June 12th Audruicq to Clairmarais

As one can see from the trace, today was not straight forward.

Bert and Susan moved last evening to Noueux- les- Mines and this morning we moved to Camping Beausejour between Arques and Clairmarais. We arrived at 08.45 and much to my surprise it was open, they had room and they were prepared to check me in at before 9.am. Pauline meanwhile was stressing ( the edited version) beacause I dropped her off to buy bread at just before 08.30 and she emerged with a baguette at just after 08.45.the longer version involves a dozen carefully chosen cakes, sliced bread, pains au chocolats, croissants..... Fortunately we were set up and ready when Bert and Susan arrived at 09.00.

We began our walk for the day at Audricq and the start was easy enough. Up to Munc Nieurlet all was well with the world. We continued to be harassed by dog after dog fortunately from behind closed gates. In this part of France every property has a fence/hedge/wall/ or all three around it and is guarded by a fierce noisy dog. They lay in wait for us to pass then they spring up and would eat us alive if they could. Labradors and "lassie" dogs pretend to be fierce creatures. I was moved to speculate as to where the training camp for dogs was because this is not normal dog behaviour. In Watten this afternoon we passed just such a training school. A small Daschund was being trained to go in and out of slalom poles and answer to commands such as "sit" and "stay" but I am sure that part two of the course involved waiting for the passer by to be level with the door the the dog should bark its head off and leap up as if it was about to savage him.  

However we are rapidly losing faith in the GR system. For the second day running a GR was not where it was supposed to be and the one that was there was completely unpassable because of water and mud. Our 12 km pre lunch stroll turned into a 20km "epreuve" which got us to the Blockhaus at Eperlecques 14.30.

Pauline and Susan had expected us between 12,30 and 13.00 so they had quite a wait. In the end we decided to press on so the Blockhaus remains unexplored by us. The girls report that it was an interesting visit.

A quick lunch and a reevaluation of our target had us aiming for St Momelin. Should we walk along the canal bank when the Tourist Information said that it was a no through road or should we trust Google Earth and our eyes?  6 kms there wasted? We went for it and got through easily - well fairly easily. To be fair I had checked with a couple who lived at the start of the canal tow path. But their assurances were fairly unconvincing. They had certainly never walked to St Momelin. In fact in our 29kms today we me not a single soul (apart from ourselves) walking.

Tomorrow was to be a short day so we should be able to get back on schedule.