Tweet09-04-2010 om 11:58 by Sueli Brodin

The narrow country road in front of my house is a favourite route for strollers, hikers, joggers and bikers. It runs parallel to the Juliana canal about 100 metres further away and when I look out the window of the living room I can see the tops of large barges navigating up and down the waterway.



The dike seen from my window

This being the Netherlands, I have become used to the idea that the canal runs higher than the ground I live on.

I picked up jogging again last winter, when the local gym closed for a few days around Christmas and New Year and I was missing the exercise. The road was covered with snow and looked soft and inviting.

As soon as I started running, I asked myself why I had stopped doing it when I moved to the Netherlands. I used to jog often when I was younger, either alone, with my father, or with friends, and always enjoyed it.



Let's go!

I easily reached the dike and continued north along the Juliana canal towards the next village of Geulle. There I crossed the bridge and started running on the other side of the water back to Bunde. Crossing another bridge, I completed the 5 km circle in 35 minutes, in what felt like a good pace.



Two cyclists on the bridge over the canal, Geulle

The gym was closed this past weekend for Easter and I decided to run once again, even though the asphalt road was probably going to feel harder now without snow.

But “het viel mee” as the Dutch say, it all went very smoothly. My shoes felt as if they had springs underneath, and the fresh air and the spring landscape gave me energy.

It was quiet on the dike and I enjoyed the feeling of owning the space.



On the dike

As I continued on my way to the Geulle bridge, breathing in rhythm and admiring the calm surroundings, I suddenly saw a woman smiling and waving at me from the earth road below. She was running with her two dogs and I recognised my good Dutch acquaintance Sophie, whom I usually meet at the gym and who likes speaking French with me. I greeted her back and experienced this pleasant chance encounter as another sign of the growing bond between us.



A barge glides by

My favourite part of the route is up on the dike on the western side of the canal, from which I can see the Meuse River flowing parallel to the Juliana canal. There I become aware once again how close I live from Belgium. The border runs down the middle of the river. The fields and the villages no more than two or three kilometres away are already in Belgian territory.



The Meuse River to the left and the Juliana canal to the right

Looking out to the opposite side, the horizon is marked by the green hills of the Bunderbos (the woods of Bunde), famous for being home to the fire salamander, a rare sort in this part of Europe, and other unique species of bats and fireflies.

For a long time I thought that the many mistletoes hanging in the trees along the canal, easily recognizable by their round shapes and green colour, were another specific characteristic of this region and did not grow further to the north. But these parasite plants can apparently be spotted elsewhere in the country too, even though they seem to be particularly prolific here.



Mistletoes

Large barges glide by on the canal. They move slowly, taking their time, and don’t give the impression to go any faster whether they’re heading up stream or down stream. I look at their names and their country flags and wonder about their shipment and which distant places they’re navigating to.



A German barge on the Juliana canal

The Juliana canal, named after the Dutch queen Juliana, played an important role in the development of the coal mining industry in Limburg because it allowed the use of larger ships and connected the region to the ports of the Rhine delta. I read that it was dug in the 1920s to provide a bypass for an unnavigable section of the Meuse River between Maastricht and Maasbracht, some 36 kms to the north.



Bridge over the canal, Bunde

My jogging route has a special meaning to me because it reminds me of the daily strolls I used to take with my son Tim when he was a baby, 10 years ago already. We lived in a more residential area of Bunde at the time and every day after lunch, I would tuck him into his pram, and when he grew bigger in his push chair, and take him for long walks on the dike along the canal.



The road I live on and the woods of Bunde seen from the dike

When we passed in front of our present day house, I would often say to him: “Look how quiet and peaceful it is out here Tim…Wouldn’t it be wonderful to live on this road one day?”

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