#beardintransit

So today is my birthday! I turn 24, so I thought that with today being what it is that I’m going to travel a bit further today. I’ve been staying in Amiens for the past couple of days soaking up the history and culture of the area. I visited the Notre-Dame cathedral, read up on all I could while I was there, I’ve been to the old town a little bit, walked far outside the city, spent a night inside a jazzclub which was amazing by the way, there was this one grizzly funk band that just killed it, and hell I’ve even had a Mcdonalds and Dominos pizza! But now it’s time for me to move on.

My plans for the next few days are going to be changing drastically from sub-urban to sub-zero as I am travelling away from Amiens to a place called Valenciennes via Arras. Not my usual travelling though mind you, a train is required for these kinds of distance, but once I’m off the big steel container with wheels I’ll be heading North, into the ‘Parc Naturel Regional Scarpe-Escaut’, which I think loosely translates into ‘Really dark and cold forest’, though I could be off by a word or two...

Hopefully the plan is to enter the forest from the South and then exit the forest in the North in a different country. That’s right I’ll be heading into Belgium soon. That’s still a couple of days away though and I’m not sure how active I’ll be while I’m trudging through the mud but I’m sure I’ll take some cool pictures and have some interesting camping stories.

So… You know how in my last post I mentioned that I would be in Valenciennes by way of Arras on train? Well… I ended up in Dunkirk. The train that arrived in Arras seemed to be one of these cross-country trains with about 50 carriages to it and as a result I went oh I dunno, about 100 miles or so away from my intended destination?

My ticket said to get on coach 16 and my seat number was 64 or something like that, and as the train pulled up I walked and walked and walked and only got as far as coach number 3 (I had passed approximately 25 coaches at this point) so I caved in as the whistle was being used and I hopped on board figuring that I’d be okay. It wasn’t until the first stop when I decided to check on my phone where I was, which was North of Arras, “no biggy” I told myself, the train probably hooks round here as a lot of people got on/off and decided that this was a popular stop and thought nothing of it.

Second stop. I’m in Béthune. It was at this point that I knew something had gone wrong, as the next stop we were bound for was the Terminus - Hazebrouck. I would’ve been more worried but thankfully I’m travelling without a plan and actually held off on booking somewhere to stay in Valenciennes earlier that day due to a nagging feeling something was off, I embarked on this journey to trust my gut and I’m glad that I did just that.

I managed to steal a seat in 1st class for the remaining 45 minutes of my journey to Hazebrouck so I was at least in comfort, except for the fact that there was some funny looks headed into my direction as they knew I shouldn’t be sitting there, but once the ticket inspector came round he simply looked at me and carried on, I got to keep my seat and everyone else minded their own business.