The next morning there was a lovely mist but it quickly changed to brilliant sun! I opened the curtains on the Place des Heros. I had already decided that it made no sense to make a huge L-shaped detour to walk to Wissant, over sand dunes! with this pack! Adding both an extra day and 30 extra kilometers. Yes, Sigeric had landed at WIssant, but that was the port then. Now it was Calais, so that was good enough for me. Plus the alternative route from Calais to Guines was along the canals, almost completely flat, and only about 12 km. That sounded great to me.
Because what was dawning on me, and causing me considerable concern, was the near impossibility of continuing as I was with the pack. When I looked back on the previous two days, I realized that I felt somewhat sick with the level of exhaustion I was experiencing and in my mind’s eye I no longer looked kindly on those green fields and forested hollows. While I knew I would gain in strength and endurance as I went along, the weight of the pack was not going to change, and if I continued in this way I would not be able to work, which was one of the “requirements” for being able to undertake the walk.
If anything, this “easy” walk confirmed it. It was a lovely day. I set off in the morning, stopping at a pharmacy to get a wrap for my ankle, and then at the Tourism Office to get a stamp for my pilgrim’s passport. From there it was easy to follow the canals, first through the city, then a short stretch of more industrial area, and then into the countryside and a more or less dedicated pedestrian path along the water’s edge. I got going around 10:30 or 11:00, I think, starting from the Tourism Office, and yet for a 7.5 mile walk, which should have taken me at most a couple of hours, maybe 2.5 with a break, I didn’t reach Guines until about 3:30 or 4:00, when my next landlady espied me at the intersection checking the map, as she walked her little dogs. She led me down the road to the auberge, where she let out small rooms above the restaurant, up a steep flight of stairs next to the disused urinoir (new toilets behind, thank you). The whole place smelled of fried fish, although the little room was charming. My hostess also showed me the shared bathroom and provided me with my own bottle of disinfectant, which she was keen that I should use, for reasons best known to her.
I had a rest and a shower and the wifi functioned so I was able to do some work which needed doing. When I got up again to go down to dinner, you would have thought I was 80 years old – a friend said she calls it “the pilgrim shuffle”. I did my best not to appear completely decrepit as I made my way through the dining room for what was advertised as sole meuniere but was in fact just a fried filet, not sautéed with butter and lemon sauce as the name would indicate. With frites. And mercifully some salad.
I had made up my mind during the walk that I was going to spend a couple of days in Guines, catch up on work, hopefully also the blog, and decide what I was going to do. Mercifully, my host was already booked with other pilgrims, and I found space at another, this time very lovely, auberge down the street, with a much better restaurant, quiet grounds, and a very nice room with private bath and no smell of frying. A bit beyond the budget, but not too bad.
The landlady kindly let me stay until shortly before check-in at the second place, and I left there around 1:30, leaving my walking stick behind, which I realized about halfway to the next place. As it was nearby I decided there was no way I was turning around with the pack, and instead I returned later to pick it up.
The grounds of the second auberge were lovely, with an old manor house and an ancient tower in the courtyard, which, it turned out, was a dovecote – I guess the owners of the time were quite fond of pigeons.
I had come to the decision that I should give up being a pack mule and become a carthorse. During my research in the months leading up to the walk, I had come across a young man named Efren Gonzalez, who had walked the VF and posted a daily minute on YouTube. I noticed he was pushing some kind of contraption when he went up the Alps. I found his website and he had a link to the gear. At the time I discounted it, as it was extremely expensive and seemed unnecessary to me.
No longer! I had tried calling the company the day before, which was located in the Netherlands, but it was Friday afternoon at 4:30 and there was no answer. I thus spent the next two days as planned, catching up on work, paying bills back home, getting this blog started, doing more research, writing an email to the company and researching other perhaps cheaper or easier-to-obtain vehicles. I texted Efren on Facebook and he was kind enough to write back immediately and told me that the wheelie, as it was called, had been a lifesaver and was absolutely worth the expense, and that it had only been difficult on a couple of days with steep ascents (which would be difficult with a backpack, too). Considering that he was an experienced walker and much younger than me, this was a confirmation for me that this was what I should do.
But, how to get from Gastelternijveen in the north of the Netherlands, to a little town in northern France? That was the question, which, it turned out, would be the start of an unexpected adventure.
photos of the day:
