Saturday 22 February 2014
| Distance (km) | 24 kms | |||
| Distance (time) | 5 hrs | |||
| Hard / Soft surface | 40% / 60% | |||
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| Weather |
 10° 4 Bft
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I have a mild but bothersome pain in my throat for a couple of days now and the question arises whether we should walk or not. Not completely convinced yet we jump into the car anyway and drive to Bolderberg. Timing is perfect again, because when we park the car close to the church we have 10 minutes before the bus to Heusden passes. There, in Heusden, we have to change to the bus to Diest. Bus stops are usually not the most exciting places in the world but with a bus stop called "Heusden station" we kind of counted on something with maybe a sheltered seat. No way, the bus stop is a pole in the grount along the road....not more than that. So after 22 minutes of shivering along the road the bus to Diest passes to bring us to Zelem in half an hour or so. A bus stop called "Zelem station", and actually it is also just a pole in the ground.
We return to the GR5 track through the Berkenstraat and connect again on the Beekstraat. We haven't even left Zelem or we already go the wrong way. We turn left too soon and walk onto the private area of a farm house. Obviously this is not going anywhere and we look to the right into the woods to see if we can see the real GR5 trail. A bit further into the woods we see a pile of wood and so there must be path there in order to access the pile of woood. So instead of returning to the main road we go for some cross country to get back on track. From here it is a nice quiet walk through the forest. Well, relavively quiet. In the background there is the continuous noise of the E314 motorway and after a while we find it rather disturbing, a real killer for the beauty of the forest. At some point we walk through the forest a the foot of the high embankment of the motorway. We temporarily leave the forest and pass the famous Thousands Years Oak of Lummen (until today I had never heard of it) which is kind of impressive as the oak tree was already there when William of Orange was still fighting the Spanish, for instance. Finally we cross the E314 and enter the forest once again. A beautiful descent over a holloway leads us to Lummen. For a moment it feels like being in the Ardennes already. Lummen is our place for lunch. We passed it by bus earlier this morning and saw a simple restaurant along the way. So we have a croque monsieur for my wife and a croque madame for me and a cappuccino (Belgian style: a coffee with whipped cream - a disgrace they dare to call it cappuccino) and continue our way. For the second part of the walk I decide to talk over the little backpack. It's again into the forest following a long straight lane. We pass underneath the E313 motorway after which there is a rather boring part following a cycle path passing over the Albert canal towards the village of Viversel. By the time we are there my hip feels like somebody has been kicking it and I have no choice than to pass the backpack back to Lupita. Very disturbing and it seems I need to visit a doctor. In Viversel we're very close to Bolderberg but the GR5 makes an almost 6 kms loop passing the small church "De Kluiis". The view is pretty and worth the detour, I cannot deny that. From the church we descent to Bolderberg and pick up the car at the church. Our hotel is a staggering 200m further. After a well deserved hot shower we have dinner in hotel Savarin. Tomorrow will be a short day. |
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