Last weekend was a Bank Holiday in England, but here in Belgium we had our Bank Holiday two weeks before that starting on Friday 15th August – Assumption.
Because that weekend was close to the birthday of two of my fellow Blue Moon Hashers (Blue Willy and Ice Trix) and well, just because, it was decided that a group of us should go camping!
The site which Ice Trix selected was La Ferme Biologique Dorlou in the village of Wodecq close to the French border. Then we discovered it was not only close to the Graal Brewery but also was close to the start of a running race which suited the majority of us happy campers as we all run with the Blue Moon Hash House Harriers.
I had no camping gear at all, so the weekend before went and bought a sleeping bag and an airbed – I was amazed how cheap and compact the sleeping bag was and marvelled how technology had come on so far since I last went camping (about 30 years ago!).
I didn’t need a tent because both Hash Hole and Cock Trix both had massive ones and I had been offered a room in each – tents with rooms – whow camping technology has advanced!
I drove the hundred odd kilometers on Friday lunchtime and met up with the others. We were allotted a little meadow at what appeared to be at the back of the campsite – but as the site curled around the farm was in fact just next to the farmyard as you can see in this photo.
Soon tents were going up everywhere – Hash Hole’s 4 bedroom palace (to be shared by Hash Hole, Forrest Gulp, their little 4 month old baby boy Bonsai and me) Cock Trix’s 3 bedroom mansion to be (shared by Cock Trix, Ice Trix, Blue Willy and Rhythm Stick) and more traditional style 2 man tents for Ez Over and Spare Rib, Satan’s Lil Helper and Seb and Just Hugh’s in his space age fully ruggedized one man wonder. The tents as well as being a lot bigger than I remember, I could stand up in Hash Hole’s palace, are a lot easier to put up nowadays – once you get the basic concept of the rods and poles and the colour coding.
Then it was time to sit back and admire our handy work over a beer or two, or three or four – then Hash Hole produced some Margaritas and things started to get a bit blurry.
We took a stroll through the village to try to find the start of the run, but failed and then had a look round the farmyard to visit all the animals which included pigs and loads of piglets, cows, chickens and rabbits. I amused the pigs and my friends with my imitation of the pigs and gave just about everyone of them a good scratch (the pigs, not my friends).
The smell in the farm buildings was terrible though, so we didn’t stay long and went back to the BBQ.
We had an excellent BBQ on a tiny bright orange device brought by Ice Trix.
We even invented a way of getting it to furnace heat in no time by using the electric pump meant to blow up the airbeds to fan the fire (after I had spent sometime fanning it).
The meal was a long drawn out affair. There was, of course, far to much food and way way too much to drink, but I was doing OK until someone produced a bottle of Jameson’s. I then managed to break one of the camping chairs that Blue Willy had brought along, though he did kindly say it was already broken and soon after I decided it was time to go to bed.
The airbed was already pumped up, so it was a simple matter of putting it in my allotted room in Hash Hole Palace and getting into my sleeping bag – but this turned out to be a lot more complicated than I had expected. First of all the airbed wouldn’t cooperate and kept on tipping me off onto the floor, and when I had mastered that I couldn’t for some strange reason get into the sleeping bag. Finally I gave up and draped it over myself and covered that with a blanket I had brought with me from the car. I put in my earplugs, because being a bit of a country-boy I know that it can get a bit noisy on a farm...
I slept well until about 6:30am when some b@$t@rd started a large very noisy tractor about 6 inches from my ear which he then proceeded to hit with a sledge hammer for the next hour. I eventually gave up to and crawled out from under the sleeping bag and out into the outside world to find out what was really happening. I must admit I was surprised to see a man, a tractor with its engine running and him hitting it with a sledge hammer all about 6 feet from where I had been lying.
This was a working farm, and it was mid August – Harvest Time. The tractor’s rear towing coupling seemed to be causing the farmer some problems – hence the hammering. Eventually he gave up and roared off to do some farming with lots of rushing around with tractors and combine harvesters in a lot of the fields around us.
Just Hugh took pity on me and made me some porridge and a cup of tea while slowly the rest of the camp woke up. When I felt strong enough I went for a shower in the communal bathrooms provided by the campsite in one of the barns. The shower randomly sprayed me with scalding hot and freezing cold water but I managed to wash and shave without inflicting myself with anything more serious than simultaneous frostbite and 3rd degree burns.
After we had all breakfasted we set off to visit the Graal Brewery which was about 10km from the campsite. We pooled cars, so I rode with Just Hugh and a couple of others.
