Duwmee (part 2)

After a morning driving around the different starting places of Duwmee, I went to the trainstation with Kabouter at noon where I found 2 friends and a lot of other walkers filling the train to Sint-Joris-Weert. That's the starting place for a few hundred people joining Duwmee for the 14 km walk. 

 

Spotting the school and Kabouter's class from the train and the 1 tent that is left in the big garden.

It's not hard to find the starting place when leaving the train: just follow the crowd. 

I explored the starting place, took some pictures and made some posts while we also quickly enjoyed some pasta to load some energy before we went. 

And then the growing group of walkers left again and headed quickly into the Meerdaalforest.  I walked with 2 friends, a colleague and Kabouter who chatted our ears off. I have never had so many friends joining me on the walk so that was quite fun to be here together.  Plenty of time to talk but also enjoy the beauty of the forest. 

The cold I had experience in the morning was better when walking and the threatening rain was not more than some drizzle now and then. 

We will never forget our Angels ...our dear mobile school friends that we are missing so much.  

Some pictures before it got too dark. 

At 4.30 PM we had completed 9 kms and arrived at the last stop where I was immediately another friend who came to cheer on us along the way. And then we found Jan and Beertje and our Texan friends from Maastricht who would join for the last 5 kms. The more the merrier! So precious. 

A drink, a toilet stop, a pancake and some music later, we dressed up for the darkness and got some lights on before we went again. 

With 488 walkers we headed downtown.  Unfortunately we got some rain around Arenberg castle but it didn't last too long. 

Our long colourful parade, carrying the flags of all countries that have a mobile school , crossed the city centre which is beautifully decorated with Christmas lights. 

At the train station we learned that we had gathered more than 34000 euro and with the insane gift of a company that added 100000 euro, we totalled at a whopping amount of 134000 euro! That's worth some very painful legs at the end of the day. 
With our American friends, we closed the day with a dinner close by, after which my legs protested strongly for the last 2kms walk to our home.