Intro:
This time not a day hike with public transport, but a 3-day hike with the combination car / bycicle.
We drove to Mentque-Norbecourt where we picked up the GR 128 trail. The previous hikes on this trail showed us a beautiful region, but because it's so hard to get there by public transport, we always postponed the rest of the trail.
The high expectations we had were completely fulfilled. The next 70 km. can undoubtedly be classified with the better hiking work.
Let's start by presenting our report on the first 20 km.
Back and forth:
Forget it if you want to reach the start of this hike from Antwerpen using public transport. There is public transport, but the time it takes to get there is simply too long to make it in one day.
That's why we decided to go for the combination car / bycicle. Leaving quite early it's possible to organise the hike in one day, but you'll have to drive 450 km. We solved that problem by making it a 3-days hike.
We found a cheap hotel near St-Omer and used it as our base from where we could reach the different hiking destinations.
Day 1 (thursday 15/4) we drove to Wulverdinghe and parked the car in front of the townhall. From there it went by bike to Mentque-Norbécourt. We had a good look at the map to find the best and the shortest way which was not much of a problem. Just take into account that the landscape is not flat. The hardest slope is reached just before arriving at Mentque, but then you know you're almost there. There's a little café in Mentque, ideal to recover your senses over a coffee. We were allowed to park the bike somewhere inside the courtyard, so we didn't really have to worry about it being stolen.
Reaching Wulverdinghe we were right back at the car. We changed for some lighter shoes, drove back to Mentque and picked up the bike. The only thing left to do was to drive on to St-Omer where we checked into the hotel. We spent the evening as any typical tourist would do in a little town.
The hike:
(Click the picture for more images on Picasa)
We left Mentque before we knew it and a few hundred meters further we were standing amidst the slooping fields. Except for a few farms and a distant village, there's nothing here. Only vast fields and from time to time a crossing with a traffic road. There was a harsh cold wind blowing over this open landscape. Our trail went right against it. Fortunately the sun was there too and that made up a lot.
After a 4 km. hike we arrived in Bayenghem, a small village which is part of the community of Eperlecques.
Eperlecques is also the name of the vast forest we can distinguish in the distance on top of a hill. That's where the trail is guiding us. As was also the case on our previous hike, we walk by a V6 launching platform, implanted just inside the edge of the forest, so the installation woudn't be visible from the air for the allied ennemies.
The hill crest we're on now once again offers marvellous views over the country and the coastal plain. The views are slightly hazy but nevertheless we can distinguish places like Gravelines and Calais. England is too far away and hides somewhere behind the sea and the mist. However, the launching platform points in the right direction. All you see are two simple concrete walls, but they perfectly illustrate the course of the first unmanned missiles as they were fired here to bring death and destruction on the other side of the Channel in invisible London. A spectacular invention, once again born out of the insatiable hunger for power from a few madmen ... There don't seem to be any limits to our creativity to kill others ever more efficiently.
All these gloomy thoughts quickly vanish when finally we enter the Forêt d'Eperlecques. Initially we notice a small field of grove windflowers, but they're the only ones we'll see. The forest has a lot of undergrowth, and that's not what these little fragile flowers are looking for. We're entering the forest walking along a traffic road, but soon it turns into an almost straight 5 km. long forest path that leads us from east to west all the way through it. The map in our topoguide shows a dense forest, but large parts of it just seem to be open fields. Maintenance works? Or destructions caused by the terrible storms that raged over the country the past few years? We suppose the forestry managers know what they're doing. The forest itself cannot be entered. It's fenced off, or signboards indicate that it's private property and no tresspassing is allowed.
Reaching the other side of the forest we suddenly notice the church tower of Watten. A nice sight from within the tunnel of trees we're now leaving.
Watten is a strategically situated place. The town grew along the shores of the river Aa, which had found itself a narrow passage here between two hills to finally continue its course towards Gravelines at the North Sea. By now the river has been canalized, but approaching the town you can still notice an old arm of it.
The area between Watten and St-Omer which is situated 10 km. further to the south, is known as the Audomarois, the Clairmarais or the Pan of St-Omer. It's a rather flat region where the river created large swamps before it could make its way towards the coastal plain at Watten. In the early Middle Ages monks started developing the area by building water mills. Constructing a maze of narrow canals and brooks they reclaimed small pieces of land and started cultivating them. It's what made the region unique and special in its kind. But that's something we'll get to see on the next hike.
All we could do was get into the car and drive back to Mentque-Norbécourt to pick up the bike and to gratefully sit down in the little café there. The hostess, having long reached the age of retirement, explained that there used to be 3 cafés in the village ... 'The people here, Monsieur, they didn't have alcohol in the house. But nowadays their personal bar in the sitting room offers a wider choice than we can afford in our café. It is what it is Monsieur'.
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