Lummen to Stokrooie: E2 Day 113

Another short day wandering through woodland to the sounds of a race track and robins.

Blue skies greeted me this morning as I left Lummen. There were long queues of cars on the roads, which I had also seen on the yesterday evening, they were out of proportion with the small size of the town. However I was soon on a fenced path through fields of cows. Pink ragged robin flowered by a ditch and tall poplar trees lined my route reminding me of rural French roads. I pitied those still sitting in traffic trying to drive to work.

Walking down an avenue of poplars.

The GR5 continued to take a very convoluted route, spending a significant part of the day heading away from my destination. Such a path enabled it to maximize the time spent in woodland, reducing amount of walking through housing or along roads. However, the surveyors of the GR5 could not avoid the sound of high powered cars intruding into the quiet of the forest. The Zonder race track was nearby, and from what little I could see of it from the one point I came close to the doubly fenced track, street legal cars were being driven around the track at speed, their tyres squealing at a corner. Nevertheless at times, it was quiet enough to here a robin's song from a nearby tree and another robin replying some distance away. 

The main area of forest I visited had the familiar mixture of tall pines, oak and other deciduous trees in the understorey, growing in sandy soils. There were several lakes, fringed by reeds, with a few ducks, and a viewpoint on a low hill. A Pilgrim's Cross had stones piled around it. I was unable to read the sign in Dutch but maybe it was part of some pilgrimage that involved carrying a pebble from one place to another? The cross was by a building inspired by "The hermitage of Our Lady of Loreto" in Italy.

Lake in the woods.

Panorama from a rare viewpoint, which looks rural despite the large urban areas nearby.

On returning to a road I had crossed earlier that day, parents were lining up to take their children home, maybe for lunch as it was about midday. I stopped for a croque monsieur at a restaurant nearby. After that it was a walk in an area of parkland in which the GR5 crossed a lake on a raised wooden boardwalk. Finally I arrived at the large Albert Canal for the second time today, and admired the very long barges. I wondered how they managed to turn around as they were far to large to do so in the canal, presumably there are wider parts designed for such manoeuvres. (The propeller symbols I noticed on the bows of many barges indicated they had bow thrusters which would assist turning in a tight space).

The bridge I crossed the first time my route visited the Albert Canal today. Bridges further east looked very similar.

Raised walkway across a lake.

My bed and breakfast tonight is called the House of Java. I had thought maybe it was a coffee shop but no, it had the name as there was an Indonesian connection. A little different to the hotels I had been staying at in the Low Countries, for example instead of a shower, there was a bath. On hearing I was walking, the owner brought me a bottle of green liquid to use in the bath to relax my limbs, so now I am smelling of fresh pine!

Before dinner I returned to the Albert Canal and watched from a bridge a wide barge with a square front (probably two barges attached to each other) being pushed by a vessel at the back. Not at all streamlined there was a wide "bow" wave in front of it. A lengthy barge with blocks of stone in its hold was coming the other way at a faster pace. Some skill must be needed to avoid collisions in the confined waterway with these ungainly vessels. The canal runs from Antwerp to Liege and seems to carry a lot of traffic.

I walked up the road to find a café for my evening meal and stopped at the first one open. To simplify matters I asked for the same dish as another customer was eating, which on closer examination was a vol-au-vent with chicken and mushrooms in a creamy sauce similar to one I had on my first night in Belgium. Inevitably, it came with chips and mayonnaise. The other customer and I exchanged a few words: where was I from and what was I doing? When I said I had not seen or heard much French, he said that part of the country started 40 kilometres further south. He felt that those in the Flemish north of the country worked much harder.