Vierlingsbeek to Gennep

After a coffee and a good talk we were all ready to go. This was a nice start that we haven’t had in quite some time, a cup of coffee at the break of dawn. Usually we had to walk a couple of miles before our first cup, so unlike at home we didn’t take this for granted but really appreciated the moment.

The leg

Our third and first to last leg of this vacation starts in Vierlingsbeek and goes all the way to Gennep.

In Afferden, there is again a small detour for our camping, but that doesn’t lead to the actual camping. Something has gone wrong when changing this route to include the camping. So please don’t rely on this route if you’re planning to camp in Afferden. You’ll have to find a camping by yourself (which isn’t that hard in Afferden).

Walking from Vierlingsbeek to Afferden

When walking away from the camping we had to walk the same route as we did the previous evening to get to town to grab something to eat. The road, again, took us along the same restaurant we were the evening before and decided to hop in to get a coffee and some breakfast. Yes, we had another coffee, but it’s just part of having breakfast!

The rest of the trail was pretty nice because it took us through Vierlingsbeek which has some pretty odd sights. If you’re ever close to Vierlingsbeek I’d higly recommend going there for an afternoon. After walking a couple of miles, we’d hear the Maas getting closer and closer. The sound of water running and the glaring sun on our faces really made us feel at peace. So we’d just set our chairs up and took in the moment of it all. Luckily, that was in a shady area, so the sun didn’t really bother us that much.

After being rested and hydrated, we started walking again. Little did we know when we were enjoying it all that we had to walk a couple of miles in the full sun without anything around to give us some sort of shade. This long unshady road took us to a little ferry where a lot of people were already waiting. We arrived there, all covered in sweat, and we just started drinking our water like there was no tomorrow. On the ferry there was some wind from the movement, and that was a great feeling.

After a small ride on the ferry, we arrived in Afferden. This is where we noticed that the sign for the Pieterpad didn’t match our own route on Komoot. So taking a guess for the better, we decided to follow the route on Komoot because we thought that it would maybe lead us to our camping. I can tell you that it did not…

We walked a couple of miles extra through some forrest hoping we’d stumble across the camping, but we didn’t see anything. Because we knew there was a swimming pool at the camping we sought out, we really wanted to get to the camping, and thus we checked Google Maps. Google Maps wasn’t really forgiving, because the camping we were supposed to be was at least a thirty-minute walk away. And trust me when I say that thirty minutes is a long time if you’re all covered in sweat and craving to go for a dive.

However, we finally arrived at the camping and set up our tent on a patch of grass with mobile homes surrounding us everywhere we looked. This was a pretty weird sight to me, and for some reason felt really uneasy knowing that everything you do is being watched by at least one person. If this was the case, I don’t know but that feeling never got away during our stay. The camping did have a pool, so that was great! Because we already told the owner of the camping that we’d stay there for two nights, and already paid for two nights, we decided to stay despite our location. During our second day on the camping we roamed around Afferden a bit, and my girlfriend took me to the house her grandma used to live. After that, we were looking for something to eat and that’s where we found a local tea garden called Theetuin de Appelgaard. Two people run this, I’m guessing husband and wife, and they cater to the hikers that are walking the Pieterpad. We were sitting there having lunch, and we saw all these hikers going by and some stopping to get something to drink, or refill their water bottle.

Walking from Afferden to Gennep

The next morning we decided to go back to the tea garden we were yesterday for some breakfast and coffee. Because we knew where it was, and we knew that it was on the trail, we started off in a good way. Having a coffee and a cup of soup, we were ready to continue walking the trail to Gennep.