Gerhees

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The track of this walk was updated on 29-07-2022

This is a short but very nice walk through the Gerheserheide and forests. Natuurpunt says the following about this beautiful area. Source: https://www.natuurpunt.be/natuurgebied/gerheserheide

The Gerheserheide is a nature reserve located in the municipalities of Ham and Leopoldsburg. You walk through dunes covered with pine forests, intersected by sandy roads. Natuurpunt restored part of the heath here for the mysterious nightjar.

Accessibility:

The nature reserve is accessible all year round. A 1 km hiking trail runs through the area, which is part of the Nightjar Path (7 km), which starts at Recreation Domain De Merel, Zwarte Spechtstraat 59, Leopoldsburg.

Fun for kids

In the nearby recreation area De Merel, children and youth clubs can romp undisturbed in the play forest.

Description of the area

If you walk through the 200 ha area of Gerheserheide, the image of sandy soils and dunes covered with pine forests, intersected by sandy roads, remains. But it hasn't always been that way. The land dunes or (drifting dunes) were created after the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago, by moving and collecting loose sand by the wind. The pine forests, on the other hand, are of much more recent date.

Until the 19th century, Gerheserheide was a vast heathland, with fens and tree storage here and there. The scarce inhabitants also lived on the heath: the heath was the meadow for sheep and cows, peat served as fuel, reeds and wood were used as building material.

From the middle of the 19th century, the surface area of heathland decreased noticeably. In the middle of the Groote Heide, of which Gerheserheide was part, the military camp of Beverlo was built. Other parts were put into land use or planted with softwood used as strut wood in the coal mines. Many fens were filled in and the deeper, swampy parts of the heath were drained via canals. That network of ditches can still be found largely intact in the landscape.

Nature conservation

The Gerheserheide was a heavily wooded heath, but it was recently cut back open by Natuurpunt. This gives the heath the best possible opportunity to develop again. Large grazers are used to prevent afforestation. They graze the vegetation, so you get a varied, semi-open landscape, with heathland, bushes and transition zones. Extensive grazing creates all kinds of variations in plant growth that have a beneficial effect on the species diversity of fauna and flora. Hopefully the mysterious nightjar will breed here again!