Departure

The start didn't go that smoothly, as i was underestimating the weight of the bags. (thanks to Malo for the pictures!)

Today I finally left from home. I cycled alone from Antwerp and met up with Nicolaas in Aalst after 60km, where we had lunch at his grandparents place. My mind was dominated by an unreal feeling of leaving home without knowing when I would come back. I was also stressed about forgetting something and the other burdens of the preparation, so I guess that I'm still tired from that. Simply to say, that the first day wasn't immediately a thoughtless ride. I did manage to reallt start enjoying the moment when taking the multiple ferries across the Scheldt river. The landscape and the stillness of the morning were quite inspiring, (as well as the view of my fully packed bike with a proud Belgian Flag on the background, something most flemish-nationalists would despise). In the evening we were hosted by Yannick (a very good friend from my history studies) and his mother, who kindly let us sleep in a spare bedroom. Tomorrow will lead us to Limburg where our first ecological project awaits us.

The last few days were busy with finishing working as a bike courier for a small Antwerp enterprise (de Fietskoeriers), packing and seeing my friends for a last time. I also had to work a little on the bike, like fixing the gear shifting or installing a bottle dynamo. As I said a lot of things were happening and I struggled to find time to even pack the bags! Luckily everything turned out well and I have enough room to carry food and extra water if necessary. I have some cool gear that I will definitely write about, but for now I'm just happy to report that I haven't forgotten anything as far as I can tell.

I uploaded the first route on the map that can be seen on the front page of this blog. People reading this on their phones cannot see it and have to switch to "show internet version" (in dutch: internetversie tonen). The route will consist of a black line with a red tail. The red part will be the most recent leg of the trip. Every segment, which can be clicked on or hoovered over, has the departure and destination point, plus the distance described in its title.

I can also say that I'm in the amazing company of Nicolaas. We have some friends in common, thanks to the ability of Ghent's JNM (youth movement for Nature and Environment) to mostly attract really nice people. We also took part in the same class about Nature and Environmental policy last year. We kept in touch, thanks to overlapping ideas and interests. When Nicolaas reached out to me about my bikepacking plans, we quickly decided to merge our interests and combine visiting projects with travelling by bike. Even though I have to admit that we aren't the oldest of friends, cycling together this afternoon definitely gave me a good feeling about doing this. Nikolaas is for example much more attentive to the surroundings and likes to stop for some fallen chestnuts or nice herbs, whereas I am more focused on the distance and cycling itself. In this way our opposing behaviours brings us to a nice middle ground. This makes me really look forward to the next few days.