This route starts near the French-Belgian border and takes you on a unique route along the sea and the beach, through "mountain and dale" and through marvelous nature parks.
The north sea coast in Flanders has an almost uninterrupted sandbeach of more than 60 kilomters. These beaches belong to the most beautiful of Europe. The Grand Route-path called "Coastal Route" (Kustroute) follows a big part of the coast line from De Panne through to Wenduine. Many monumental sights are connected through this route. This journey spans over 58km with 342m of vertical gain, through which dunes, forests, thicket, beaches and dikes follow each other in quick succession.
At Oostende the GR5A takes a ferry across the harbor. This appears to be the "official" route, and requires timing your run to the ferry schedule. Some runners have chosen to take a route bypassing the ferry and running over bridges to get across/around the harbor. Therefore, we have options with and without the ferry.
The route can be easily followed by the signage of white/red signs that mark all GR (Grand Routes) that run through Europe. This is a part of the legendary GR5 that runs from the top of holland through the south of france.
You can find more info here : https://wandelen.groteroutepaden.be/en/wandelroutes/gr-netwerk/gr5a-kustroute and
here : http://www.trekkings.be/kustroute.html
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Will go for this FKT tomorrow, starting at around 10AM. I'm on holiday at the belgian coast for a week and saw that there was an FKT here, so today I decided to go for it.Â
Will track with Suunto and Polar GPS watch, and post to Strava.Â
I will be going unsupported.Â
Attention: Most attempts prior to Joachim Van der Poorten's (including mine, mea culpa) have 2 significant deviations from the marked route which make it shorter than it should :-(. In the Maria Hendrikapark in Oostend, the marked route makes an extra loop (of at least1 km extra) and in De Haan the marked route passes through la Potinière park (ca. 0,5 km extra). Watch out for this when attacking the record!
I'll take this FKT this Sunday, supported and probably bypassing the ferry.
Tracking will be done with a Garmin GPS watch and I'll post it to Strava.
Hans Van den Eynde and I will do this GR5a on saturday the 23th of October. We will get support and we will not wait for the ferry. Afterworths we will eat steak with fries @demikke ;-)...