The second completed long-distance hiking trail is now a reality: the Southern Waterline trail in the Netherlands! I started this trail in Bergen op Zoom in January 2022 and completed the final part in Grave on 30 December 2024. So it took me almost three years to complete it. This blog is a recap of this remarkable hiking trail.
My experience
A lot has happened in these three years: I moved to Zevenbergen in West Brabant and wanted to explore this region on foot. I certainly succeeded! Two years later, I moved back to Rotterdam and was halfway through Brabant on this path. At the end of 2024, I officially completed the trail with an extra hike through Grave and Velp.
The Southern Waterline trail is a 290-kilometre hiking trail developed by Alliantie Zuiderwaterlinie in collaboration with Routebureau Visit Brabant. The trail follows the Southern Water defence line, which runs from Bergen op Zoom to Grave. Along the way, you will encounter all kinds of visible and less visible remnants of this waterline, such as fortified towns, forts, ravelins, defensive lines and sluices. All these waterline structures defended Brabant and Holland against enemy troops, with or without success. At various locations, there are information panels with facts and trivia about the location in relation to the Southern Waterline.
The trail is marked in both directions and is based on the yellow-green markings of the Brabant hiking trail network, which also feature the Southern Waterline logo.
You can order the trail guide on the Visit Brabant website. You will receive a folder with trail maps that you can easily take with you. Personally, I don’t find the folder very handy, because the pages tear easily, partly because I have looked through it a lot. Personally, I find a booklet more convenient. I didn’t use the GPX to walk the trail. I lost my way a few times and even ended up going in the opposite direction once, so maybe I should give the GPX a try after all.
The trail is easily accessible by public transport, although sometimes you have to take the local bus. Only the section between Steenbergen and Dinteloord is less accessible. There is a bus to the town of De Heen once every 1.5 hours. There are no bus stops between De Heen and Dinteloord. If you are unlucky, you will have to wait a long time or walk a long way, as I did (the hike ended up being 25 km).
Once you have completed the trail, you can collect a pin from the Southern Waterline Visitor Centre in Grave. At the book market in Dordrecht, I happened to find a book about the Southern Waterline. This coffee table book is a nice souvenir of this trail!
Other trail guide about hiking in Noord-Brabant
The best part of this trail for me was the start from Bergen op Zoom to Steenbergen and the section through the fortified town of Heusden. I also found the visit to Willemstad very special, because I once commissioned a painting of Willemstad from above. During my hike, I recognised some of the buildings from the painting.
All the fortified towns along the Southern Waterline are worth visiting, but the beauty of a long-distance trail is that you come across hidden gems. These are some of the lovely hidden gems I came across:
- Fort Henricus
- Dintelse Gorzen
- Defence lines van den Hout and Munnikenhof
- Spinolaschans
- Baardwijkse Overlaat
- Rustven
Order of hikes from Wonderful to So-so
In total, I have done the entire trail in 23 sections and made 18 blogs about it. All in all, I give the trail a rating of ⭐⭐⭐✨, between Fine hike and Super hike. All blogs about the Southern Waterline trail can be found here. The most recent blog is at the top.
If you don’t care about the order of the sections or only want to do the best ones, below you will find all the blogs listed in order from Wonderful to So-so.
Wonderful hikes (5 en 4.5 stars) – ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Super hikes (4 stars) – ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Fine hikes (3 stars) – ⭐⭐⭐
So-so hikes (2 stars) – ⭐⭐
What’s next?
My long-term plan is to hike various (water) line trails. I already have the trail guide for the Old Dutch Waterline trail at home and have completed the first section. This trail goes from Loevestein Castle to Muiderslot Castle (or vice versa), following the Old Dutch Water defence line. This line cuts right through the Green Heart in the west of the Netherlands, passing various fortified towns, forts and other waterline remnants.
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