Lubricate your calves for a very beautiful and varied walk through the princely region of the counts de Merode around Westerlo. Your trip takes a good 17 km, although it can also be a bit shorter with 13 km. Start at the parking lot at youth hostel Boswachtershuisje (V) on the Papedreef. Opposite the Boswachtershuisje there is a wooden pole with junction signs 'de Merode' at the roadblock to the Van Looydreef. You stand here at junction 5 and choose the direction of junction 6. Immediately turn left to number 20 along the Fairytale Forest. Further on you pass the library and Castle de Merode. Built in Brabant neo-Gothic between 1909 and 1911 as a residence for Countess Jeanne de Merode. After her death in 1944, it served as a resting place for priests and since 1973 as a town hall. You walk all the way around the esplanade in front of the castle and then choose junction 16. You reach that, to the right of the monument to the fallen of '14-'18 on the Grote Markt with its lime tree, after a passage under the N19 via a pedestrian tunnel. Now to number 130 via the 15th-century Sint-Lambertuskerk with funerary chapel of – again – the de Merode family. Then, at the statue of the archangel Gabriel, back into nature to number 18. At the Grote Nete – on the right is a picnic bench – turn left to 213, the beautiful Kaaibeek bridge over the river in an idyllic rural landscape. Cross the bridge to junction 41, the protected Kaaibeekhoeve. From there you are almost 2 km on the way to junction 23. Partly unpaved, partly along winding concrete where you walk attentively with a view to traffic. Via a footpath you can get away from the roadway to point 23. Then to number 24, into Het Varenbroek, a 62 ha forest area managed by the Nature and Forest Agency. You will mainly find summer and winter oak; exotic species such as the aggressive American oak and American bird cherry are controlled. Furthermore, variegated woodpeckers, hawks and buzzards, woodcocks, roe deer, foxes, stone martens and hazel worms chose their residence in a rich flora. At 24 you leave the Varenbroek, turn right to 162, over meadow, and then to 28 in the provincial forest domain De Hertberg (236 ha), with a series of witness hills here and further. Here, a road shortening is possible by immediately choosing junction 27. If you do the entire walk, turn left at 28 before junction 30. From there to 25, where you leave the forest, and then to 26, the inn Mie Maan (closed on Fridays). You're about halfway there. Cross the steenweg at Mie Maan and walk straight on the Veerlepad to number 31. Thence to junctions 29 and 106, a forest path that slowly bends away from the roadway. Then to number 27 via the Hertbergweg and turn left to junction 22 and via the Lourdes chapel (1927) to number 132 to 13, the Trammetje, a protected old lock on the Nete. On the other side of the bridge is an information board about the forest areas Beeltjens and Kwarekken, where you can also have a picnic. But for our walk you stay on this side of the bridge. You turn left to junction 12 with an excellent view of the Castle Prins de Merode. Carefully cross the N19 at number 12 and then cross the Marly bridge over the Grote Nete to junction 14. There you turn left and you follow the beautiful, winding Neteoever for almost 2 km to 183. There you leave the Neteboord to the right, direction junction 10. From there to 9 and via the Asberg to 8 and 7, the Star, a crossroads of eight roads. Finally, at the gnomes, to junctions 4 and 5. You have now earned a drink in the Boswachtershuis.

Node sequence: 6 – 20 – 16 – 130 – 18 – 213 – 41 – 23 – 24 – 162 – 28 – 30 – 25 – 26 – 31 – 29 – 106 – 27 – 22 – 132 – 13 – 12 – 14 – 183 – 10 – 9 – 8 – 7 – 4 – 5.