MikePadgett.com

Mud in the Hageland

— It can take just a few days' rain to turn much of Flanders into a sticky morass.”

On the weekend after Armistice Day, I was reminded that the British have a difficult history with the Flanders mud. In the Hageland, it’s rusty, oozy, sticky stuff and it takes just a few days’ rain to turn into a morass.

In the Walenbos, the forecast of a dry day quickly turned sour and the mud became almost impassable. We we forced to leave the path many times in order to follow our route.

• Walking route: Houwaart – Walenbos – Roeselberg – Houwaart – (loop) detailed commentary
• Distance: 14km
• Original route by Gert Sonck at Originele wandelingen in België

Detailed commentary

Larger map of this route

1. From Haldertstraat, take the path between the church and house number 25. At the end of the churchyard wall, go straight on and when the path splits at another cemetery, turn left. Follow the edge of a field, turning right on the corner of it. On reaching a chapel, turn right. Turn left at the first intersection onto a grassy path. This path climbs gently to the right and then straightens out, running beside a vineyard as far as the Houwaartsebergweg. Turn right onto it.
2. Opposite house number 70, turn right onto a path. Follow the line of the woods going downhill on a grassy path between vineyard and forest, bending left as it continues alongside the vineyards. At the treeline of the next woodland, turn left uphill. Just before reaching asphalt again, turn right into the next vineyard on a path that runs along its edge; at the end of this path head gently downhill to the houses.
3. At a crossroads with a street, turn left and go gently uphill then turn right onto the Wijngaardstraat. Follow this to its end at a crossroads: here take the gravel walk opposite that heads into the woodland. Keep heading right and follow alongside the northern edge of the wood.
4. With a pine forest to the left and at the point of reaching a clearing on the right (there’s a lookout tower in it), turn right onto a narrow path into the woods which may be hard to spot at first when leaves cover the ground. This path rises and arrives at an asphalt road. Cross over and take the left of two paths. Go downhill and take the first left turn left, climbing more steeply before reaching the same road as a moment ago. Cross over and take the right of two paths along the edge of a meadow, then into the woods. Emerging at a crossroads: turn immediately right and shortly after right again onto the track signed Kaaskorf. At the junction with a road, ignore the track opposite and instead turn right onto the road then a moment later, head left onto a forest path going downhill.
5. The path bends to the left, eventually reaching an asphalt road. Go right on the road just a few metres, then left along the edge of a field as far as a field track. Go left on this track then turn right at the end onto another track, the Sluiweg.
6. Follow the Sluiweg past a lone house and into the woods. Soon after the track crosses over a brook and before the forest ends, an information board and a wide gate can be seen on the right: turn right here, pass the board and the gate onto a wide, straight track.
7. Follow the track between a spring on the left and an environmental test station on the right, going straight towards the woodland. Continue on a broad and (potentially very) muddy track until a junction with an equally wide, equally muddy track at a right angle on the left. Turn left into this. At the end of this track, level with the top corner of a meadow, turn right.
8. Continue along the top side of the meadow, bending away from it and coming to a T-junction. Turn left here and after a hundred metres, cross a stream on a very basic bridge consisting of two planks. Look carefully to the right at the planks: there’s a less well-trodden path on the right. Join this and continue between two water channels. The path bends to the left and eventually reaches another stream. Cross the stream and then just after, rather than continue to the gate up ahead, turn right onto a path running alongside a fence. This fence may be electrified and the path may also be quite muddy.
9. At the next junction of paths, go left and pass an electric gate, following straight on for more than 700 metres. At the end, turn right onto a marked path and on reaching the next corner, when another gate can be seen on the track up ahead to the left, go straight on instead and into the woodlands. Follow this path until its end at a T-junction just in front of a clearing.
10. Turn right at the T-junction and follow the edge of a large, rather murky pond until the corner of it is reached. Turn left along the top edge of the pond and then left again along the far end of the pond. The track bends off uphill to the right: follow it as far as the asphalt road.
11. Cross over the road and go straight onto the Motbroekstraat, climbing very gently. At the junction with another asphalt road (Kleerbeekstraat) turn right onto it. Follow this road to the right in the direction of a mast. Passing the mast, the road becomes a field track. Follow it to the end.
12. On reaching the asphalt road (Roeselberg), turn left and the road begins to descend. At house number 15, leave the road on a path to the right running downhill. This path then follows beside a field. Just after the end of the field, turn right into the woodland on a marked path. After a few hundred meters the path makes a left turn, so continue that way, with the same marking. Continue between water channels and after a small bridge, turn left onto a gangway which could be very muddy and in a state of disrepair. The path eventually emerges from the Walenbos.
13. Turn right at number 16 on the Kriebekestraat and go straight. At a crossroads of paths between meadows and fields, turn left onto a path that runs between fences. This path joins the Halderstraat. Turn left to arrive back at the church.