Bikepacking 2023 - Namur (Belgium) to Haybes (France)

Day #

10

State of Legs

:-)

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	Distance (miles)	Distance (km)	Ascent (feet)	Ascent (metres)	Punctures
Today	57.5 miles	km	1066 feet	metres	0
Trip Totals	444.8 miles	km	14928 feet	metres	0

Today's Route

Route So Far

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Travelogue

Today was pretty great, our best day so far.

Our ride kicked off with an exhilarating descent down the 10-12% half mile hill we cycled up to the campsite yesterday. From there, we retraced our "steps" along Eurovelo route EV3, about five or six miles back to Namur. 

In Namur, we found our way from the banks of the River Sambre to the banks of the River Meuse which joins it, and headed south on Eurovelo route EV19. 

It turns out that EV5 and EV19 overlap for a while, so signs indicated both routes.

The scenery along The Meuse is plain lovely. Lovely houses, beautiful, old deciduous trees, reflections in the water everywhere and a good few birds, including this Egyptian Goose. 

We saw numerous families of geese in fact, and M1 got a good old honking at by (presumably) Daddy Goose as we passed slowly and respectfully by his family of 8 or so little goslings, led by Mummy Goose.

We could easily have stopped every minute to photograph The Meuse and our surroundings. But.... we didn't! Here are the photos we did take, between Namur and Dinant.

We stopped at the picturesque town of Dinant for coffee and pain au chocolat. Did you know that Adolphe Sax, inventor of the saxophone lived in Dinant? Well, he did.

After Dinant, we continued along the banks of the Meuse, only diverging away from it occasionally. The path was well maintained and easy to cycle on. We were cycling upstream, so there was a small gradient, but we barely noticed it, except for when a headwind decided to join forces with it! 

At some point..... we crossed the border from Belgium back into France. But there was no sign, no indication of any sort that we'd crossed an international border. So, very loosey goosey :-)

Obviously, we stopped for groceries as we got closer to our destination. All I'll say is that today's cheese was (it's been eaten already!) Bleu d'Auvergne. 

After 57 miles of cycling, we reached our campsite at about 14:00. It's a municipal campsite, run by the local town hall. These are common across France but this is the first time we've camped at one on this trip so far. Checking in was easy as the staff were friendly and helpful and one spoke very good English. They couldn't accept payment though, and M1 was directed to walk five minutes down river into the small town of Haybes, to a tourist information office and pay there.

Before setting off to pay, we were shown to our pitch, which delight of delights is right next to the multitude of tents belonging to a school trip and their hordes of little angels, each of them as quiet as a little mouse :-) It's OK. M1 has ear plugs. And M2 is a saint!

Some of our neighbours in the background

And some others over there :-)

Fin