W.E. Bowman

On the last day of summer, or was it the first day of autumn, the Himlung-group was heading towards Bouillon, for another field trip. Meeting time was 10:30am. As usual a street market was barricading the access to the meeting place. Frank, Omer and Wig arrived first in the Taliban. They had to flee Brussels in time because of the car(e)less Sunday in Brussels.

Frank volunteered to guide other expedition cars to the parking spot by taking position on the bridge over the Semois river. Almost no expedition members spotted him there, and those who did got lost in the streets of Bouillon. This bodes well for the expedition's orientation skills in the Himalayas.

Finally everybody we expected turned up. Only the swami Yannic and Geert were absent. Herlinde and Johan in splendid shape: they had just returned from their trip to Ladakh with 'Anders Reizen'.

As a special guest star Christel had invited Lieve. When we are on the mountain Lieve will take over Christel's role as webmaster here in Belgium. She will see to it that our heroic deeds on the mountain are properly and timely reported on the Himlung website. It turned out that Frank and Omer had met Lieve some years ago during an extended weekend in Moroccan Tunesia.

It must have been 11 o'clock when we started for this classic walk along the Semois. Over the bridge and then uphill to the 'Point de Vue' tower. From the tower one has a magnificent vue of the small town of Bouillon, had we bothered to climb the tower that is. Downhill then to the Abbay of Cordemoy, where no one could be enticed to join the convent.

Lunch was taken at Moulin des Rivages near the Semois. At the end of this exceptional dry and warm summer the river was almost dry!

Steep uphill then to Botassart to enjoy the view of the 'Tombeau du Geant' meander. Before we reached or first (beer)drinking stop in Rochehaut we had to tackle the extremely dangerous ladder section on the GR5. In Rochehaut we enjoyed our beer (or ice tea), the view of Frahan and watched some people 'paragliding' above the Semois . Wig ( himself a part-time expert parachute jumper on weekends ) reported strong thermals. Indeed the weather was magnificent...

From Frahan we did a forced march to Corbion along the asphalt road. Jordaan and Herman were leading the group, to prove that the elder expedition members are in a perfect shape 6 weeks before our departure to Nepal.

Another drinking stop in Corbion where there was also some discussion on expedition logistics. Jordaan was all in favour of taking special snowshoes with us, because of the powdery snow we can expect high on the mountain.

Then the last stage of the walk which lead us back to Bouillon along the Semois.

During dinner we talked a lot about logistics. Because most people (excluding Frank) expect to have more than 20 kilo's of luggage, it was decided to send part of our gear by air cargo. This will be sent some two weeks before our departure.

A final field trip is planned October 19th. Meeting place will be the famous waterfalls in Coo.