The middle day of the walk is always the day the route heads west towards the French border and into the mountains, so as a precaution against having the time to complete a great distance, we took a bit of a later start, repeated the previous days breakfast routine and headed down to the stadium. Fortunately due to following the sat nav I ended up parking the other side of the stadium and actually on the first portion of todays route. Just as we finished tying our boot laces who should walk up the road but Marc, so we set off straight away, with the route taking us over the moat and then around the inner path and over the Lille gate. We stopped briefly at the Ramparts Cemetry to visit the grave of another Old Sexeians,
With aching feet from the previous day I had already decided that the 8km would be my limit today, if I wanted still to have some feeling remaining in my toes for Day 3. Marc being younger and fitter was heading out around the 12km again and so when the routes split we parted company. The weekend walks always take place on the days following Ascension day, and as it’s a Bank Holiday in Belgium the town are villages are generally very quiet. As we reached the western edge of Ieper, we headed out into the countryside alongside fields of corn and potatoes bursting into life.
The cobbled streets continued to play havoc with my feet and so I was grateful when the “rust” stop came into view. We had no sooner taken our seats to rest for a few minutes when I spotted on the far side a large gentleman with what looked like a set of Para wings below a Royal Horse Artillery badge. He had to be ex 7RHA. So grabbing a seat next to him, it turned out that my assumption was correct as we compared service and then came us with a few folks we both knew. He had spent the 5 years before retirement working for the medal office and had been just across the border in France the previous day at the reburying of a couple of British soldiers whose remains had been recently found, only one of whom after a lengthy investigation was able to be identified. As he set off to leave with his wife, I learnt his nickname as a para was “doorbundle” - the first useless thing out of the door! By the size of him it wouldn’t have been a bundle you would have wanted to meet in a dark alley in downtown Aldershot!
Our route took us through a section of woods and then back through the edges of town to the unnavigable sections of the Ieper canal, where we laughed at a dog having a good swim around In the deep water. It was then back into town, through a section of the moat side walk created to mark the bond of friendship with New Zealand and aptly named Hamilton Park, before weaving our way along the southern side with views across the water into town and across to the Ramparts cemetery. I was certainly glad to get back to the admin area where we sat outside to watch fellow walkers complete their walks for the day, and to give my feet a bit of fresh air! It also gave us chance to chat through our options for the remainder of the day, and it wasn’t long before we decided to head up the mountain to catch up with other walkers and to grab a bit of lunch in the border cafe.
Having hobbled back to the car I was glad to be able to change into some softer footwear for our drive up the hills. We headed out of town through the Menin Gate, the square and then by the Lille Gate and took the road over the level crossing and past the Belgium Army barracks that used to be home for us all in the earlier days. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the cadets, the temporary partitions, noise and lights at night or the baking temperatures inside a plastic marquee on the hotter occasions, but it was perfect for its needs when I didn’t mind roughing it a bit on a camp bed.
For those walking the 40 or 50km on day 2 it would take a good 4 to 5 hours to make it to the mid way point, thankfully we were there within 20mins feeling fresh as daisy’s. The village of Loker sits astride a long ridgeline with views north towards Popperinge, east towards Mount Kemmel and south and west over into France. The border passes down the middle of the road so lunch was taken in France at a very familiar cafe to all 100km walkers, where we grabbed a ham and a cheese baguette and watched as walkers came in for a rest and left again a few minutes later (or a bit longer for the German reservists ordering large quantities of Jupiter beer) ready for the downhill run back to Ieper.
Suitably refreshed we headed back to the car and decided to take a drive up through the village of Kemmel, and onto the Kemmelberg, scene of some of the heaviest fighting and shelling during the final months of 1918 as the Germans tried one last push to reach the channel ports. Many French troops lost their lives as the Germans finally gained and then kept control of the hill and surrounding area until late September 1918. At the summit of the hill is a 17m high French memorial, the “Monument aux soldats francais”, known colloquially as “The Angel”. Just down the very steep hill and overlooked by the angel is another French memorial, the Kemmel Ossuary, where the remains of over 5,000 French troops lay. As we headed back into Ieper we passed the American memorial to those Americans from the 27th and 39th Divisions who fought and lost men heavily in the area.
We returned to our accommodation for the obligatory afternoon nap, before heading back to the stadium sometime after 6.00pm to catch up with Marc again and watch more long distances walkers return. It was good to be sat at the table as the large group of Germans, mainly from Berlin, made it back in after a long day. The evening entertainment and BBQ at the stadium was just starting to wind up but we decided on having a good meal in town for our last night and by some good luck stumbled across the Chinese restaurant that had earlier been recommended to us. Some very tasty Sweet and sour pork, beef fried rice and 2 glasses of wine later, we retired for the night.
Read about day 4 here
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