Intro:
Mist has its charms, but visibility is not one of them. We were lucky we could still see our own feet. We needed that because there was lots of mud on the trail.
After almost a year we went back to the GR 12 trail where we left it. Not that we had forgotten, or had given up ... it simply was getting more difficult to get there using the public transportation means.
It was a hike with lots of mist, water and mud, a ruin, a loose dog, illegal waste dumps, ... but also beautiful natural areas. In short, a hike to remember.
Back and forth:
According to the travel scheme proposed to us, we should reach our starting point in 2 hours 39 minutes. With trains riding on time that might have been the case, but lately our railroad company doesn't consider timeliness to be a priority.
We left Antwerpen-Centraal at 7.45 am and got to Brussel-Noord station without a problem. But there it went wrong. All trains were delayed by at least 10 minutes. The train to Binche (supposed to bring us to La Louvière-Sud) started with a 13 minutes delay, enough to make sure we would miss our connection there. In La Louvière-Sud we had to wait for the next train. That was a local train to Charleroi, bringing us to Piéton. There we waited another half an hour for TEC bus 91 to Montigny. Finally, at 11.25 am we reached Anderlues at the cross roads Au Roi des Belges, one hour late. A simple illustration of the absurd statistics system of the railroad company. To them this is a small 13 minutes delay, to us it meant a one hour delay. And we were lucky that bus drove every hour ... if not, we might as well have cancelled the hike alltogether.
From the cross roads Au Roi des Belges it's a 500 m. walk along the N90 to join the white/red signs.
The return trip went smooth. GR 12 passes by the train station of Ham-sur-Heure. At 5.17 pm a train took us to Charleroi-Sud and from there we went on to Antwerpen-Centraal.
The start of this hike can also be reached from Charleroi. That makes it possible to travel to Charleroi by car and to organise the hike using public transport from there on. In Charleroi you have to take tram 89 to Anderlues - Monument. It's a half an hour tram ride.
The hike:
The weather forecast had announced fog, but we didn't expect it to be that bad. Until well in the afternoon the visibility was limited to a mere 50 meters. After 2 pm the situation started improving somewhat and an hour later the sun managed to break through the clouds. However, that lasted only a little while ... twilight fell.
(click the picture for more images on Picasa)
During the first half of the hike we didn't get to see too much. We walked close to a few coal hills, but we could barely distinguish their outlines. On several occasions the topoguide mentioned panoramic views, but all we saw were white walls of clouds. What the fog couldn't hide were a number of litter dumps that probably gave us a totally distorted impression of the region. In Leernes we were lucky, we were able to perceive the strangely twisted church tower.
But mist also creates a silenced and intimate landscape. From Leernes the terrain became more hilly (we didn't see it but we sensed it very well) and once we had adapted ourselves to the special atmosphere the hike to the abbey ruins of Aulnes became really pleasant.
Somewhere past Leernes we noticed a dog had joined us. It just quietly walked with us. We're not experts, but it looked like a young animal that was used to human company. It wasn't the first time a dog accompanied us. Usually after a while they dissapear again. But this one stayed with us. It didn't have a collar, probably abandoned by a so-called dog lover ...
The dog didn't really bother us and it would have been easy to befriend it. However, we decided to ignore it as well as we could. We couldn't afford to become attached to it because there was no way we could take it with us.
Having arrived at the abbey ruins of Aulnes we crossed the gushing Sambre river. We wanted to take a break here and taste a local ADA beer. When we entered a tavern, the dog stayed outside and sat down right in front of the entrance door. We were secretly hoping it would forget about us and wonder off while we were inside. But not a minute later, we were barely seated, it started howling, it sounded so miserable. Everybody looked up and wondered what was happening. The landlord came and told us he didn't mind if we took our dog inside with us. Very friendly of him, but we pointed out that it wasn't our dog ... As soon as everybody had understood the situation and had taken a look at the dog, we were told not to worry too much. The dog would probably leave by itself after a while. Nobody even thought about try and take care of the poor dog. Sad, but what could we do about it?
As we had hoped, the dog had dissapeared when we left. Unfortunately, a mere 500 meters further down the road, we ran into it again, and yes, we were stuck with it again. All the ksss kssss's we knew couldn't discourage it, it simply stayed with us. In the beautiful and quiet Bois du Prince that wasn't a problem. However, in the even more beautiful Bois de Marbaix, we came upon a traffic road which we had to follow for a few hundred meters. Suddenly it became clear we had a big problem on our hands. The dog didn't care about the traffic and regularly walked on the road. Drivers had to break and even stop. We got nasty looks because they all thought we were irresponsible dog owners not even bothering to keep the dog on a leash. It became a really embarrassing situation. Explaining the situation wasn't an option, everybody drove off as soon as they could ...
Eventually we managed to enter the forest again without having caused any accidents. The dog had survived and so had we. We had to take a decision. The dog couldn't stay with us because at the next traffic road we would get into the same dangerous situation. We fed the dog our lunch (the poor beast looked starved) and then started to try and get rid of it. Gesturing, yelling, nothing helped, the dog kept following us. Never having had a dog, we really didn't know what to do. Finally, we started throwing stones at it, not too hard, we hated hurting it. At last our message got through. The dog stayed behind and dissapeared. It felt terrible, but without a leash or a rope it was impossible to take the dog with us and deliver it somewhere in a village where it could have been taken care of. We only risked causing an accident. All we could hope for is that the dog would survive until it were eventually picked up by a friendly local or a kennel service.
Anyway, this story illustrates how irresponsible, inhuman and criminal it is to abandon a dog like that. We know we can't be 100% sure whether the dog was indeed abandoned, but the fact that the collar was missing makes it highly probable.
The whole situation had seriously delayed us. Much later than planned we arrived at the hamlet of Odrimont. From here on the GR 12 trail follows the small river Eau d'Heure and the Charleroi - Philippeville railroad track that runs parallel with it. Meanwhile another trail joined our path, GR 129, not for long because a little further it splits off again to continue towards Dinant.
The twilight has set in when we arrive at Ham-sur-Heure, a little before 5 pm. No time to take a break here, because we have to get in time to the train station which is situated another 1,3 km. further up our track in the hamlet Hameau. That's a pity, the beautiful castle (now the townhall) and the cozy center of the village looked interesting enough for a relaxing moment after an eventful hike ...| < Prev | Next > |
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