Organized by a couple of friends,
I joined another nice greenlaning tour in Brabant, one of our southern
provinces. The waypoint list was send ahead, and I took the opportunity
to make a nice printed route on a military map. Notice where the
red route finishes? That's where it was very interesting.
PS. Right click on the map (save link target as...) for the
Mapsource data file (28k) of the official route, which we didn't follow,
of course.
About halfway we met
the other group who had done the route in the other direction. We wave
and trundle on, but realize that it is about lunchtime. I immediately
phone Heleen, and we decide that they go just a little further until
they reach the sand clearing besides the woods, that we passed a few
minutes ago. We will turn around and reverse back to the same spot
and the whole group will have lunch together here.
During lunch I discuss with
Heleen the finer points of using a GPS. Ruud, my colleague from work
and now my navigator, joins in, as he is the one handling the GPS today
(after never having seen such a GPS before). And we talk about the very
handy feature for reversing a programmed route. Immediately Heleen
tells her friend Eric about this for them undocumented feature,
and all of a sudden they can now easily follow their own route,
but in the other direction.
Nice is an appealing route!
Me working hard with the spade
to fill in the very deep rut that the wheels have dropped into. Ruud,
my navigator, and one of the tour organizers are watching me, puzzled.
`What does he think he is doing?' It did work though, sort of
Roderick with his
dad's spade: `Yo, dad, I have the path cleared now! You can drive
again!' :-)
Roderick was the second
navigator. Just lots of mud! What can a little boy want more?
The guys give me a little push:
the road further on is sturdy enough to get a foothold again. This is
on that red path of the map above.
Now, am I pulling all those
other Land Rover serially, or is there something else going on?
After a good day's
outing, Roderick and I have a rest and a nice barbecue afterwards. Ruud
had other engagements, so unfortunately he couldn't stay. Roderick
ate his share, though!
It was really muddy terrain here!
Text, and editing Copyright © 2003 Wim
van Dorst
Pictures Copyright © 2002 Juro Wiggers, Wim van
Dorst, Tjeerd van Linge