Saturday 15 June 2013
| Distance (km) | 17 kms | |||
| Distance (time) | 4 hrs | |||
| Hard / Soft surface | 80% / 20% | |||
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| Weather |
 19° 4 Bft
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Saturday morning, having breakfast at home. Outside the rain gushes down but it is supposed to be a short shower and so we pack our stuff and leave. But in the end we leave late and arrive just past 11:30 at the railway station Noorderkempen close to Brecht where we park our car. From here we take a train to our starting point in Kalmthout. It's not that far as the bird flies, but quite a different story as the train rides: in the weekend there is no direct bus connection and so we have to take the train to Antwerp and from there a train back to Kalmthout. It's 10 minutes to railway station Antwerpen Luchtbal, where we have to wait half an hour. This is one of the saddest railway stations I have seen in my entire life, or at least within Europe, and it reminds me more to some of the subway stations in the less-than-ok neighbourhoods in Mexico City. But ok, after 30 minutes we catch the train to Roosendaal and step out in Kijkuit to continue our way.
We walk the Kijkuitlaan to the main road, pass the church and leave Kalmthout again along a quite cycle path. The sun is shining with a serious western wind and walking is good like this. Too bad it's either tarmac or concrete we're walking on. We pass Achterbroek and leave this village again over the Witgoorselaan. Only where the Witgoorselaan enters the woods we briefly leave the tarmac and get some forest track, what a relieve! We pick some cut trees and stop for a bite. After the woods it's tarmac roads again and here and there a (large) house. There is quite some traffic here and since the roads are so narrow we have to stop and go aside all the time which is starting to annoy us. But finally we get more houses and we enter an industrial area (later we find out this already belongs to Wuustwezel though we still have a long way to go) and cross 2 main roads before following a nice straight soft trail. This is the kind of trail we like! From here to our end point in Wuustwezel is only 2 kms as the bird flies we still have to walk 8 kms in a large loop around the north of village just to enter it from the east. Even worse, at the north side of Wuustwezel we actually briefly enter the village, just to turn left and leave the village again. After crossing the N1 main road there is a little bit more tarmac to go before following a gravel road along the edge of the woods. Only when 2 kms later the road once more becomes a tarmac road we enter Wuustwezel for the 3rd and final time. There is a short soft trail loop but then we really get to the centre of the village. At café De Ark we leave the route and walk towards the N1 main road to catch the bus from bus stop Wuustwezel Dorp to the railway station Noorderkempen where we parked the car. From the railway station we don't head home this time, but we go to camping De Groene Linden instead. This camping is 4 km south of Brecht and we decided to stay the night there and safe us the ride home….and back tomorrow. |
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Download track KalWuu.gpx