Kortrijk to Menen-Halluin

Tuesday 5 May 2015

Having awoken to a glorious moon-set morning

but with a weather report predicting winds of 25kph gusting to 60kph and with us needing to find somewhere to leave the boats over the summer months, we set off at 09h20 with bimini down to fit under the low bridge again, and joined the main Leie for the 12km trip to Menen-Halluin (Menen on the Belgian side or the river and Halluin on the French side).

8 May is VE Day in Europe and there are many commemorations, but smaller events leading up to the European armistice are celebrated in each town. These two spotted on our entry into Menen were involved with something to do with Menen as their colours flag said '1914 - 18 / 1940 - 45 Menen' (another spelled it Menin...).

Lynn eventually got a smile out of this one.

With quite a pretty ride behind us despite having to dodge a bit of commercial traffic and with the wind really starting to puff, we arrived in the Yacht Club de la Lys which seems to be one and the same as the municipal marina.

Our marina coming up.

With help from the harbourmaster and the owner of the adjacent boat I eventually made it into quite a tight mooring after scratching our brand, spanking new handrail on someone’s pulpit and leaving a large-ish dash of bow paint on the jetty. And then the wind really picked up and, as we were walking to the office to ‘check in’, it started pouring, soaking us thoroughly! But at least we were tightly tied up and pretty sheltered although our bimini opening was facing into the wind and we just held thumbs that it would not bend and collapse as did our neighbour’s.

It turns out that the harbour master is from Porto so the conversation was a mix of French and Portuguese with a smattering of Flemish and English thrown in. Sian’s French is pretty good and her Portuguese is excellent so communication with Sr Santos will not be a problem.

The marina is not cheap despite not being secure as it is open to any passer by: €31.22 for two nights (the weather for tomorrow looks as bad as today’s so we will stay put but I were rather that we were back in Kortrijk) including electricity and water but showers are a whopping €1.80 a go so guess where we will be showering… and to get into the ablution area you have to ‘phone the harbour master who lives on the premises and he will come and open up – but he has a French number and our ‘phones only work in Belgium, don’t they (no roaming on the package). The marina is also very dusty due I think to the existence of what sounds like a stone crushing quarry nearby – not our best stay so far.To be fair, the Belgium government apparently have no funds to maintain the marina and seemingly neither do the club members - the 'harbourmaster' is actually a state employee who is a plumber and who has been seconded to manage the marina. Sigh!

Later that afternoon we took the bikes into Halluin and then into Menen, both quite boring towns with Menen the slightly cleaner and obviously more cyclist friendly. Halluin’s most redeeming feature was a beer store which is actually a warehouse with every imaginable Belgian beer stacked on pallets to the roof; you can also buy the special, branded beer glasses for most of the beers on sale (except Duvel which were sold out but I did manage to find a very nice Oval glass).

Having pigged out at lunchtime on one of Lynn’s pasta creations (penne, artichokes, anchovies, garlic, chili and olive oil),

Lynn making lunch.

for supper it was the brawn loaf bought from the Kortrijk market the day before and some fine brie and biscuits with a small glass of Graham’s ‘Natura’ reserve port (organic nogal!) and off to bed.