After a surprisingly quiet night we headed out on Monday morning for the campground in Zwalm, where we did some more laundry and had (somewhat) hot showers.
We decided that we’d stop and watch De Brabantse Pijl on our way to the Netherlands for Amstel Gold. Because we were going right past it anyway we stopped again to visit one of the main sights of the Battle of Waterloo – the farmhouse at Hougoumont.
While Colin and Max took a walk to explore more I stayed and made a lovely poached salmon and rice lunch. Since our last visit seven years ago one of the three main old trees had come down, and the other two are still being held up by wires.
Colin said you can still see some of the actual musket balls embedded in the trunks.
We spent Wednesday night at the shores of the lovely lake ‘Meer van Gembal’ – it’s a very beautiful and prosperous looking area.
There’s a large hotel on the other side of the lake that looked like it might have been pretty fancy at one time.
And if we hadn’t already had the delicious salmon lunch we might have been tempted to get a Chinese take-away from another restaurant close by – the aroma wafting over to us was enticing.
There were a couple of geese – Canada Geese, if I’m not mistaken! – one of which was keeping a close watch on all passers by.
We made our way the next morning to the course of Branbantse Pijl and found a nice wide paved area just past one of the climbs. The road we were on was a bit busy but we did manage to get a good night’s sleep.
The women’s race came by first – a total of four times…
…followed over an hour later by the first of three passes by the men.
As usual now we went back into the campervan to watch the end on tv.
Sally McKenzie's European Adventures 