Dot got a shock on her way back from the showers, when the couple in the caravan adjacent to us asked her, if her name as Dot. Dot assumed that they had seen her in the shop back home and read her name tag but it was because, they had actually read this website. I was not sure anyone actually looked at it, I was impressed but Dot was embarrassed by it. Now here goes my useless memory for names again (see About us) but I think they were Roy and Ann from the Peterlee area of Durham (if you read this, please email me if I am wrong).
Same procedure as the last two years, packed up and drove to the four supermarkets on Maalse Steenweg (the N9), to stock up on unusual beers and some usual beers. First we went into the Carrefour where we met another couple doing the same as we were, we also met a rep from a brewery filling shelves, who did a very good job of selling his wares to us.
Next it was Delhaize where we also filled up with diesel, and met the same couple, like us buying more beer and coincidently, a big man stocking the shelves, heard me telling the couple how bad a beer was. And proclaimed, "what its the best beer in Belgium, its my favourite", so I thought I would give it another go and bought a four pack. Well he was wrong and I was wrong for listening to him, it is by far the worst beer in the whole world. Next we did Aldi and Lidl.
Then we set of for a day in Blankenberge, from the N9 we turned right on to the R30 ring road, anticlockwise to the N9 on the other side of Bruges and N31 to Zeebrugge. Where we tuned left onto the N34 and parked up on the side of the road just outside Blankenberge. We followed a path through the sand dunes and walked into Blankenberge along the beach, there was a bit of a breeze that made it feel cold in the open.
Blankenberge looked like many other English seaside resort, only in Belgium, it was also very busy for a Tuesday afternoon. There was a pier, beach huts, amusements, ice cream and a promenade, I liked it but Dot wasn't too sure, she preferred De Haan, where we usually go on our last day in Belgium. I do have to admit that De Haan is nice, smaller and less crowded though.
We walked along the promenade and here sheltered from the wind it was a lot warmer than the beach had been. Before we got to the far end of the promenade, we decided we should start to make our way back towards the van as it was getting late but we did have a quick look into town first. Then a quick hot walk back to the van and straight to the port about a mile away.
On the boat, Dot opened the door to our inside cabin, only to find someone else's bags already in there, so I wandered back to the purser to find out what was going on. To cut the story short (as this took quite a long time), someone on a return daytrip was already using the room and apparently the computers should not have allowed the room to be allocated to us at the check in. All the time this was being sorted, I kept insisting that I didn't mind if they found us an outside cabin, until eventually, I was asked if we minded moving to an outside family room, "that will be acceptable", I said. This sounds better than it actually was, as the four berth cabin is not that much bigger but we did have the window and it was quieter than the cabin we had outbound.
Then it up was on deck where I took some photos, then back to the cabin for supper and a film, before touring the bars prior to bed. There seemed to be several school trips onboard and at times, it got quite noisy. We did get a wonderful sunset though and I tried to get a good photo but to no avail.
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