Walking to the waterfall of the Baheyon

Mid-November we had a quick trip to the east of Belgium with just the 3 of us while Kabouter was on a scouting weekend.  

Jan was going to have friends over the week after, and he wanted to prospect some walks to do. We went on a hike that we hadn't done since we had children : the valley of the Baheyon and its waterfall. 

It was only 2 C and humid so we pulled out our winter toques out of the cupboard again. 

We left behind the Peak Brewery, which seems to have become the most popular starting point in the region. They market smartly all kinds of walks with plastified sheets to use at the entrance or trails to download at their website, which aren't necessarily the most maintained by the city.  

We were warned it could be muddy but I sincerely think this trail can't support the load of people that seems to come by. Well we must play guilty for doing the same. 

We descended along a little creek downwards over trails that were filled with puddles, little streams taking over, mudd and roots but Beertje loved it and we were assured that Kabouter would have loved it as well. 

in a wider flat piece, we had to cross a land that had been transformed in any direction into deep mud and clearly people had searched already cut throughs everywhere, in vain, just creating more muddy trails.  We all tried to slip through, while holding the slim trees, and at one point I feared Beertje was stuck with his shoe in the mud in the middle but we got through allright. Later was a bit better and we tried to wash the mud from our shoes here and there in the stream to clear the weight on our shoes. 

We made it to the bottom of the skihill of Ovifat. 

One of Belgium's skihills

A little further we had to take a turn to get into the valley of the Baheyon and follow that river.  And then we ended up at the waterfall which is with it's 9,5 meters high in Belgium in the top 3 of natural highest waterfalls. By the way: if you want to avoid the mud and visit the waterfull in a dry stretch, then you might see a dried out waterfall like here. 

With my damaged knee I didn't dare to climb down so we just took pictures from up there and then continued our walk along some old oaks back up through the long forest lanes and the nearby fenns to the brewery. 

That deserved some beers .