Probably the warmest December adventure yet

Today, we had quite a strange adventure. Not like that’s unusual or anything.

We started off having to pass through 216 as there was no parking and we saw once again a very familiar river. Once reaching 219 we set off for a muddy adventure.

Throughout the adventure we had this big long conversation about percentages and how you can say 'probably' to any yes or no question that has a probability from 0 to 1 including 1. This is true except for 0. You can’t say probably to a probability if you know for a fact that the probability would be zero (unless you are being sarcastic).

We came into this very strange clearing and I suggested we take the first video ever taken on this blog because we wanted to show the full 360 view of the scenery. Here it is:

At one point we met quite a few animals of the day. The first ones were 3 chickens that didn't interact with us much. The second was a field of many sheep (or at least we thought they were sheep). Tonio made a bad joke when he saw a black sheep. He said that it was the black sheep of the family. Very funny Tonio. The third animal was two ducks waddling around in the mud and the final animals were two cows  in the same field as the ducks.

After the adventure we decided to go to a 'friterie' that replaced a restaurant called 'Italia Grill'. We both shared a small chips and I had a coke.

But after all that, we went back to the car and drove home... Did you enjoy this adventure? If you have then make sure to join us on our next one. Also, make sure to check out Tonio's blog called The Wanderer. But for now, that’s all folks!

GianlucaDeGringu

A beautiful rose next to a memorial stone. Pictures by Gianluca.

[Tonio]: 

On the very last day of 2018 we squeezed in another adventure: number 219 around the Margijsbos forest, close to Loonbeek.

As is customary, I started taking pictures even before the 'official' beginning of our walk.

'Yet another picture of this watermill,' according to Gianluca.

As is also customary, the walk had a unique character of its own. While navigating our way I came up with my 'Theory of Probability'. This states that you can reply to any yes/no question with one word: 'Probably', the only exception being if you're 100% certain that the answer is no. A very low probability is still a probability. A certainty ('yes') is a probability of one, or 100%. All qualifying as 'probably', meaning that there is a non-zero level of probability, except if the probability is zero (i.e. the answer is a definite 'no'). We considered different scenarios illustrating this theory, Gianluca quickly working the formula to perfection by answering 'Probably' to most of my questions... We had an argument about whether what looked like a concrete bunker could have been formed naturally, purely by incredibly unlikely coincidence. I insisted this was absolutely impossible but Gianluca maintained that the probability, even though incredibly small, was still there. The pupil beating the master at his own game. We also pondered on the 'astronomically' small probability of the structure having been built by aliens. And so it went on through the muddy paths...

Earlier, while walking through an open plain with fields all around and some distance away from the edge of the forest, Gianluca suggested I take a 360 degree video scan of the surroundings. It was our first video (up above) taken for this blog.

Dull and dreary as it was, it was quiet and pleasant and I managed to take some interesting pictures, while of course enjoying the banter with my 'pupil'.

My silly quip of the day: 'The black sheep of the family'. I just couldn't resist.

A very snowy adventure - No. 205

Today, we had a long adventure. We went on and on about things and the adventure seemed to stretch on for ever. Not in a bad way of course.

We decided to go early in the morning before the snow melted. It was a good idea and we had a mix of snow and grass. It looked perfect for an adventure. If only Sue could have come with us on this adventure. It would have been even better than the last.

We started walking next to the fields of snow. It was such a difference from last week when there was no snow at all. Maybe a bit of ice but that was it. I managed to take a very lucky picture. I took a picture of Tonio walking and the view to his left. He turned to see what I was doing and I took the picture while he was turning. It ended up looking like he is looking at the view to his left. What a lucky picture.

We saw what looked like a chocolate cake with icing. The icing was actually icing (snow) and the chocolate was soil. That is the third time soil looked like chocolate on our adventures but this time it looked the most like chocolate.

Tonio asked me what frogs do in the winter. As they are cold blooded they freeze too, right? I answered by saying that certain types of frog do just that then continue their lives once the ice melts and there are others that find shelter in deep lakes where it’s less cold than the surface.

Towards the end I wanted to do an angel on the snow (a "snow angel") and this was the result:

And finally, we went back to the car and drove off. Did you enjoy it? If you have then make sure to join us on our next adventure. Also make sure to check out Tonio's blog called The Wanderer. But for now, goodbye!

