Moving innovations

I really needed an excuse to try out my new backpack. Actually I have the AC Lite 15 but that is no longer present on the site and I guess that explains the discount I got on it. It’s not that I’m not happy with my other backpack, but I found the Osprey a bit too big for simple daytrips. Hiking along the Oosterschelde yesterday confirmed to me that it’s also very nice to have a small backpack. I still expect to use the Osprey on multi-day hikes which I’m planning for spring and summer, but for single-day trips I think the Deuter will win out.

Yesterday’s route took me along the Grenslandpad from Biezelinge to Krabbendijke in Zeeland. Since I left a bit in a hurry to catch the once-an-hour train in Krabbendijke I took the wrong guidebook with me so I was left to navigate only based on the markings. Not a big deal normally, but here the markings where either faded by the salt water to the point that you could hardly see them, or they were put in such awkward places that it was unclear what way to go. With some educated guessing I did find most of the route, but in the end things were a bit unclear again and I just used the GPS to find back my car. The weather was great, with a strong wind blowing in the general direction I was walking in and splendid sunshine all afternoon.

I’m not really into New Year’s resolutions, but there is something about the quiet period between Christmas and the New Year that makes you reflect a bit on the past year. One thing I noticed is that I haven’t been outdoors as much as I’d like. Two weekends and a handful of days in a whole year is a bit disappointing.

With clear blue skies there was no excuse this past Sunday not to go and do some hinking. The wind was much stronger and colder than expected, but that just reenforced the fact that I should have been thinking about the direction I was going in. I wouldn’t have had to stare into the sun all the time as well. Still, some nice views along the Waterlinie on the Waterliniepad.

Kicking up beech leaves and listening to the sound that makes is part of the full Autumn experience for me. This weekend I got ample opportunity to do so in the forest between Spa and Stavelot. Two nice days of hiking, with generally nice weather, although a little bit on the cold side, especially on the Fagne de Malchamps. Still, no rain, which is a huge improvement over our track record of the past few weekends, and even a faint bit of sunshine late on Sunday.

We followed the GR5 from Winamplanche to Stavelot, staying there overnight, and walking back to Spa through a route we made up ourselves. Making our own track worked out pretty well, with some nice sights along the way. Good fortune that hunting was on Saturday this weekend, so the forest we needed to cross was open to the public on Sunday. Wonderful autumn atmosphere all around us for the most part, and the Fagne de Malchamps looks impressively bleak.

We stayed in the Hotel d’Orange in Stavelot. The building has been a hotel for 7 generations but unfortunately this doesn’t really translate well into the decor. Some touching up and some subtle modernazation could really benefit the place. Still, we had a nice stay there in a clean room and friendly hotel staff. We had dinner at the Pizzeria Figaro in Stavelot, and that comes highly recommended. Nice relaxed place to eat with some great food.

Whenever I mention to people in the Netherlands that I like long-distance hiking on paths stretching a few hundreds of kilometers, most of them invariably will mention the Pieterpad. I’m not exactly sure why, but there is something about this particular path that makes people remember. Perhaps it is the fact that is stretches from the far north of the Netherlands way down to the very south. Or that it was one of the first to get a lot of publicity. Or perhaps it just has a nice name.

In any case, I never really walked on it, apart from a few small stretches where it overlapped with the Pelgrimspad, and as a way of getting to the GR5 near Maastricht. Until last weekend, when I finally walked my first stretch, from near Doetinchem to Spijk. The weather was great for walking. Well, apart from the first hour where it rained quite hard, but we solved that by getting coffee. This part of the path crosses through a small part of Germany that protrudes into the Netherlands, so this was an international day of hiking.

I’m at home on a Sunday afternoon as I’m writing this. The weather is nice, with big clouds and an odd patch of blue, which makes it easy to dry out my camping gear on the balcony. It’s all still wet from what was going to be a weekend of camping and hiking in Belgium. We decided to leave there early this morning instead of hiking for another day, as the rain forecast was for 20mm of rain to fall in the course of 6 hours. That kind of downpour crosses the border, it’s where the fun ends.

It’s not that I wasn’t prepared as I got some new hiking gear. I got the Haglöfs Fusion jacket partly to take with me to work when going by bike and partly for hiking trips with a chance of rain. It did get a good workout on Saturday already, when we had some heavy rain in the first hour, and so far I love this jacket. Wears great and is easy to pack. The one thing that drives my crazy though is why there is a piece of velcro on the hood. Can that be used to fold the hood away? If so, I’m at a loss how to do that.

