Het Schipbeekpad (80k/330d+)
The route runs from Germany a impressive tour through the beautiful Twente and Salland or in the opposite direction from the hanseatic city of Deventer to Germany. With this route you run as much as possible along the Schipbeek (a canal/river). From the late Middle Ages, this river was channeled for the transport of cheese and butter to Germany and loam and wood to the Netherlands.
The Dutch poet Paul Gellings wrote a poem about the 'Schipbeek':
Heaven has been empty for years, the gods have left their palace, and the dead never return home. In the woods.
Only red locks remind of the superhuman iron ore skeleton buried here. But today the water was churning, as if what was gone was heard by force. There had to be something. In your face.
A whip of rain or otherwise the wind would tear your cheeks. Above us a light of mother-of-pearl, a second. Shattered by two swans flying through my eyes and swimming in yours, we were left with the cold.
Now it is evening, and the stream has the last word, here in the dark under an uninhabited sky.
- https://www.visittwente.nl/routes-Twente/515/Schipbeekpad/
- https://www.haaksbergennatuurlijk.nl/routes-in-haaksbergen/25315-Schipbeekpad/
- Submitted by Daan Nieuwenhuis (congratulations for including a poem!)
