Houyet, Belgium to Oye Plage, France
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Houyet to Oye Plage
Motorhome journey Houyet in Belgium to Oye Plage in France
Another sunny day dawns, the sun already risen over the trees on the east side of the valley. We are up, have breakfast and ready to go by 8.30 am. We plan our route around Brussels and Ghent into France and towards Dunkirk.
Leaving Houyet on N929 and climbing up those steep hairpin bends over the top and onto N94 to its junction with E411. Passing Namur and on to Brussels where the traffic is very heavy, not least as the road is being upgraded and rebuilt. Onto E40 anticlockwise around brussels towards Ghent. On west side of Brussels we stop at the first service area for coffee around 11.00am. Back on E40 to Bruges and turning south at Ostend towards France and Dunkirk. Calling at Grand Synthe shopping centre Mr C. called at Auchan to do a shop for French meats, cheese and fruit, while I do a Zoom call for a Creative Writing group. Tethering phone to laptop and using mobile data it all works very well. As I finish the Zoom call Mr C. returns with the shopping and we make our way to the cheapest filling station in north Dunkirk. We know it is the cheapest as there are 3 rows of cars queueing six at a time down the road! We fill with GPL (auto-gas), at least one empty cylinder and the fill with diesel €2.11/litre.
By this time it is 5.30pm and the traffic is very busy. Slowly we weave our way around the docks at Gravelines where a whole series of new roads have been built and are open. Near Mardyck Dunkirk, we pass over the bridge spanning the Fleuve canal near Gravelines and see many immigrants in hoodies walking to and from some terrible over-crowded ghettos of homeless humanity, a hidden problem at Calais as well as Folkestone, which everyone knows about, but no one wants to see. We drive on another 15 km to the lay-by for motorhomes opposite the National Nature (bird) Reserve at Oye Plage and park up, there is only us here. We walk over to the bird hide to see what is on the lake, there are hundreds (literally) of terns nesting on the lake behind us, and what a racket they are making as the parents fly backwards and forwards to the coast screaming as they collect food.
In the shallow lakes, along with a myriad of birds, there are the brown shaggy-haired, horned cows, known as vache à cornes (pronounced vash ah korn). We have never seen these cows here before. There are two small children (about 4 and 6 years) in the hide with their grandparents. Mr C. is listening intently to the children speaking French (they usually speak more clearly and slower than the adults). He is amazed to hear the grandparents telling the children: ‘regardez les moutons’ (look at the sheep!). He finds himself telling the children in French: ‘mais ce sont des vache, pas des moutons’ (but they are cows, not sheep). The grandmother gives him a filthy look and the grandfather tells the children they must leave! They hurriedly shoo their children out of the hide and disappear… we are completely mystified that adults could mistake cows for sheep!
We spend some time in the hide enjoying watching the cow-sheep animals (!!) grazing, their muzzles running with water as they dip into the shallows and crop the long soft grass. The terns make such a racket accompanied by the black-headed gulls who join in the cacophony, while the waterfowl: shelduck, eider, tufted duck, coot, mallard and others just get on with the important business of feeding. Back in the relative quiet of Hymer we open wine and eat hummus and baguette as a starter. Later we fry what is left of the sausage and fillet mignon (food of the prince and the pauper) and eat it with the last of the French bread. Dusk comes around 8.30 pm, we watch the sunset and the night darken and have an early night.
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