GianlucaDeGringu 

[by Tonio:]

It snowed quite a bit on Friday and the following morning we woke up to a Belgium covered in white. The forecast was that the temperature would go up to well over zero during the day, so I suggested we go for this weekend's adventure on a Saturday morning, before all the snow melted.

What a show!

We parked next to no. 205, from where we had walked last time. Today's was, yet again, a continuation of the eastward progression, starting from the edge of Overijse into Huldenberg, Loonbeek and now Neerijse. This is almost all agricultural landscape: fields and farms. The last few weeks it was cold with sun and cloud creating a spectacle of their own. Today, the same terrain looked so much different covered with snow.

Different animals used different modes of locomotion along this passage

We appreciated, in particular, the "croaky" sound as we trudged on the fresh snow. We enjoyed observing marks made by previous walkers - human and animal. The arrow shaped prints made by pheasants, round shaped marks probably of a dog's paws, and of course human footprints, or rather shoe prints. At one point, trying to step on these same prints myself, I was puzzled at the long steps the previous walker had taken. Then it clicked, and as a (previous) runner I should be ashamed for not having realised this at once: they were the prints of a jogger.

Our first encounter with animals today was with horses. The poor chaps were too cold to take any interest whatever in us. They stood or lay on the ground motionless to conserve energy. Luckily for them, it would later warm up substantially. We also saw pheasants, a farm dog which wanted to play with Gianluca while he was trying to tie his shoelaces... and a silly man with a child's brain driving around in the country lanes with his 4x4 jeep or whatever. Gianluca recognised the same driver from a couple of weeks back driving a sort of rally car in the mud on that occasion. Mercifully, we encountered Mr Child Brain only once, although I suspect the tyre tracks we saw throughout our otherwise wonderful walk had been left there by him.

One animal that we didn't see, but which we discussed, was frogs. This was the result of my remarking on the croaky sound underfoot. I then wondered what happens to frogs when it freezes. Being cold blooded animals, I reasoned that frogs should naturally and quite literally freeze too. Gianluca then mentioned a species of frog that freezes itself in autumn to thaw back to life in spring. But I wondered about other species of frogs. I'll need to do research on this.

An old war bunker transformed into a winter shelter for bats

An hour and a half after the start of our walk, we came back to the car to notice that the landscape was indeed thawing out. We had come just at the right moment to experience the Belgian winter countryside at its most beautiful.

A 'special' adventure with Sue - no. 204 at Loonbeek

As you have seen in the title, there is something special about this adventure. Today, we have brought with us Sue, my mother. She hadn’t been outside for a while and it was a nice day so we decided to go for an adventure together.

We started off on a path that quickly went off the beaten path. Ice littered all of the nooks and crannies everywhere. Many times I couldn’t resist picking up a pebble and throwing it at the ice.

The view varied a number of times from dry soil everywhere around to a farmhouse. The good thing for Sue was that she chose the perfect time to join us. This was one of the nicer adventures. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the warmest. The wind seemed to always be against us and it only seemed to get colder as we continued. Luckily, Tonio prepared some hand warmers for us. These hand warmers go on for about 8 hours so even a few hours after the adventure I was using it to warm our hands.

And finally, we went back to the car and drove home...

Did you enjoy our adventure? If you have then make sure to join us on our next adventure in Adventures In Dijleland. Also, check out Tonio's blog called The Wanderer. But for now,
goodbye!

GianlucaDeGringu

[by Tonio]:

We had a special guest with us today: Sue. For her, we reserved one of the most beautiful walks since a long time. It was sunny - our third successive adventure with sun shining into our faces during the second half of the walk. Not bad for winter in Belgium.



But it was also freezing, and this created an interesting effect on the ground. In the previous two weeks, the sky stole the show with an interesting interplay between sunlight and constantly changing cloud formations. Today, with no clouds at all and a brilliant blue sky, our attention turned to the ground.

We saw icy puddles, many of which Gianluca tested for solidity by hurling stones at them...

... martian landscapes:

... and strange icy shapes. Curiously, in some cases where puddles had frozen over the surface formed like a glass sheet with a void underneath. Pity that, a few seconds after this picture was taken the heart shaped loop was no more, having been shattered by you-know-who. With the forecast temperatures, it had every chance of remaining intact for a whole week. Oh, well.

Interesting and photogenic as our outing was today, we were glad to go back inside the heated interior of the car and back home for a warm coffee.