Day 24 – 22km walked – that makes a total of 509 km - Saint Martins Voeren

As Gary mentioned yesterday – due to lack of hotel choices we had to walk south *gasp* and go back north today. Luckily, we found that they do have marked walk ways in Belgium – they do not co-ordinate with my map of the area but we picked up a really pleasant walk past Plombiere and after about 3 hours walking, we were back on track going slightly north and mainly west.

We followed a route marked with a red and white sign through some picturesque scenery until it abruptly ended between a broken bridge and barb-wired fields in the middle of nowhere. As going back is not an option for us, we opted for trespassing and immediately faced a man who claimed he only spoke Dutch even though we were in Belgium.

He mentioned the word 'privee' several times (in French??) which we duly ignored. I whipped out the map and with my biggest smile asked him to point us in the right direction. It took us about 10 minutes of uphill walking (a big feature of today) to get back on track.

Less confident of the red and white marked walkway, we tried to find one or two of the walkways clearly marked on my map. Either the map is completely out of date or (more likely) in Belgium they do not take it so seriously with public way of right and farmers just put up fences where they feel like it.

So we mainly walked on little used public roads with steady long climbs. The weather has improved greatly and we got rather hot and thirsty. But we bravely walked past 'The Kings Head' in Teuven to get to our destination at a respectable time – and anyway, Gary has never been keen on Irish Beer (the pub with the Union Jack flag was featuring a Guinness sign too) he was hankering for something local, brewed by Trappist monks.

After a bit of back and forth with the help of some very friendly locals, we found our hotel for tonight. It is situated in a glorious spot out of town. The room is rather “bijou” and using the equally small shower needed skill but we just took our books and sat outside in their beautiful gardens and enjoyed a rather good meal. Gary got some local beer from Val Dieu which is coming in at 8% alcohol. I can feel a melodious night of snoring coming on.

I am on my third book since we started the journey. My first one was the rather entertaining title 'Cooking with Fernet Branca' the second was a crime novel by a lady called Anna Hold which ended with an open ending and we all know what that means. So I now have to find out if this Norwegian lady is also translated into English and if she has written the sequel. Today I started my third which was given to us by our visitors Rolf and Monique and it is called 'Looking for the Lost' a vibrant meditative walk in search of the soul of Japan by Alan Booth. This is a very thoughtful gift because they loved their time in Japan as much as Gary did his and I my holiday there. And it is about walking and what happens when you walk.

My song choice for today is: 'If you are happy and you know it clap your hands'. I sing it often on the road because I can and because Gary always obliges with enthusiastic clapping.