Bridges, Tunnels and Level Crossings

On board, I stayed on deck with a beer and a sandwich as I looked out for Phil and Maria who had said they would be around to wave me off. Unfortunately I wasn't getting a good phone signal and so their text to tell me where to look arrived too late. Once the boat got to Tynemouth I thought I would head round the other side to see if I could see Whitley Bay (afterall, I'd left from Durham and had passed by Washington, that day). I could see St. Mary's Lighthouse, so I knew my next parish was in there somewhere between it and Cullercoats Bay. Once out at sea, I gladly returned to the cabin, read the papers, ate packed dinner and slept like a log. I'd ordered breakfast at check in because I had been given a fair amount of sterling and this seemed the last chance to use it for a while. I would make it worth while by making myself a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch (always take a good bag with you to breakfast!).

Disembarking, this was to be the first test of my Satmap, the parish's gift to me. I did well in getting me as far as Harlem, but then the batteries gave out. I couldn't understand this as I'd charged it. I managed without a map by following the bicycle route signs first for Den Haag, then Delft and then Rotterdam. Getting into the centre of Rotterdam was difficult, but once there I found the Hostel where I had cheap lodging for the night.

I now realised my mistake with the Satmap: it had two possible set-ups and I was trying to charge it, when it was set up to use 3x AA batteries. So with new batteries enstalled, I used it to take me on my next leg. The route out of Rotterdam was superb, through parks and along cycle paths that were direct but kept away from roads. I'd crossed the impressive Erasmus Bridge, and soon I came to the Heinenoord Tunnel, or, more accurately, four tunnels. Two were obviously for cars but the other two, to which bikes were directed had no signs that I could see. They were both vast, with clear wide roads heading down into them. So I choose the nearer and went for it. It was pretty terrifying. I was on my own speeding down a ramp into a vast round hole and it went on for ever. I kept imaging that suddenly a truck like the one from Duel, all headlights and wing-mirrors, with horns blasting, would be coming my way. When I did finally start to ascend, and then emerge I found some cyclists coming out of the other whole. They explained that I was very lucky, I had taken the tunnel meant for large farm traffic.

The Satmap worked a treat and took me along quiet roads and through pleasant towns. One of the things I like about cycling through country like this is the things you notice. I could smell the apple cake in the town square in Harlem, but the nearer I got to Belgium the more I noticed the sugary smell of waffles. I crossed into Belgium at Essen. Immediately, as if to let you know you'd passed into a Catholic country, there is a big school dedicated to Our Lady, a big Don Bosco Youth centre and a wayside shrine.

The route now followed a long straight road and I imagined it might remain like this for the 30 km to Antwerp. At a level crossing I had my first accident. The road crossed the tracks at an angle and my front wheel snagged in the last track (think Steve McQueen at the end of The Great Escape). I bounced once on the road and off onto the bank. My face had hit the road but the sunglasses and lensed glasses that I was wearing took the main impact (the former were smashed to peices, the latter badly mishapen). I was scratched and bruised and shaken. Two fingers of my right hand quickly became swollen. I had a scratch on my cheek bone which I later realised looked quite heroic, the classic injury Sean Connery might have to show he'd just disposed of several henchmen. My bike, too, was quite scratched. A motorist stopped to help me and a lady walking past with her bike, who aso had a facial injury, said that the same thing had happened to her just that morning. I now understood a large yellow sign: it was a warning in Flemish to cyclists about the angle of the tracks. A couple of kilometers further on I realised that I'm missed a left turn just before the crossing, so had to go back and cross them again.

I stayed that night with Els Claessens, a friend of Jessica Van t' Westereinde from Durham. Els works as a lay chaplain at a nursing home. She had only just moved into her appartment and had not yet unpacked, but she nonetheless cooked a great meal. We spoke about our experiences accompanying families through bereavement, and Els said how wonderful but how she found it. Before I knew what I was doing I used my first SatNav analogy: being truly attentive to people, and particularly in that emotionally charged time, is exhausting, because even though it doesn't seem like you're doing very much your antennae are out and you're attending to signals, that's why the batteries on my SatNav run down so quickly!

The Pilgrimage will not put you in the Driving Seat, but it will make you saddle sore

Day three of any cycle holiday is always the day on which saddle soreness strikes. The last two days have been long and hot, and so I was glad that I had only a short 50km cycle today. The route wasn't wonderful: roads at first, and then along the unlovely, and occassionally odious, River Zenne, and the cycle into Brussels was particularly nasty, through warehouses with HGVs and reversing, deisel-belching trucks at every turn. But Satmap brought me directly to the Marist House where I am now writing this. This is civilisation! Evening prayer in a few moments, then out for dinner with Brendan Geary.