I’ve also retired my old backpack after years and years of heavy duty. A few minor annoyances have been building up while using it over the years, and I took the opportunity to correct them with a new backpack: Osprey’s Stratos 32. After two days of hiking I really love this pack. It’s large enough to stow quite a bit of stuff when travelling, but small enough to wear it as a daypack. It’s got a bunch of nice features that make it a treat to use such as the special side pockets for water bottles, the zippered side pockets for maps and books, and bungee loops on the back to easily attach stuff to the backpack.

As for hiking: we did manage to get a good day in on Saturday with only an hour of heavy to light rain at the beginning. The area just east of Liège is pretty heavily populated and the path took us over a bit too many paved routes for my liking, but it also ended right next to our campsite which made shuffling the cars a bit easier.

When will I ever learn to eat well before a hike. Last Saturday I didn’t really have breakfast, and with temperatures up to 30 degrees and no wind I needed to drink a lot. Surprise: loss of minerals and a headache towards the end of the day. Sigh.

I still managed to walk 32km on the GR5, one of the more famous European walking tracks, stretching from the North Sea to Nice. I had walked a tiny overlapping part of it last year near Bergen op Zoom, but this was the first real stretch. Not sure if I’ll ever make it to Nice, or even if I would want to.

By far the strangest sight was the Tour Eben-Ezer with some impressive animals on top of the towers and seemingly located in the middle of nowhere. Other than that nice rolling hills, fields and trees, and a lot of quarries.

This weekend the weather is great for outdoor stuff. Even though it's only April it feels like summer outside, and I should really be out there. Instead I'm at home working through a ton of stuff to do, including sorting out pictures like the ones from last weekend.

See, last weekend the weather was really nice as well and then I did go out for a hike along the river Maas near Roermond. Paul cobbled together a nice walking route which we later found to coincide with several "official" walking routes, one of which would lead us all the way to Santiago de Compostella. This part of the Maas valley is fairly heavily populated and also used a lot for boating. In fact, the most quiet place we encountered was a footpath along the Maas next to a chemical factory. I must not have been very awake as in hindsight I realize I missed a few photo opportunities and the pictures I did take where not that great. Still, seeing an orchard blossoming is always a great sight.

Yesterday was a grey and drab cold winter day, but with not much wind and not much precipitation it actually was not that bad. Besides, what better remedy for the Christmas festivities than a nice brisk walk outside in near-freezing conditions. Given that we did not have to rely on public transport we took the opportunity to explore the aera in between the main rivers in the Netherlands, the Land van Maas en Waal. Due to the cold and the flat light there were not that many photo opportunities, the picture belongs really sums it up quite well.

Every fall I try to plan a hike so that I get to walk on a carpet of fallen leaves, kicking them up on occasion, and listening to the sounds that makes. Yesterday was such a day. It would have been even better with a bit more sunshine and some dramatic dark-grey clouds in the sky being swept by by a stormy wind, but at least it didn’t rain.

We hiked in the Gooi area, just north of Hilversum, about half forest and half parkland belonging to some estates, with some smithereens of moorland. The forest was varied and especially on the way back had some really nice leaf-covered paths. The parkland was varied with open fields, water features and beech-lined lanes. Recommended.

Glorious sunny late-summer weather is always a good excuse to get out of the house. This morning I explored the Kaapse Bossen near Doorn. This time not one of the long-distance hiking tracks, but a GPS route of my own creation. While the route didn’t always work out very well it was fun to just wander around the forest without paying notice to the painted signs.

I got up really early to be in the forest at daybreak. Unfortunately I didn’t spot any animals, but the forest is always beautiful in the early morning light. The Kaapse Bossen also have the added attraction of a watch tower with a panoramic view of the whole area. Especially nice with the morning light striking the crowns of the trees.

Last week finally allowed for some hiking again. With rain almost every day for the last weeks and not much free time I had not been able to do much hiking, but last Sunday we hiked from Postel abbey in Belgium to the town of Eersel.

The abbey was a bit of a surprise as it turned out to be the local magnet for daytrippers. We counted 6 ‘frietkot’ places near the parking lot and at the end of the afternoon all of them were busy. So much for the peace and quiet, but they do have a great selection of cheese.

The main attraction of the trip was the heather on the moors which is blooming at this time of year. Surely we saw enough of the stuff on the Cartierheide.

Just back from a weekend in Luxemburg I left for a few days of walking on the North Coast of Brittany in France, more specifically the Cote de Granite Rosé in the Cotes d'Armor. Even though there is a fairly well developed bus service in the area, it still can be hard to get around, especially on some of the more remote areas of the coast, so I have been hiking with full gear, including a tent. I must really pay more attention to packing as my pack was a bit heavier than I would have liked it to be.

The northern coast is not really rugged, but still steep enough to be interesting. With the strong tides in this region whole areas are bare during the low tide but may make passing through them impossible during high tide. Camping out was fun, and I was actually glad to have some sea fog on the second day to avoid the blistering sun to some extend. Blistering indeed, I have a bit of a nasty sunburn in the back of my neck.

