Travel
Prims Earth Trek continues
And it was all going so well . But we ’ ll come to that later .
In my last update I was about to hit London . Having already cycled across the capital on a couple of occasions I decided on a shortcut through the city ’ s east side , which involved a look at the reinvigorated docklands and a smelly old tunnel under the Thames .
From there I was treated to a glorious few days of fine walking and even finer weather as I crossed Kent , a lot of it on the North Downs Way . This was England at its best . My Northerner Licence may be revoked for saying that .
Eventually I reached Dover and went to buy a ferry ticket . Sorry , I was told , none of the ferry companies are currently
The disappointing Mannekin Pis , dressed in a hat far too big for him
taking foot passengers . This was despite the fact P & O had them on sale online a few days earlier .
What to do ? Options included walking to Harwich , but surely there was an easier way . I started looking online for a cheap bicycle . As luck would have it , Alexia , one of the stars of Axarcomedy , the sketch show I used to organise in Nerja back in 2005 , now lived just twenty minutes away and had an old bike for me . She always did have good timing .
I arrived in Calais all excited to have finally hit the continent . With the bike donated to a local charity it was only supposed to be a quick , three-day hop to Belgium , but this was where the trouble started .
On May 18th , my birthday of all days , I rocked up at a campsite knowing I had to take a few days off . What had started like shin splints lingered even without walking . In the end I stayed at the campsite for ten days before my right leg felt like it was close to normal .
I couldn ’ t hang around much longer anyway . Brexit voted to limit my stay in the Schengen Zone to just 90 days and I had to get a move on if I was going to reach the Slovenian-Croatian border by my deadline of August 13th .
The walk continued into Belgium , with its dozens of sobering war cemeteries . My leg felt good even as I marched across Brussels and saw Europe ' s most disappointing statue . The Mannekin Pis , the little boy having a piddle , is only about the size of an Action Man .
A happy me after having an old bicycle delivered to Dover by Alexia and her partner Russ
Now the leg had proved itself it was time to move up a gear . I divided the next two months into six-day chunks , each with about 150 kilometres to complete . The first target was Germany ’ s Aachen . Unfortunately I never made it .
The leg pain returned , worse than before , which slowed me to a crawl . Clearly ten days of rest hadn ’ t fixed whatever had caused the problem . The internet suggested it was probably a stress fracture , needing at least eight weeks of downtime .
Staying put and resting wasn ’ t an option , because of my Schengen deadline . The only solution was , sadly , for now , to call it a day .
I ’ ll return home and get the leg checked out . If this problem is likely to reoccur - maybe I ’ ve got rubbish bones - then the walk is over for good . But if not , it ’ ll restart from Maastricht , my final destination . But that ' ll be a while off yet .
In the end I managed just shy of 1,200 kilometres , which might sound impressive . Unfortunately , that distance is only 3 % of what I originally set out to do , which doesn ’ t sound impressive at all . Let ’ s hope that with a bit of time and medical help I can increase that distance .
Who knows , maybe this time next year I ’ ll have done 4 %!
One of the many war cemeteries in western Belgium
STEVEN PRIMROSE-SMITH PrimsEarthTrek . com
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