Sunday 29 October 2017

Meerdaalbos - Adventure no. 109

Today was a rollercoaster of emotions. After about half an hour, we finally found our parking that we were fed up of.
At the start of the adventure, we were confused. There were these new signs saying “109 via 131”. At first we weren’t sure what that meant but we later figured out that to go to 109 we needed to go to 131 first. But our maps weren’t the same as the new signs. We followed the route to 109, then 110. Then we sat at a bench next to 110. Tonio tried to figure out what was going on. I didn’t know what was going on but I trusted him to lead the way.

We stopped at a bench again (Tonio's hip was hurting and it was going to be a long walk) [Tonio: to clarify - just a measure of caution] and we looked at a patch of trees. I’ll show you why this is important later.
Gianluca rightly insisted to take a picture here
This route was proving to be very long. As I think of it now it was quite the opposite of the last adventure. The weather was all grey today, today was more about our conversations and our emotions, today was in the forest and today was probably the longest walk we've been to. Tonio can’t even think of anything in common except the obvious that we're in Dijleland and that we're in Belgium.
In this adventure we were zigzagging around a road and then we went back to 109 by that road. We met the same patch of trees that were separated by this road. Somehow, we started an argument on whether these trees are a patch or not. Clearly they are because they are only a small part of the forest and the only thing separating it is the road. We gave up on trying to convince one another and drove away, tired. A very nice adventure though.
We had a huge argument about this group of trees
A picnic table for giants
Did you enjoy our, like I said, rollercoaster of emotions in this adventure? If you have, make sure to join us on the next one in Adventures In Dijleland!

GianlucaDeGringu


 

[Tonio]:

Again, road works and closures made it difficult for us to get to Sint Joris Weert for the start of our adventure from no. 109. This time, I switched on Google Maps and finally we arrived at the car park next to Meerdaalwoud.



More problems ensued as the numbers have been messed up somewhat in this area, with new ones added creating confusion as regards the trails we needed to follow. The route we had planned for today was particularly long, so at one point, after following signs saying something like, "110 via 127", I had the suspicion that we were going a different and even longer trek and that we were effectively lost. Once more, it was good old Google Maps that saved the day: I could confirm that we were in the correct position after all.



From then on the walk proceeded well. From start to finish today we walked along forest paths surrounded by tall trees. The highlight of our discussions was certainly an argument we had about a group of trees that Gianluca had spotted while we were trying to find our bearings. Much later, in another section of the forest, he remarked that we were passing through the same group of trees. I insisted that this couldn't be as we were far away from that spot. We never reached an agreement on this.

It took us a long time to get back to the car, but once there we were satisfied at having completed a rather difficult and eventful adventure. Our legs could take a well deserved rest.

Gianluca: "Why are you taking a picture of this tree stump?"
Tonio: "Because it looks interesting."


No comments:

Post a Comment