Tweet02-07-2010 om 00:11 by Sueli Brodin

I learned about the Barefoot Trail in Zutendaal through friends who shared happy photographs on Facebook of themselves and their children walking barefoot in nature.

When our two older children went camping with their judo club last weekend, my husband and I thought our youngest daughter Sacha would enjoy having a special treat as well and offered to take her to the Barefoot Trail.

The Belgian Limburg town of Zutendaal is only 15 minutes away by car from Maastricht. It is located at the gates of a vast nature reserve known as the Hoge Kempen National Park.





The Barefoot Trail starts at the Lietenberg Visitors' Centre, which also houses an insect museum, a butterfly greenhouse, a honey bee centre and a cafeteria.





We took our shoes off at the entrance of the trail and left them in a free locker.



The specificity of a barefoot trail is that it offers a condensed sensory experience: in a short distance of 2 km, we walked on pebbles, sand, moss, earth, wood mulch and through varying depths of water and mud.



The creators of the trail would have been pleased to hear Sacha’s comments as we walked along, because she expressed everything she felt and thought: “The water is so cold, but luckily not too deep!”





The Barefoot Trail is laid out in an former gravel and sand quarry and makes good use of the existing paths and the natural landscape.

It seems to be a popular destination in the area as it became fairly crowded that Saturday afternoon.

My husband couldn’t help joking that it was a remarkable concept to get so many people to pay money in exchange for the opportunity to walk barefoot in the warm and slippery mud.





We crossed challengingly wet marshlands…



… and followed the bed of an icy-cold stream.



The Barefoot Trail also serves an educational purpose for children who can learn about and even walk on the traces of the first Laetoli hominid footprints.

I caught myself reflecting on the fact that we are hardly leaving any footprints nowadays for future generations to discover and study. Our shoes will long have disappeared by then.





As for the unexpectedly ingeniously designed labyrinth, its purpose was make visitors reflect on the meaning of life by showing them that life was like a long and winding road with many detours.

After discovering the hidden object in the middle of the labyrinth, most people simply climbed over or under the timber poles to reach the exit. And so did we.



The various construction stages of the impressive 18 metre high observation tower is well documented on the website.





We admired the wide expanse of the Hoge Kempen National Park from the top of the observation tower...



… could easily spot all the Dutch hikers who had been affected by the World Football Championship-related Orange Fever.



At the end of the trail, we were able to wash and clean our feet before putting our shoes back on…



… only to take them right off again to enjoy a last climb on the sand dune opposite the entrance of the Visitors’ Centre.



As for myself, I couldn’t resist buying the package of five maps of the Hoge Kempen National Park offering detailed outlines of “200 km of hiking pleasure”, to be enjoyed for free and why not… barefoot.

More information:
Barefoot Trail in Zutendaal, Belgium
Barefoot Trail in Brunssum (conceived by a foot reflexologist)
A website about barefoot trails

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