Lumaj wandelt

Intro:

The weather was nice and dry, but that couldn't change our negative opinion about this hike. Almost all the time we had to walk on paved roads, progressing through a dull landscape, which even made this a worse experience then the previous hike on this same GR trail.
More and more we're convinced that it's impossible to find interesting hiking paths in the region Tielt - Deinze - Leie, not on the GR 128 trail, and not on the GR 129 trail. Although there's still some nice views and a few remarkable churchtowers, they can't hide the fact that this really is an uninteresting area completely covered with concrete and asphalt for the sake of the agricultural industry.
Let's hope the next hike towards Oudenaarde will be better ...

Back and forth:

The easiest way to reach Aarsele is by using the Dial-a-bus service. We traveled by train from Antwerpen to Gent. There we had to change for the train to De Panne. Get off this train in Tielt and board the Dial-a-bus (nr. 77) that will get you to Aarsele. Don't forget to make your reservation. The trip normally takes about 2 hours.
That's how it should be, if the railway company had done what it promised ... In this case it didn't. It went wrong from the start in Antwerpen. A "boarding-incident" caused a small delay, which was correctly announced by the train guard once the train started rolling. For some unknown reason, the delay kept getting bigger during the trip and once we arrived in Lokeren, the train fully stopped and stayed there. No information whatsoever. The only thing we were sure of by that time is that we had missed the next train in Gent. Finally, after standing still for over 15 minutes, someone came by to tell us that our train was cancelled and that we had to change to another train (going to Kortrijk). It was waiting for us on a different platform. The reason: without a train guard our train couldn't continu the journey !!!??? Apparently, from Sint-Niklaas we were missing our train guard ... normally this kind of announcement would cause general hilarity, but as travelers it only caused us trouble. All we could do was to call the Dial-a-bus service to try to delay our reservation with one hour. That was no problem.

The trip back from Lozer went smoothly. At the edge of the village on the N437 main road, there's a busstop where bus 44 (destination Oudenaarde) takes you to the little train station of Zingem. A stopping train takes you to Gent and from there on you can travel anywhere. The trip to Antwerpen took us 1 h. 45 min.
Nevertheless, something weird struck us. The stopping train had 6 carriages, an enormous capacity for only a fistful of passengers. The usually very busy IC-train Gent - Antwerpen had only 3 carriages and was completely full up to the last seat ... You don't need to be a transport expert to know that this capacity is by no means an example of good planning.

The above are only a few personal examples of things going wrong when trying to travel somewhere. Regular public transport users can add many more examples, reflecting the general feeling that the quality and service are rapidly deteriorating. Knowing this, we can't understand why public transportation companies in our country are constantly put under ever more severe savings and privatisation pressures, while enormous (public) and ever increasing budgets can be spent on road transport. The same goes for the sad neglect of our waterways, something we could witness ourselves during this hike along the river Leie. Everyone seems to agree that absolute priority should be given to public transport and other alternative means of transport, and that road transport should be severely limited. But that's only words. In reality it's just the other way around. Crude opportunism, short-sightedness and general lack of courage amongst our politicians will have far-reaching negative consequences for decades to come ... should we thank them for that?

The hike:

The start was promising. The village of Aarsele is situated at a higher altitude compared to the surrounding landscape. This results in nice panoramic views on the valley of the river Leie. Our feet were even allowed to touch an unpaved path. But that didn't last for long. One kilometer further, arriving at the N35 (Tielt - Deinze) mainroad, the hike continued along dull asphalted roads.

(click the picture for more images on Picasa)

Having reached the railway track of the line Gent - De Panne, we arrive at the point where the GR 129 and GR 128 trails cross. Those who read the reports we wrote earlier when passing through this region on the GR 128 trail, will know that already then we didn't think much about the quality of those hikes. We had the same remark: too much asphalt and concrete. We can only conclude that it must be very difficult to find interesting and attractive hiking trails around here.
Maybe someone should organise a contest? Or why don't the communities accept the challenge to design ways to cross their territory using only unpaved roads (except when coming into the built-up areas)? Connecting those paths to the neighbouring communities' similar paths might only turn Flanders into a cozier and friendlier place.

In Wontergem we walk into Lucien Buysse's sculpted body. As an authentic 'Flandrien' he won the Tour de France in 1926. It were heroic times when cyclists, on their primitive bikes, carrying their own spare tires and without the help of all those technological gadgets we are used to today, had to fight their lonely battles against the cobble stones. Their nearest rivals were often hours away. Interesting thoughts to have while shuffling our feet over smoothly paved roads on our way to Gottem.
As was the case in Lotenhulle during our previous hike on this trail, in Gottem we also find an octagonal churchtower that still refers to the original roman church. Further along the trail we'll meet another one in Machelen. It strikes us that building styles used to be very much associated with the local regions. Some months ago on the GR 564 trail we noticed several sturdy looking square towers in the region of Landen. They're completely different. GR trails are ideal in helping us to learn about the rich diversity that used to characterise our country.

Past Gottem we get to the river Leie and shortly walk along it until the bridge of Machelen. The river itself we don't get to see, except from the bridge. The river bank is hidden by thick bushes and at several places there are hastily built fences with signboards "Don't enter, danger!". Standing on the bridge we can see why. The river bank is crumbling and judging from the wooden poles in the river that mark these places for the ships, this is not a recent phenomenom.

At last we meet with a nice stretch of GR path that follows an old river branch, bringing us into the center of Machelen. The church and the newly built landing stage along the bent in the river make this a nice place to sit and have our picknick. We let our thoughts slowly drift away over the quiet water mirror.
Mirrors are also what we meet some 150 m. further in the Wall of Imagination, a work of art of the famous Roger Raveel, an artist born in this village. He uses mirrors to fill up voids in his figures, while at the same time making them become part of the world around them. We don't pretend to be even a mere shadow of this influential artistic genious, but we can understand that we're indeed the product of the continuing interaction with our environment. We're not really sure if that's what he meant, but the mere fact that he made us think a bit about ourselves is his enormous merit. Thank you Mr. Raveel.

There's nothing much to tell about the next 7 km. It's a dull hike towards a hill crest that separates the basins of the rivers Leie and Schelde. We rise to an impressive altitude of 50 m. where we can take a break near and on a watchtower that is overlooking the valley of the river Leie. It certainly looks a lot better from above than it did when we were hiking through it.

The final kilometers of this hike take us to the Lozerbos, a rare little piece of forest in this region that we owe to the protection of the noble family della Faille d'Huysse. Having lived here since 1654 they also were instrumental in building the little hamlet of Lozer. Some 250 m. from our GR path we find a tavern with a nice terrace where our feet can recover a bit from the hard surfaces they had to walk on for almost 20 km. The center of Lozer lies 1 km. further, it's the end of this uneventful hike on the GR 129 trail.