At the end of October, the Federal Government put Belgium in a second term of lockdown. To be fair, it’s not a full lockdown. People are allowed to go outside. For example, to go hiking. On Armistice Day, Thanh and I did the Stationstapper Essen – Heide hike featuring the Kalmthoutse Heide or Kalmthout Heath in the Province of Antwerp as promoted by Groene Halte.
Groene Halte, Dutch for Green Stop is a website presenting hiking trails you can easily reach by public transport. Very nice for people without cars.
Groene Haltes provides you length, estimated time and difficulty of the hike. You can get the brochure.
Essen is not too far from our hometown Antwerp and the Kalmthout Heath is world famous with (former) Antwerp schoolchildren.
GPS
Thanh downloaded the itinerary as GPX file from the website Grote Route Paden onto an app called Beeline. So it would be easy to follow.
The hike
Starting at Essen railway station, the hikes takes you through the outskirts of Essen so reach the Heath. On the way we purchased some jam. Buy local, right?
I’m not a nature guide so I can’t tell you anything sensible of the nature features we encountered. Il’ll leave that expertise to Denzil of Discovering Belgium. But we saw beautiful autumn vistas, Smurf housing aka mushrooms, birds, leaves and the sun setting.
Strava and Apple told us we walked 16 km or 10 miles which is a nice but not exaggerated length for a leisurely stroll.
Trip By Trip 
Thanks for the call-out Timothy! Groen Haltes looks very useful, I must check it out.
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It’s a practical site. And I think you’d like the hike as well. 🙂
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