Gennep to Groesbeek

Before we began, we thought that this was going to be the last leg of our vacation. Little did we know that we wouldn’t complete this entire leg.

The leg

The last leg of our vacation started in Ven-Zelderheide because of some troubles we had with the camping, as you can read in the previous post. This isn’t captured in the route because it was a last-minute decision.

As you might have seen on the route, around Plasmolen there is a weird detour at the Sint-Jansberg. This was supposed to be the camping location, but at that location there is no camping. This was a bug in Komoot that we found when we searched for the address of the camping.

Walking from Gennep to Plasmolen

Before we could start the actual trail we had to get back on trail from Ven-Zelderheide. For those of you who don’t know where that is. It’s about 45 minutes away from the trail in Gennep. But between the trail and Ven-Zelderheide is a good place to have some lunch, and that is just what we did. After lunching and drinking our coffee, we continued the walk back to the trail which took about half-an-hour after the lunch.

When back on trail, the trail took us near the Maas and through some sort of industrial area. And this is where we saw some signs for a swimming pool that we both have been to when we were younger. Which was pretty neat, because I, for one, hadn’t thought about that place for years. A few weeks after the trail we went to that pool, and it was just as nice as we remembered.

Walking through the industrial area, we had to cross a couple of roads when all of a sudden the other side of the road was a steep decline into a forrest. This is how we exited Gennep in style.

Because of the 35° Celsius (95° Fahrenheit) heat, we kept searching and looking for a café or bar were we could get a nice cold glass of beer. But the only café’s we’ve encountered were all closed. The trail took us over some roads without any shade, and as you might imagine, that cold beer was really appealing. When we saw the treeline, we knew that we at least could get back to the shade. And in the forrest the temperature was a bit better, well, at least being out of the burning sun was. As we were climbing up a pretty steep hill (as far as we have hills in the Netherlands) to go to the camping, we didn’t see any signs of a camping. This is something that we’ve found a bit weird, because normally you’d see at least some sort of sign or a road leading towards the camping. After the climb we got on top of the hill, and we started walking around to search the camping. Because our Komoot said the camping should be at that exact location, but we couldn’t find it we grabbed Google Maps to help us. Google Maps had some different story for us, we were still a couple of miles away from the camping. And for the hill we climbed, well, we could go down the exact same route as we used to go to the top.

When we arrived at the camping it was just around noon, and we hadn’t lunched yet. Because it was a fairly large camping, it had some facilities were we could get a bite and a drink. After setting up our tents, we got ourselves a hamburger and an ice-cold beer that we deserved after walking in the 35° Celsius (95° Fahrenheit) heat.

At the camping we just sat near our tent to read a book and just looked around at the camping. When evening fell, we started looking for a nice place to eat around the area. This is where we found a restaurant that looked good and was just a 15-minute walk away from the camping.

On arrival at the restaurant, it was immediately clear that it was a fancy restaurant. The waitstaff was dressed up, the guests all had some sort of formal clothing. And then we showed up… In our shorts and a sports t-shirt smelling like sweat from a good 10 days of hiking. We were obviously the odd ones out. But that didn’t matter because the food was good, and they served a good wine.

Talking with each-other, we realized that this evening could be a perfect ending to our vacation, because we both knew that the next evening we had dried food planned. So, we decided that this was going to be our last night on trail.

Walking from Plasmolen to Groesbeek

Unfortunately, we haven’t completed this part of the leg just yet. Because we spent more than one night at a couple of campings we ran out of time to complete this part and the other leg we had planned.

But do not worry, we’ll be continuing this part and the other legs in upcoming vacations.