Waiting in Antwerp

For the first leg of the trip to Malawi I'm travelling to cape town by cargo ship from Antwerp. The first challenge i came up against was persuading the coach driver at victoria to take my enormous bike bag. After a lot of begging it was allowed on, and i was off. I arrived at the dock in Antwerp on monday morning, loaded my luggage with a crane and ascended the rickety gangway some 30 feet up to the deck. The ship is about 200 metres long, check out the picture below - my bunk, a (moderately) spacious 2 room 2 bed apartment, is on the fourth deck, beneath the bridge, facing the stern (if that's the word for the ass end of a ship). There's been lots of interest about the accomodation, so pictures will follow when I get a chance to upload some.



The crew is made up of 25 Poles and a South African. I immediately feel at home - it's one part aussie short of a south london cocktail. Varying degrees of english are spoken by the crew (i'm the only passenger), but i feel welcome by those i've met so far. The ship's schedule has been turned upside down this month by a strike in Rotterdam, so it turns out I'm 3 days early for departure. I've stowed my luggage and left the ship to explore Antwerp while the crew busilly finishes loading and rearranging cargo. I've never spent any time in Belgium and despite my preconceptions (chocolate, diamonds, boring), Antwerp turns out to be a nice place. Most of the city centre is pedestrianised, as a result everyone walks around at about half the average londoner's pace. The people and architecture here remind me of Amsterdam, although the boats in Antwerp are measured in kilometres not metres and it's a 30 euro taxi ride to get across the canal (I've had to do this twice already). There is a huge cafe culture here too, some notable omissions from the menu when compared to the Amsterdam coffee shops though. Spring has most definitely sprung this week - it's 16 degrees in belgium today and just about T-shirt weather, but i'm hoping the weather breaks after we sail - i want to see what an atlantic storm is like from the safety of of a 30000 ton ship :-) Provided of course that it's nothing like the film Perfect Storm. The schedule has been revised somewhat, and we are due to leave Antwerp tomorrow lunch time, bound for Hamburg. A day unloading there and then on to Lisbon. Another day in port there, and then Walvis Bay, Namibia, before finally getting to Cape Town around the 5th of April. Kathy has been remarkably good humoured about all the changes to the schedule (we are trying to plan a holiday in Cape Town for when I arrive) and observed that we seem to have moved 200 years into the past, the days when you had to turn up in a port and wait for the ship to put to sea. That pretty much summarises how I feel now, thankfully this time isn't eating into my annual leave.

My health is not yet back up to 100%, so the decision on whether or not to do the cycle from Cape Town to Malawi is still up in the air. Thanks to all the offers of sposorship that I have received so far. I have setup a justgiving page for collecting offers of sponsorship, but I've decided to hold off asking until I know that I am actually capable of completing the task! In the meantime, if you would be interested in sponsoring me, then please take a minute to check out the work of the beneficiaries Practical Action and World Land Trust.

That's all for now folks. If we have time for a shore leave in Lisbon, I'll try and post something then.