Bikepacking 2023 - Le Quesnoy to Bullecourt

Day #

29

State of Legs

:-)

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	Distance (miles)	Distance (km)	Ascent (feet)	Ascent (metres)	Punctures
Today	47.7 miles	km	1325 feet	metres	0
Trip Totals	1055.5 miles	km	36894 feet	metres	0

Today's Route

Route So Far

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Travelogue

We set off this morning, not knowing exactly where we'd end up staying the night. We had emailed two different campsites, each about 20 miles from each other, to request a reservation but not had a reply from either of them. No matter, because these things sometimes happen and generally, they work out just fine.

We're at our accommodation for tonight but it's at neither of the places we'd identified! Things didn't quite work out for either of our options. But then things did work out, albeit in a different way. It was all very dramatic, as you will find out if you read on.

To begin with though, something quite remarkable did happen. The sun shone. The sky was blue. And it didn't rain! It's been a while since we've had a rain-free day or seen more than a fleeting glimpse of the sun, so this was wonderful. It never got particularly warm however and in fact sometimes was rather on the chilly side. We cycled into a cold headwind the whole day. Weirdly unseasonable weather is still affecting Northern Europe, with hail storms delivering monster hail stones in parts of Germany yesterday. At least we didn't have hail stones to contend with!

Our route was a little uninteresting for the first ten miles but got way more interesting all of a sudden when we turned off the road we were on to join a country lane that soon morphed into something rather more off road than road!

It was fun cycling this section, which was not that difficult in fact. And we saw a bird of prey hovering and then diving, presumably onto some poor, unsuspecting but tasty mouse. If this had been in the UK, then the bird would have been identified as a Kestrel, the only bird of prey that hovers, but this being France, maybe it was something else. It was very cool to witness, anyway.

In the town of Bouchain, we crossed the Canal de l'Escaut.

A little later, in the town of Féchain, we noticed a bar open and decided to stop for coffee.

A TV was on in the bar and to our delight, it was showing a live football ("soccer" to some!) match with England playing Nigeria in the FIFA Women's World Cup! The game was part way through, in about the 60th minute but neither side had yet scored. We ordered our coffees and sat down to watch, not intending to stay for the whole game, unless it happened to end before we finished our coffees.

As you can see, the bar featured some lovely, sexy artwork as well as a TV! Hmmmmm.

The more we watched the game, the more we got into it. It was non-stop action, but without a goal. And then disaster! One of England's star players, Lauren James got a red card and was sent off! And all she did was to stamp on the back of a prone Nigerian player with the studs of her football boots. Honestly, in the old days that would have been considered perfectly OK. Can a player really not express themselves through acts of extreme violence anymore???? It's Political Correctness Gone Mad! :-)

With England reduced to 10 players, it was all we could do to watch. The odds were against the plucky lionesses now. But they made it to the end of normal time and into 30 minutes of extra time. And they made it to the end of extra time without conceding a goal too! It was all to be decided on penalties now.

England took the first penalty. Stanway kicked the ball wide of the goal! Another disaster! Surely England couldn't survive such a terrible start to the penalty shoot out! But, survive they did and more than that. England won! The bar went wild. Well OK, M1 and M2 clapped briefly and might have made some kind of vocal noise too, but the French people in the bar? Naaah. Not interested. Maybe a bit amused by M1 and M2, but that was about it! We said our au revoir to the friendly locals and staff and hit the road again.

We cycled on through some quaint villages and for a while, along a canal.

Finding a campsite near enough to our route and at around our preferred daily distance of 40 - 50 miles had proved difficult. There simply aren't many in this part of France or at least there aren't many shown on Google Maps. 

The first we'd short-listed as a possible place to stay tonight is the Swallow Campsite in Saudemont. It sounds delightful, doesn't it? We arrived and found the reception to be closed. It also looked like something from a Hitchcock movie, perhaps the sort of place Norman Bates might have opened to compliment the motel business. I wish we'd taken a photograph because the place was hideous, beyond shabby and it was hard to believe it was still open. Rather than wait for reception to open, with no guarantee that it ever would, we cycled on, hoping our second option would work out.

The second possible campsite is in Miraumont, about 20 miles further on.  It is apparently a family business and from the website it looked as though much has been invested in renovating the place.

M1 tried phoning the place twice, on both their landline and the mobile number listed. Nobody ever picked up the phone. We stopped again in Bullecourt and looked more closely at the details listed in Google Maps. We were wondering if the place was still open and looking at the dates on reviews would give us a clue.

Here's a taste of what we saw.

An overall score of 4.0 - not bad!

The most recent review - oh dear!

Another recent review :-(

So, apparently the place is open.... kind of. But those recent reviews are appalling. We decided that there was no way we would cycle another 20 miles to get to this horrible sounding campsite and searched for alternative campsites we thought we could get to, already having cycled 40 miles. But there really are no other campsites nearby or ahead of us near enough to the route.

M2 was looking unhappy at the situation. M1 switched into leadership mode, leveraging his greater experience of bikepacking and his survival skills, gained through many hours watching Ray Mears on TV.

"Don't worry, M2. We'll sneak into some woods and put up the tent. We can use mud and leaves to camouflage ourselves. I'll catch a rabbit, kill it, skin it and roast it over a fire!". Then, remembering that he doesn't eat meat..... "... I mean, I'll dig up some yummy roots and we can gnaw on them, it will be fine! And I can dig a hole in the ground that we can use as a toilet!".

It was at this last suggestion that M2 decided to put a stop to M1's nonsense/brilliant suggestions.

"Can't we just search for a guest house or hotel around here?"

"Pah! OK, well if you want to try that, I guess we can but the odds of finding a guest house or hotel anywhere within a 100 km range in this part of France are... oh, hang on, there's a guest house two hundred metres around the corner!".

And sure enough, there was!

 We cycled into the driveway and saw the owner doing some gardening at the back of the house. We introduced ourselves and asked in French if she had a room for us for the night. It turned out that she did! Her name's Nicole by the way, and it's very possible she's M2's favourite person at the moment. M1 definitely isn't :-)

The room would take a couple of hours to get ready, so we cycled a few miles to the nearby town of Croisilles and had drinks in a bar. After a while, we relocated to sit in the square by the town hall instead.

On the way to Croisilles

We got back to the guest house at about 5pm and were shown to our room at the top of the house. It's lovely, comfortable and has en suite facilities. M2 is happy once again and that's the main thing :-)

View from our window

That's it. Tomorrow's another day.