Stumbling path and tricks… – Chronicle Jan van As

Thu, Oct 27, 12:45 PM
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Last week we found a nice watch in ‘our bump’. I wanted to take it to the police, but an acquaintance warned me that would be a problem. So I put it on Facebook and under my coins, but no one showed up. I added that we found it on the ‘Stumbling Path’. There were questions about it!

So this time I will teach the dear reader something about ‘Paden & paths’ in De Maashorst between Zeeland and Schaijk. Be very careful and read slowly, because now you are going to learn something. First you need to know that these paths have been given these names over the years by us ordinary citizens. You regularly want to explain to someone where you saw a deer or where someone fell or, even worse, that your ambulance or the police must lead the way. Over the years some nice “street names” have appeared, albeit unpaved sandy forest roads. Some well-known names are Struikelpad, ‘gruun benkske’ path or Ejoweg, Wortelpad, Mobpaadje and the Inkapaadje. There is also an Inkaweg, but it is an official name. Anyone who has ever lived an Inca Camp knows the SMERDEL, a kind of Mangrove where it is horribly haunted during the Inca Camp! More on that later.

You walk or cycle from the Inkakamp parking lot, you are already there on the Inkaweg. Keep following this road and this path straight and you will automatically come to the path of ‘t gruun benkske, also called Ejopad. This is because there is the Ejohof on the left. There, turn right and take the first path on the left, you are already on the Struikelpad. You walk behind the strawberry planter. You soon realize why this path is called that. It was once the playground of the Molenrijders, a cross country club. They turned this path into a golf course that you still know from the fair, up, down, etc. Every few meters the ground is lower and there tree roots appear and you can trip over them.

If you keep going straight on the Struikelpad, you will come to the Udense Dreef. But after a few hundred meters you can turn left at a fork (orientation barrier on the left in the forest). There you can take the first left and you walk on an even more difficult path, this path goes along Het Smerdel and there is a bench there. This is the ‘Carrot Path’ and it’s a real boost in the pro class to stay afloat on this trail. If you walk on the Wortelpad in the direction of Zeeland, you can cross the path of the gruun benkske 200 meters after the bench and you will arrive at the MOB path. This is a relatively young path that goes directly through the former MOB camp and ends at ‘de Mol’ (where the road is made of large concrete slabs).

Finally, the Inka path or trail, which starts 100 meters after the Inka camp toilet building, on the left in the forest. After crossing the street twice, you are on the Stumblepad. There are no signs, but there are landmarks. At the exit of the Struikelpad, you can also pay attention to the water meter, which is a gray tube with a black cover and a padlock that is on the right between the trees. The government can use it to monitor groundwater levels.
We also had a dyke and a concert forest, but this has now been absorbed into the new nature reserve behind the (already old) Bongers farm. I also met a lady who said she walked the ‘Meerweg’ every day, that was new to me. She points to the path that goes to the right of the Inka camp to the sheep shearing station. But there, you have to climb two fallen bombs…

Next week we’re going to talk about the Protestant Tengels and the clock is still there!

Jan d’As