Nodes in root colony

Start at the Visitor Center De Klapekster 1 in Wortel-Kolonie (V), where you can easily park your car. De Klapekster, the visitor centre of Natuurpunt Markvallei, also houses the Jan Spannenburg museum, in the buildings of the former vagrant farm. This walk explores the new walking network in Wortel-Kolonie and Merksplas-Kolonie, an initiative of vzw Kempens Landschap. So look out - between the signs of the already existing walking, cycling and bridle paths - to the white-red signs of the junction network, with number 1 at the intersection just before De Klapekster. In wetter periods, sturdy walking shoes are not an unnecessary luxury in these typical straight forest drives. With a sports buggy it should usually be possible to take your kids with you. Keep the buildings - which once belonged to the Ministry of Justice as a government farm - on your right and walk into the wide forest drive. At junction 2, take the Torendreef to turn right to point 3. This will be the most beautiful part of the tour, with the Bootjesven 2 (now forbidden for recreation) on the left and the swampy Duck even further. On information boards you can read more about an afforestation campaign and about the way in which nature can literally do wildlife here. Always straight ahead, up to point 5. Right in front of your pastures and farms, turn left, towards point 6. To the left of this narrower path, a number of Corsican pines were cut down for the restoration of the heathland, you can read more on an information board near a bench. Beyond that you have to turn left through a gate into the fenced forest. Where it threatens to become swampy at the fens, the path turns through another gate to a wide lane, which eventually takes you to the left - and almost literally on the Belgian-Dutch border, this is also the Grensdreef - at point 6, where several lanes meet. Leave the Netherlands and the traffic road a little further literally to the right and turn left into Kolonie, past poles and a bench, back to point 2. Now take the Torendreef to the right, to junction 10 at the moving former cemetery 3 for the vagrants, some of whom are even buried unnamed. Continue to point 8, past a play area with camps and a poster about scary critters such as ticks. At the edge of the forest, turn left at point 8 at a farm/tree nursery to point 11. You cross a concrete road, the Molendreef, - with the agglomeration sign Wortel on the right - and walk past large greenhouses to tunnel greenhouses, where you turn to the left in a narrower lane. At point 12 you turn right to 24, where you will see all the buildings of the penal institution. On the way you cross the entrance drive to Wortel-Kolonie. At point 24, turn left on the asphalt towards 23 and continue straight on to 22. At point 22 you cross the road straight from the Peedijk to point 21, still asphalt, along with a signpost to Pampa. At 21, take the grass drive on the left, to 16, towards prison buildings. At point 16, at the fence of the penal institution 4, walk right to 17 and then continue straight and turn left, towards point 20. On the paved Wortelbaan you always follow point 20, so to the left. At point 20, in the bend of the road, leave the asphalt and turn left, into the forest, to point 19 and continue straight on to 18. After 18 you step through a fence towards 1 and you leave that drive through another fence, after which you step to the left and end up at point 1. On the left are the white buildings of the Casino (an activity home) and on the right your starting point De Klapekster, where you can go for a drink from Thursday to Sunday in the afternoon. The free map of the Kempense Kolonies Fase 1 walking network can be picked up daily at the Hoogstraten information office.