An Undignified End

27/04/2025

For our last couple of nights before catching our ferry home we decided we needed a break from city life. We scouted around for a campsite and ended up with a Camper Park near the coast.

Dodengang

On the way to our next stop we called in at Dodengang. This is a stretch of WWI trenches preserved in concrete with a small but informative museum. The trenches run beside the Yser canal where the Belgian and German forces faced each other in a battle of attrition as the Germans tried to cross the water and the Belgians attempted to take back fuel tanks which had been captured by the Germans.

Exploring this short section of trenches allowed us to visualise life here during WWI. Although it was difficult to imagine the worst of it on a sunny spring day, with the sound of birds in the reeds and children playing hide and seek around us. The whole area had been inundated when the Belgians opened the sluice gates in an attempt to keep the Germans from advancing. We tried to imagine being stuck in the fetid damp trenches, with Germans only meters away. Walking through the trenches we could see how flat the landscape was. Anyone posted here would have known they were visible for miles around each time they moved. It was well named the ‘Trench of Death’.

Camper Duin

Camper Duin is a cross between a campsite and an aire. It’s an unmanned area for motorhomes/campervans only. You have to use your own facilities, but the pitches are large and grassy and provide plenty of scope for outdoor living.

If you look on Google Maps you will see an area of static caravans with a café and facilities block. At some point, relatively recently, the owners must have worked out that it was a cheaper and lower effort option to remove all of the statics and provide pitches to campers. No reception to man. No facilties to clean. No phones to answer. Just some software, a barrier and services to check on periodically.

We checked in at the entrance, which was a bit of a faff if I’m honest. It involved filling in a booking form at a terminal which was the equivalent of the website. It would have been easier to just use the website especially because it would have helped with some of the language issues.

But never mind, after a bit of google translate action we managed to work out what we were being asked for and book in for a couple of nights. We paid our due (about £18 per night) and the number plate recognition allowed us to enter and get parked up.

Exploring the Belgian Coast

This part of the Belgian coast is one long sandy strand that extends along the edge of the North Sea from De Panne near the French border to Knokke-Heist where the Netherlands coast starts. The coast seems to be a pretty uniform stretch of high rise accommodation. Resorts blend into each other with only an occasional area of sand dunes and a couple of rivers to separate them.

Behind the campsite was an area of dunes and nature reserve where we attempted to take a walk, but it was hard work slogging our way through ankle deep sand and we quickly gave up and went back to the roads.

Far too sandy for us

We wandered into the local resort of Koksjide where we found a bustling town with families enjoying the multitude of busy cafes. All of the action seems to take place away from the sea front which is one long stretch of concrete exposed to the North Sea winds. We visited a local fishmonger to pick up the local speciality – Shrimp Croquettes – which were really delicious. Light and creamy inside their crunchy exterior.

Garnaalkroketten and salad

We used the tram to take us up to Ostend and then stopped off in Nieuwpoort on the way back. This is the longest tram line in the world and described by the local tourist literature as ‘a stunning journey’  We would probably not go quite that far but it was a practical and interesting way of seeing more of the area.

In Ostend we found some more honest information boards which talked about the ‘undignified architecture’ of the Belgian coast. After the depredations of the two world wars, and as the country’s economy grew more prosperous, there was significant demand for coastal accommodation along a relatively short stretch of coast. Hence the high rise buildings that form a wall between the sea and the land behind. Everyone wanted the ability to get away on holiday and a ‘sea view’.

Gradually the high rises are being replaced or renovated and more modern buildings are appearing, but they are no less enormous. The demand is obviously still there and there is a lot of money in the area as evidenced by the marinas full of expensive looking yachts.

Belgian’s coast is a mere 46.6 miles long. Compare that with mainland Britain’s 12,252 miles of coast (maybe, opinions seem to differ) and you can see why the only way to squeeze everyone in was to build upwards (as a comparison there are approx 180 miles of coast for every million people in mainland Britain, compared to 4 miles of coast for every million people in Belgian).