Walk in the Warche valley around Reinhardstein castle

The Past Monday was a glorious sunny day and the rest of the week promised to be more cloudy. So if there was any day that I wanted to make a nice walk, it was Monday. Kabouter requested to walk on forest trails. When I proposed to the boys to make a challenging walk in the woods: short in distance but up and down on the hills and crossing rivers, they volunteered to join me right away.  That was a bit of a surprise, so I challenged them a couple of more times that it wasn't going to be the easiest walk. But yes...they came along.

I had done this walk in September 2020 on my own and remembered deciding to wait a little longer before taking the children but now they seemed ready. They evolved a lot in the last 1,5 year. 

We parked nearby the Robertville power dam and headed to the woods along the steep slopes of the Warche valley. They shrieked enthusiastically when all of a sudden we could spot Reinhardstein from a distance.  

Next stop was the "Nez de Napoléon" rock, where they had promised me not to go to the edge as we didn't want anyone falling into the depth. 

Once Napoleon's nose has been passed, the descent of the valley can start.  Small waterfalls cross the trail (and a little later once again) and the deep valley has shadow area's where the sun had not been able to warm up the frosted plants. 

Once at the bottom of the valley you can cross the Warche by a little bridge and admire the confluence of the Baheyon (that you cross with another bridge) and the Warche.  The boys got busy right away at the river's edge to play with stones and sticks in the water, and I let them... It's so much fun, right?  So I just observed and yelled every 30 seconds "careful with your shoes...if you get your shoes wet, you'll have to march another 2 kms in wet shoes"  "get off those rocks, they are slippery" "Careful there". 

And then I order Beertje to get off those rocks and back to the side ...and obviously he takes the harder road where he has to step across a branch...and obviously he falls on his side into the water.   Ugh instantaneously my joyful playing boy had switched to a crying toddler and I turned in the "told you so" mom.  Yep, I do that, I will reconfirm you a couple of times that I had warned you. 

So we continued with a crying wet toddler at my hand until we found a little picknick table a bit further where we ate some cookies to regain ourselves. The little one who mainly cried from the scare of falling in the water, calmed and reflected and was babbling again when we continued our trip. 

We enjoyed the beauty of the nature. 

At the bottom of Reinhardstein, we started our steep climb back up the hill. I had warned the children about this nasty part of the trip, but they climbed strongly without complaining.  On the contrary, they proclaimed they loved climbing such a rocky steep trail like a mountain goat much more than boring wide trails.  And so I guess we can add this one to our list of our favourite walks as well.