In which Sid and Doris Kijk hier naar de watervogels and visit a moated castle.
Our B&B breakfast has all that a cyclist needs, and much more because we are only going 30 miles with no hills. We eat it anyway.
We are soon along the river and then diverted away through wetlands because the dykes are being reinforced. These are the birds we saw, with pictures courtesy of Doris’s fantastic Merlin Bird ID app from the Cornell Lab (you can download regional bird packs, which caused some mysterious suggestions at first as it was still on the UAE pack).
Black tailed godwit, seen here with its head up though mostly it wades along probing the mud with that long pinky yellow beak.
Pied avocet. This one can feed swimming or wading, sweeping the upturned beak through the water.
Northern shoveler, essentially a duck that stirs up silt and then picks out the good bits which must take a lot of care.
Gray heron, a fish eater. We do see these at home, but not often. Memorably one lived a solo but well-fed life in the Barbican off the mysteriously-dwindling stock of koi carp in the lakes.
We finish with a sighting of the greater spotted Doris using the amazingly good and (of course, this is Belgium) free bird-spotting binoculars.
At our next crossing the ferry is just leaving as we draw near. Happily there is no timetable and the dude comes straight back for us, demonstrating a command of the ferry-glide technique that brought Cap’n Wes immediately to mind. [Honestly Joe, this was about sixteen hours before your news reached us – D.] When we look up there are already two more people waiting on the far side.
The 14% forecast chance of rain illustrated that unlikely things are only things that are less than 50% likely to happen. And honestly rain in April in Belgium is not unlikely. We sheltered in a cafe in Wetteren where we had gone to drown our sorrows at not having got into the brochure-promised St Joseph’s chapel. Maybe we could have got in, though it looked jolly shut. We might have to come back for this one.
A final bit of canal work reminds us again that in Belgium nature has its place. After the tightly-tied espaliers, Sid is disappointed at the absence of frogs/toads immediately adjacent to the sign, really we would have expected more of these people.
The visit of the day was to Laarne Castle built in the 11th century, rebuilt in the early 1960s with rooms set as from different periods of its use. The castle is now used as an art gallery and event venue for the hotel/restaurant in the grounds.
Doris has picked a room with two choice pieces of art, explained in the text, which is worth reading.
When we came out the rain had stopped, maybe it would only rain for 14% of the day? On 14% of the people?
Onwards and nearly-into Ghent. S and D have been to Ghent before with the mighty Hermann. The hotel chosen by these organisers is a tram ride from the centre. Tram ridden, your trusty duo take a careful walk to pick up the main sites with no further going in and gorming at things even if very famous and deserving of inspection. Although there is a pause to attempt to get photographs of an artistic but unexplained gable, and a quick visit to a Flying Tiger shop attempts to console Sid for the absence of amphibia earlier on.
The walk pauses at an estaminet with bar stool overlooking a quiet canal. The bird life is not so interesting but other traffic makes for happy people and boat watching. There are Brit boats tied up in the basin. S and D begin to think about a journey on European inland waterways.
As to the chance to rain, I once asked a TV weatherman about this. Over lunch, I asked if a “50% chance of rain” meant that any one place in the forecast area would get rain half the time this was forecast, or if 50% of the area would experience rain each time. He stared at me blankly for a long time.