Sunday 23 February 2014
| Distance (km) | 14 kms | |||
| Distance (time) | 3 hrs | |||
| Hard / Soft surface | 75% / 25% | |||
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| Weather |
 6° 5 Bft
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A bit stiff and crippled we stumble down the stairs for breakfast in the morning. After a fast bite of egg, bacon and croissant we leave by car to Hasselt from where we take the bus back to Bolderberg. On Sundays there is only 1 bus per 2 hours so we really don't want to miss the 10:03 bus from the Hasselt railway station. It turns out to be no problem at all and so we return by bus exactly the same way we just drove and one hour after we left Bolderberg we are back there at the church. Even funnier, the GR5 appears to pass over the Domain Bovy so apparently last night we slept about 10m away from the GR5.
The route loops through the park-style gardens of Domain Bovy. Later we realise that this is one of the few non-tarmac sections of today's stage. For the rest it is all not very interesting: lots of streets and a dead straight section along the Albert canal to the bridge that we already crossed twice today. In spite of the weather forecast claiming that the weather today was supposed to be better than yesterday this appears to be only partially true. It sunnier, but also significantly colder and an icy southeasternly blows straight over the canal in our faces. On the other side of the canal the route passes Strokrooie just to enter a very open (thus cold) section to the abbey of Herkenrode. The track is hard, though not tarmac of concrete, and continues as large lumps of rock which doesn't really make walking much more pleasant. A second non-tarmac section, long and straight along the edge of a forest, gets us to Kuringen. On a low wall in front of a house we have a quick bite and hurry to continue: it is too cold to sit for longer time. From here it is just streets until the railway station in Hasselt. We can see the court of justice that is next to the railway station from quite a distance and that's nice because that is where our car is. And so, after a 3 hours walk, we are back at the car. Nice and early, so we can be home on time to see the closing ceremony of the winter olympics in Sochi. |
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