Day 4: Steve crashes out; Bob crashes; and Last Post at the Menin Gate 

This Thursday morning Bob and Mark said goodbye to Steve 'Bungo' Broatch at Dover Priory train station, leaving just the less than dynamic duo to cross the channel by ferry.  Foggy all the way and having docked at Dunkirk, the mist followed us inland for the first two hours.  At least the cycling was easy on this flat terrain and come 3.30pm the boys had crossed the border from France into Belgium.  The original plan had been to stop at Bruges this evening, but after the past three days' genuinely gruelling cycling, Bob and Mark have decided to take a more direct route to Istanbul.  And then disaster struck!

Heading into the town of Poperinge in West Flanders, Bobs Dawes Galaxy road bike caught some loose tarmac on the cycleway and he skidded against a wall.  A trickle of blood down his right leg looked bad, more so the immediate swelling on his shin.  It had the hallmark of a fracture, but thankfully that wasn't the case.  And two small beers in the town's Good Beer Guide recommended Café de la Paix did the trick of recovery.

Before 7pm and the boys were checked in at the Old Tom two star hotel on the Grote Markt in the very centre of Ypres.  This meant they were able to witness at the Menin Gate (with hundreds of others tourists) a service of remembrance.  Buglers sounded the Last Post amidst the marble walls on which are inscribed the names of the 54,896 allied soldiers whose bodies were never found in the immediate area during and after the First World War.  This was especially poignant in the 99th year after that terrible conflict began.

Bob and Mark cross the border from France into Belgium.