Diest to Lummen: E2 Day 112

Navigational issues today, caused by a change in the route of the GR5.

Before starting on today's journey, I visited the Begijnhof in Diest. Founded in 1253, this was a beguinage, a place where a community of women came together in the same neighbourhood. They were pious but worked for a living, most lived in their own houses and they did not take vows like nuns, although nuns also lived in the Begijnhof. The last two beguines left in 1928 but the old houses and cobbled streets remain. It was only last night, having downloaded a map that I worked out which part of the city it was in.

One of the streets in the Begijnhof.

Having admired the streets of the Begijnhof, which had mercifully few cars as access was restricted, I continued over the town's outer defences. A moat, or rather a series of channels, and ramparts protected the town from attack in centuries past. I paused to look at the wide moat on seeing some creatures splashing in the water. A man stopped and told me they were large carp. On the bank a younger man was fishing, any fish caught have to be returned to the water.

Tunnel through one of the ramparts of Diest.

After a series of bridges, ramparts and two tunnels I left Diest on a path by a railway line. After continuing on the route described by my guidebook and its associated GPS track for a few kilometres, mainly through housing I began to wonder why I had not seen any red and white GR5 waymarks. Fearing that the route had been changed I turned around. As part of my planning I had downloaded another GPS track from the internet, although I have forgotten exactly where from. This suggested I should have taken a different route from Diest's ramparts. I wondered if this was the correct route. However as I walked back I noticed a waymark facing me, I reasoned that if they had changed the route, they might have forgotten to remove one waymark. A few hundred metres further on I spotted another waymark. Confused I again turned around and returned to the route in my guidebook passing the same two men in a garden for a third time. Leaving housing on a road onto woodland, my GPS indicated I should turn right into the trees by a "Private" sign. Despite the sign the path through the trees was well used so I followed it.

After the path and some road walking by fields and houses I returned to woodland. I was keen to look at the waymarks at the point where my two GPS tracks rejoined. At that junction there were clear red and white waymarks on the trees that looked newly painted. They indicated that I had picked the wrong route, my guidebook (and a Dutch one I found abandoned on a picnic table) were out of date. Later they parted again and this time I ignored my guidebook and its GPS track, and carefully followed the new waymarks.

Although mostly woodland and urban areas today, there were some meadows, this one with cows, in others hay had been cut and was being turned over.

The route to Lummen proved to be very crooked. Straight sections followed by sharp turns, and some switch backs where the trail went in the wrong direction. The revised route seemed even more erratic than the original. Certainly the GR5 picked a long way of getting from Diest to Lummen. There were a few points of interest, a thousand year old oak guarded by fencing and a memorial where a Lancaster bomber crashed in the Second World War. Only one member of the Australian Air Force crew survived.

Arriving in Lummen a little before the earliest check in time for my hotel I stopped for a coffee. Copying the cluster of ladies on a nearby table I ordered a pancake with jam as well. After checking into my hotel, showering and washing my "smalls" I visited a nearby Taverne and ordered a healthy chicken salad...which came with chips.