It's been a long and hard few days on my feet. After Bruges I walked along the beach out of Breslane and up the coast to Blankenberg. Unfortunately, when I got there I discovered that Zeebrugge docks was in the way, so I walked through it, taking a bit of an industrial detour, eventually making it to Knokke, where I stayed the night.
Not much to write home about in Knokke, I slept behind a petrol station, and the cars kept me up a bit, but at least I could buy some hot coffee in the morning.
The next day I'm ashamed to say I hopped on a bus over the Dutch border. In mitigation it was drizzling, and the coastal route appears to take me through a marsh. I hopped off the bus ASAP though, and began walking through the beautiful Dutch countryside. Looking for a place to camp I tried a few places, but they were all ridiculously expensive (37€ for a place to put a tent up?!). I walked into Breskens to try and find a campsite there, but managed to get directed to a caravan sales park, which looked exactly like a campsite from a distance. Seething with tiredness I decided "sod Breskens", and got the ferry to Vlissengen.
Vlissengen was absolutely lovely. The campsite was nice and cheap, the sun was shining, there was a cooling breeze, and the coffee shops were doing a roaring trade. Much pacified I went to bed.
This morning I got up and continued trekking down the coast, eventually stopping in Westkappel. I'm camping in what essentially is some old lady's garden, but to her credit she has excellent wifi coverage. Westkappel is pretty cool - it was one of the first places stormed by the allies in 1944 so there's ww2 stuff rusting everywhere. I had lunch sitting on top of a Sherman tank.
Tomorrow I'm going to head north, and see if pedestrians can get over the huge bridge to the north of me...
