Kortrijk to Menen

1^st April

Kortrijk to Menen

12kms, 1 hour 40 minutes – no internet connection.

We woke up to rain running down the windows so had a slow start.  The rain didn’t last long, fortunately.  We filled the water tanks and left the Kortrijk Passantehaven at 11.10.

I forgot to say yesterday that this is a pay marina, €8 per day including water and electricity.  That’s a pretty good deal! 

Leaving the marina we passed under the low bridge, bimini down, 

and turned south passing Ian’s favourite statue.

This biggie passed us, 110m long...

...a two car family

As we got closer to the upper reaches of the Leie River it gets a lot prettier.  There are some very impressive properties with park-like grounds,

And llamas (apologies for the poor quality photo on max zoom)

Give us some room please

Ah, he’s moving over, but not going any slower.

As you enter Menen, the signpost points to France, but we stopped at the free mooring on the Oude Leie in Menen at 12.50

This bridge is the first one on the Belgian side of the border, where the km marker starts at 0.

And here we are.  

We cycled to a supermarket about 3 kms away then Ian cycled to the Neptunia fuel barge about 4 km in the opposite direction to find out if they are open tomorrow.  No.  Then the penny dropped – bad planning today.  We could have left Kortrijk much earlier, given Menen a miss, stopped for fuel, gone all the way to Lille, bought a French Sim card with data for the internet, and been on our way to Douai tomorrow.  It would have been a long day but do-able, and we could have started our French adventure a day earlier, with full fuel tanks.  Now we will have to look for fuel in France.