Trip to St Idesbald

  St Idesbald, Belgium
Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Yesterday I phoned my long date friend Jee, to see what he was up to and when we could catch up. He was in his family's house in St Idesbald on the Belgian North coast. So he proposed me to join with Killian. He was already there with a couple and 4 children! I figured out this was a good plan for Killian and myself and so I planned to go there the next day. The trip is approximately 2 hours, a bit less. I was a bit lazy Tuesday morning sleeping till 11 am while my parents where taking care of Killian. I took a few coffees, packed up all the stuff and it was already more than 2 pm when I left Waterloo. Killian was really excited, he couldn't wait anymore to be there. Unfortunately there was a massive road accident on the sea motorway, there's one almost everytime I take it, so I was forced to take a smaller road and it took 3 hours to get there. Belgian tend to speed on motorway. When I'm at the limit + 10, i.e. 130 km/h everyone is passing me by, probably around 150-160. I know I've been speeding myself a lot too so I don't throw the stone. You get caught sometimes and it costs you a lot, but it doesn't happen often if you get the list of speed radar from internet.

Although it was a few years since I was there, I found jee's house easily remembering the morning cycling going to fetch some croissant in small roads. I called him and set up to meet on the beach. We left the car in front of the house and just walked towards the beach. Sun was shining and sky blue, like today, and it was the first day since I landed in Belgium. This was good omen!

A few photos on the way to the beach...


Before mass tourism and all the coastal buildings the coast was all looking like this So when people complain about wild construction in other countries, where they savagely massacre all the natural landscape, look first at what happened to your own country too. I always think of that when I see Belgian coast, because I think sand dunes are beautiful and there's almost none of it left. These ones are just a few preserved hundred meters.



Here's how it looks without the sand dunes :


The next day we set up for a bike tour with Killian, me and Jee, while the family had left early morning to go to the fish market. I was too late and too lazy to go to such early activity so instead we had coffee on the beachside while Killian was running his bike on the bike park. They've understood it all there, because the bike park is surrounded by cafe and restaurant. So the parents are able to enjoy the sun, have one of those famous belgian beer or some food and watch out for their kids. Even the shop to rent bikes and cuistax is around the corner.

The cuistax is something I haven't found yet in another country than Belgium, but I heard recently they do that in France now and they call them Rosalies. A cuistax is anything with wheels, usually 4 or 3, that's not a bike and that kids or family can ride. You have the solo cuistax and also the huge and heavy "get all together" tank cuistax with up to 8 seats. Get all the family together : grand-parents, parents, friends, kids, and babies in the same boat :-)
Or a bunch of friends too, especially if you drink-drive in the sun :-) this helps to expulse alcohol from your blood without too much danger for the general population.

Killian is fond of them for sure as is any kids. He made 2 new girlfriends, definitely older than him (9) but he was not paying attention to those details and had good fun with Manon and Soda. They even invented a game with stones that he promised to teach to his friends in Australia. There was a little girl of 2 years and a half, but that was not so much fun than playing "I crash my cuistax against yours" type of game with the 2 other ones. And the baby Juliette, well ...for Killian it's another world already. Not to sure what to do with her!






















The afternoon we decided to have everone cycling around the sand dunes and on the coast too. I found a bike for myself that had a third wheel attached with a seat for a kid. That's cool because Killian was there, otherwise he was riding too slowly to follow the troup. There he could help my by cycling or just rest and have a look around while speeding at my own cost :-) It's like a tandem but with a small seat for the kid. The trailing wheel is also moving, rotating left or right, in relation with the 2 others.







And finally check the album for more pictures! I don't understand a bit on how this stuff it's supposed to work because my pictures are all around the place in the text anyway so...
It was so hot, nearly 30°c, an increase of 16°C in 2 days :-) that I decided to go and have a swim in the North Sea... well at least put my 2 feet in there. I was in my bikini and all... so cool it looked like summer at last.

After that, Jee Killian and I went for a hot dog before we said goodbye and back to Waterloo. I had to meet a friend, Fanfan, to go with her to a concert where her special friend was playing on the guitar. See next entry!