotter – we saw 28.5°C come up on the car, but we were actually quite glad to be travelling as at least we had air-con. 300km through Belgium today, & apart from the last site, nothing we’ve seen here so far would tempt us to return: dreadful road surface on most of the autoroutes (we knew that from before though), bad congestion round the Brussels ring road even at 1.30 in the afternoon, torrential rain for a while before the heat resumed and the world’s fussiest campsite. However, we do want to explore places like Bruges and Ypres – maybe next time.

 

We’re at Camping Kindervrieugde near the coast 30 mins from Dunkirk at Newport (but the Belgians have added lots of extra letters so its Nieuwpoort), ready for the ferry tomorrow morning, on a very large site but with separate areas so it doesn’t feel that big. It has strict rules about how to pitch your caravan – we had a choice of pitches, but you HAVE to position your van & car exactly where the laminated diagrams (on each pitch!) show, with measurements how far from the next one/hedge/tree. We tried to put ours 90deg round to avoid a muddy patch but absolutely no way would they allow it. Far worse than Caravan Club rules.

 

One nice thing though – the girl who sorted us at reception is Belgian, but used to live 800m from where I worked! We had a good chat about it, then went in the car to have a look at the local area. Roads here are very confusing: they are full of white lines & its hard to know where to go. There is a cycle path at each side marked with dotted lines, then a broad white line for the edge of the carriageway plus a dotted line down the middle. Then sometimes there is a lane for parking in between the cycle lane and the carriageway – as I said, very confusing to drivers.

 




Not much about the coast is tempting either – high rise apartments, shabby hotels and roadworks EVERYWHERE. The beach and dunes look nice but that’s all; apart from one-night stays en route, we won’t be coming back to this area. Still, its fine for one night and the site was quiet after dark so we at least we got a good night’s sleep.