Intro:
Saturday, January 29th, a beautiful winterday, but sadly enough not an interesting GR 564 hike.
After having made 3 very nice hikes in a row on this trail, we might have expected that it wouldn't continue this way. From Hasselt on we found ourselves in a completely different landscape. More houses everywhere, more fertile land, much less forests and an almost complete lack of unhardened paths.
We saw the country becoming slightly hilly and we ended up between the same orchards that we visited last year on the GR 128 trail.
But all these changes and the few positive exceptions (such as the river Demer southeast of Hasselt and the alluvial plain of the river Herk near Wellen) could not turn this hike into a positive experience. All in all it was a boring hike over mostly concrete and asphalt covered roads. It's sad to realize that in these intensely cultivated areas almost no unhardened paths are left.
Back and forth:
Start and finish of this hike are easily reached from the train station of Hasselt.
The start is situated on the road Hasselt - Genk (N75) near a busstop named Heidestraat. Take Bus 1 in the direction of Genk. Traveltime is 14 minutes.
From Wellen you can take Bus 38 which will bring you every two hours to Hasselt station in less than 30 minutes. The busstop is called Klooster and is situated a little further in the centre of the village. There's also an on-call bus service. The latter will be your only alternative if you come here on a Sunday.
(since the topoguide isn't sold anymore, we exceptionally publish the GR track of this hike; the track reflects the trail we hiked, taking into account all changes we found on the local GR organisation's website, as well as onsite; keep in mind that this track has been recorded at a given time, so there's no guarantees that it will remain valid)
The hike:
Crossing the Albert Canal we say goodbye to the Kempen region with it's many heath and forest areas. Poor soils, but that's probably the reason why they're so well equiped and attractive for hikers.
We cross the canal at the lock complex of Godsheide, noticing a rather impressive drop in the water level of 10 m..
Click on the picture for more on Picasa
We walk away from Hasselt in a southeastern direction, through the hamlet of Godsheide, circling around the vast grounds of the Flemish-Japanese Golf- and Businessclub, heading for Diepenbeek. There's no lack of golf-courses in this region. We passed another one during our previous hike along this GR 564 trail.
Getting to the motorway Hasselt - Genk (N702) we cross the canalized Demer. This little river will be our guide to Diepenbeek. We follow a concrete cycling path (Limburg cycling paradise), pass by the University Campus of Limburg and then notice an undocumented change in the trail. The topoguide tells us to continu along the asphalted Peperstraat untill meeting the road Hasselt - Maastricht. Instead of doing that we have to stick to the (more recent) cycling path which brings us - via the castle of Diepenbeek - to the trainstation of the village. The change is a definite improvement and is well signposted along the way. A little bit further, the trail connects back to the original itinerary and leads us into the centre of Diepenbeek.
Leaving the village we come upon a part of the track that's difficult to follow. The trail hasn't changed, but the signs (and even the path) are sometimes hard to spot or have disappeared altogether. This goes on almost up to where the trail crosses the E313 highway. Without the help of our topoguide we woudn't have managed to stay on track.
On the other side of the highway the hike becomes really boring. Long asphalt roads during many kilometres don't seem to end ... The only highlights to remember are that the landscape becomes slightly but visibly hilly, and that 2 classified historical monuments are passed: the Luimertingen watermill on the Mombeek brook and the castle-farm Printhagen.
Meanwhile we also noticed the first orchards, meaning that we entered the famous fruit-culture region. Unfortunately in wintertime the orchards don't offer the fairy-like views that can be seen in the spring when the trees blossom.
The quality of this GR hike only starts to improve when we've passed the hamlet of Bos (part of the village of Wellen). The last kilometres lead us through the alluvial plain of the river Herk. It's a stretch of watery lowlands along the river Herk and the brooks Oude Beek and Grote Beemdbeek. The trail is not obvious, so watch out. Furthermore we were lucky that the soil was well frozen, otherwise we wouldn't have made it with dry feet.
Finally we arrive at the fringes of Wellen. The river Herk leads us to the center.We walked fast. Almost 22 km. in merely 4 hours 45 minutes, including a few short stops for a snack and some coffee. That's the only advantage of the combination of a cold day and a boring hike: fast walking kept us warm and made us reach our end target faster which means more time for a good glass of beer.
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