At the brewery the brewer’s wife greeted us. She showed us round the tiny brewery at the back of a small courtyard. It wasn’t actually brewing anything when we went around but nevertheless I felt very jealous – I would love to own and run a brewery of that size myself.
After the short tour we sat out in the courtyard and in the newly arrived sun sampled the complete range of beers the Graal produces (see http://www.degraal.be/products2.htm)
My favourite was the Triverius a blanche in the Hoegaarten style (but better). I bought a dozen bottles and a glass as a memento.
By the time we got back to the campsite it was just about time for the race. The runners (Ez Over, Ice Trix, Spare Rib, Just Hugh, Cock Trix, Hash Hole and myself) changed and set off back through the village to find the race start. We had turned back too soon the evening before; the start was at the village school about 1km from the campsite. What had been a quiet little village the night before was now a mass of cars and runners. We signed up, paid our €3 and got our numbers.
There were a lot of runners and a lot of very fit looking runners at that – I knew I was outclassed but the excitement of the whole thing got to me and I covered the first 2kms of the 12.55kms race in 8 minutes. When I realised that I made myself slow down and let hundreds of people pass me – in retrospect this was a mistake, but I was not feeling great (hangover) and it was really quite hot. I chugged along through the very pretty countryside and suddenly after about 5kms found myself back at the start where the trail then looped off in another even prettier direction, that unfortunately included a massive hill which I walked up.
I was really pleased to get to the end of the run, and given how hung over I was and how unfit I am I was reasonably pleased with my time – for the record, this is what we all did (which you can check here)
| Who | Place | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Just Hugh | 102 | 00:56:24 |
| Spare Rib | 124 | 00:58:29 |
| Ez Over | 177 | 01:02:03 |
| Cock Trix | 203 | 01:04:54 |
| Hash Hole | 246 | 01:09:33 |
| Blue Willy | 248 | 01:09:41 |
| Spotted Dick | 255 | 01:11:11 |
| Ice Trix | 301 | 01:23:41 |
While we had been away the farmer had put a large rather lame cow in the adjoining paddock and switched on the electrified fence – something I think everyone of us discovered at some stage during the early evening as we hung our wet running gear out to dry.
The meal that night was in the campsite’s farm restaurant. The starters and the pudding were excellent but we had a very long wait for the main course which was overcooked when it arrived – I think our numbers rather overwhelmed the chef.
After a fairly restrained time around the unlit BBQ we all headed off to our tents. For some reason this time I instantly could see why I was having problems the night before with the sleeping bag – it was made for a midget! It only came up to my stomach, so once again I covered myself in my trusty blanket.
It had been hot and sunny all day so the combine harvesters were making hay (well straw actually) and were roaring in the distance in all directions well into the early hours– fortunately for those of us without earplugs, but not the farmer, it rained at 3am and that stopped the harvest.
We were awoken by the tractor again at 7am (well it was Sunday, so the farmer had a lie in). This time he revved up and moved off, only to come back again almost instantly. He kept this up for an hour before I couldn’t stand it any longer and crawled out of my diminutive sleeping bag to discover just what the silly b@$t@rd was up to…
Stacking straw bales in the barn right by our camp – that’s what – he kept it up for about another hour until he managed to hit the gutter with the forklift attachment on the front of the tractor and almost ripped it off. He got soaked with the rainwater still in the gutter and we all laughed.
I told everyone about my problems with the sleeping bag and they all insisted that I showed it to them. "Of course, it is a child's sleeping bag," said Just Hugh. "How do you know?" I asked. "It says so on the side, look". The sleeping bag had the words LowesKid (or some such) on the side - I honestly thought that was all one word! Mystery solved and I felt very foolish and a little cheated until I remembered it had only cost me €15.
Breakfast cum lunch was an excellent prolonged BBQ where we attempted to cook and eat every piece of meat we had brought with us. Because Ice Trix’s BBQ was so small this took a long long time, but no one was in any hurry to leave, and besides the tents needed time to dry off.
Finally it was time to take down the tents and try and fold them up small enough to fit into the tiny containers they arrived in – something that Cock Trix managed but Hash Hole totally failed at. We paid up a massive €6 each for the privilege of sleeping in the farmers field and after a game of boules headed off home back to Brussels.
We all agreed we would do it again – but not during the Harvest!!!
By the way you can see my photos of the event on my Fotki page, or alternatively have a look at Forrest Gulp's excellent photos her Blue Moon Fotki page (which does have one or two embarrassing shots of me).
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