Autumn walk at Porte de Drossart
Last weekend, Kabouter and I were on our own again. Since it was nice automn weather and the woods are at its full glory at this moment, I deceded to drive to the Ardennes with the 2 of us for 24h. Most of the nearby forests are pine, but I studied our many detailed walking maps of the nature reserves to identify the broad leaved tree woods that might be accessible with a stroller.
Naptime and a toddler who refused to eat messed up my timing schedule so instead of driving to my favourite autumn forest which would be a 30-45 min drive at the German border , I decided to risk a new area of the Hertogenwald that is actually on my regular drive home. They area would have mixtures of pine forest and broad leaved forest nearby a convenient parking lot with lots of trails leaving in all directions.
The leaving in all driections was a bit of an issue: once on the parking lot I could see the "yellow" "blue", "green" walks leaving towards the bogfields but not my intended "red" walk that would lead me down the valley near a river full of color changing trees. I started off a nice broad path but since there was no signage at all, I started to doubt my map reading skills, feared I'd get stuck with the stroller on an inaccessible road all of a sudden and therefore returned a bit frustrated on my steps. So after 20 min and a km of walking, we were back at the parking lot where we headed towards the other , well signed walks.
Naptime and a toddler who refused to eat messed up my timing schedule so instead of driving to my favourite autumn forest which would be a 30-45 min drive at the German border , I decided to risk a new area of the Hertogenwald that is actually on my regular drive home. They area would have mixtures of pine forest and broad leaved forest nearby a convenient parking lot with lots of trails leaving in all directions.
The leaving in all driections was a bit of an issue: once on the parking lot I could see the "yellow" "blue", "green" walks leaving towards the bogfields but not my intended "red" walk that would lead me down the valley near a river full of color changing trees. I started off a nice broad path but since there was no signage at all, I started to doubt my map reading skills, feared I'd get stuck with the stroller on an inaccessible road all of a sudden and therefore returned a bit frustrated on my steps. So after 20 min and a km of walking, we were back at the parking lot where we headed towards the other , well signed walks.
Even though I wasn't in my "river valley full of color changed autumn leaved trees", the trail was wonderful with a mixture of open spaces, pine wood and some mixed forest and the weather was just adorable. We saw a multitude of gorgeous fungi.
We progressed at zero speed whatsoever as Kabouter decided and remained determined that he'd get out of his stroller and push his own stroller. Mommy was not allowed to help whatsoever, he was going to do this on his own. So he pushed and pushed and ...pushed the stroller in the ditch. So I re-positioned the stroller on the trail and he pushed and pushed....and pushed the stroller in the ditch. So I re-positioned the stroller on the trail and he pushed and pushed....and pushed the stroller in the ditch. So I re-positioned the stroller on the trail and he pushed and pushed....and pushed the stroller in the ditch.
After about an hour on our "walk" we still found ourself within sound distance of the parking lot and road but I guess we were having good fun. At least I had plenty of time to take some pictures, spot the migrating birds passing above us etc.
After while, Kabouter gave up pushing the stroller and we advanced a bit deeper in the woods where we discovered a little canal providing the no longer existing historic wool industry in the area with water. By then it was time to turn around and head home.
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