Traveling took a bit longer than I hoped for, but I did manage to squeeze in a visit to the Mont-Saint-Michel, one of those must-have-seen places in France.

Finally some good news: my camera survived its first drop test.

Last weekend it was time again to pick up on the GR57. This time we started in Gouvy as the part between Le barrage de Nisramont and Gouvy severly lacks in public transport options. We'll do that another time when we have two cars available. The first day took us from Gouvy to Troisvierges through rolling farmland. We took a quick detour towards the highest point of Luxemburg which was just a kilometer or so from the track. Amazing that it wasn't part of the track, even though the whole thing is rather unassuming.

The second day we went from Troisvierges to Clervaux in a different landscape. Most of the day we walked through the valley of the Woltz, with much more forest and quick steep hikes up and down the plateau surrounding the valley. With the high humidity we did not have much energy left in the end, and we were glad we only had to hike a meager 12km. We still took quite a bit of time, mostly caused by excessive picture-taking. I love my new camera!

Yesterday there was finally some respite from all the rain that has been falling in the last week, so I took the opportunity to continue my hike on the Grenslandpad. This time the path ran mostly through the Chaamse bossen, which gave some protection against the wind.

Again not so many pictures. My camera is slowly failing on me, in particular the batteries. I feel I'm getting closer and closer to buying a new one...

My last fews hikes where along the coast, but with the predicted hot weather and associated masses of people on the coast I was ready for a change of scenery, so I picked up the Grenslandpad along the border with Belgium. The weather turned out to be unseasonably hot, but with some wind blowing it was still very pleasant. Fortunately I only got a bit sunburned on my nose.

I only took some pictures at the Patersmoer. The rest of the hike was enjoyable but there was nothing that caught my eye.

Finally had some time to go hiking again on the Dutch coastal path, this time from Haarlem to Santpoort through the dunes. A very nice area, although also very busy. In some of the higher parts the whine of car engines from the Zandvoort racetrack could be heard, and seeing the smoke stacks from Corus near IJmuiden also takes away some of the magic, but all in all a good hike. Didn’t take that many pictures because there were not so many specific things that were striking to me, and it became overcast quite quickly.

Last Saturday I finally had time again to go hiking, and the weather certainly made it a treat. A nice sunny day with long shadows made for good hiking circumstances, which was evidenced by the many people that crossed my path, probably more than on any other hike so far. With a temperature of around freezing and a slight wind it was not too cold. Continuing the hike along the coast I walked from Haarlem to De Zilk through the Amsterdamse Waterleidingduinen. Not too many spectacular pictures as the dunes are a bit bland-looking in winter with everything a faded yellow-brownish color.

Yesterday I finally found some time to go hiking again, once more along the coast. Last time I ended my hike at Katwijk, so I continued from there this time, up to De Zilk. The weather was predicted to be nice, with mostly clear skies and some clouds. So, it rained part of the way. Nothing catastrophic though and I was prepared anyway, having taken a rain coat.

I was most impressed with the dunes between Katwijk and Noordwijk, even though this seemed to be the dullest part of the hike on paper. It’s just a stretch of dunes 500m wide and 5km long, but the nice part is that for the most part, unless you opt for the normal path on the side, there are no footpaths. You just wander into the dunes wherever you like to go. I did startle a small deer this way, which ran off right away after I passed by it. I did manage to take a picture of it as it was running away.

Yesterday was another fabulous autumn day with loads of sunshine and a very agreeable temperature of ~18 degrees. Great weather to spend a day outdoors hiking. I had the NS Mookerheide walk on my desktop for some time already, so we hiked that route, although we shortened it a bit since no-one wanted to hike more than 25 km.

The hike proved to be wonderful, with a large variety in landscape ranging from moor to forest and from farmland to city parks. Since this area is on the edge where the ice came in the ice age, it is very hilly and the path had some surprisingly steep parts. My favorite picture of the trip is of some mushrooms we found, the perfect autumn picture. Large mushrooms. Very large, actually. On Flickr there is also a picture of the mushroom with someone standing next to it to give you some perspective.

Last Sunday I finally got to test out my new hiking boots in earnest with a 22km hike from The Hague to Katwijk. It was my first hike on the recently renewed Hollands Kustpad. A very nice hike with a lot of variety in scenery, ranging from city parks to estates with English landscape style gardens, and from dense and hilly oak forests to the wide-open dunes along the coast.

Amazingly I only had a few drops of rain, fortunately not enough to warrant wearing my rain jacket. In fact, the weather was really nice as I was able to hike in just a t-shirt for most of the morning. It certainly doesn’t feel like October at the moment!

As usual pictures can be found on Flickr, but here’s my favorite from the trip: