Cycling route Brabantse Wal and Grenspark Kalmthoutse Heide
Cycle through a cultural and historic border landscape filled with open panoramic views, ancient polders, vast forests, blooming heathlands, drifting sand dunes and shimmering fens.
The Landscape
The Brabantse Wal is a surprisingly green elevated landscape that begins just south of Bergen op Zoom and continues as a natural ridge towards Belgium. Along the way, dry sandy soils, quiet forests and heathlands effortlessly alternate with wet polders, winding creeks and wide open views.
Its most distinctive feature is the escarpment, where you can literally experience the transition from higher sandy ground to low marine clay. It is precisely this sharp contrast, with fresh and salt water landscapes within a single cycling route, that gives the Brabantse Wal a character rarely seen so clearly anywhere else in the Netherlands.
South of this lies Grenspark Kalmthoutse Heide, a vast nature reserve of around 6,000 hectares that stretches uninterrupted across the national border. Here, you cycle past open heathlands, pine forests, sand dunes and dozens of fens, while traces of a turbulent past, including bunkers, forts and former defensive lines, remain quietly embedded in the landscape.
What You’ll Discover Along the Way
On the Brabantse Wal, you cycle through sheltered coniferous forests that suddenly open onto heathlands and sandy drift zones. In Grenspark Kalmthoutse Heide, the landscape feels vast and unspoilt, with wide paths, long sightlines and fens lying like mirrors among the greenery.
Around Ossendrecht and Woensdrecht, you discover a landscape shaped by centuries of land reclamation, border stories and historic routes through the greenery. Between tree-lined avenues, forest edges and historical features, the route takes on a calm, almost stately atmosphere that perfectly matches the character of the region.
At the foot of the Brabantse Wal, the landscape opens into expansive marine clay polders with canals, dikes and long fields stretching towards the horizon. The contrast between high and low ground makes this route especially varied, as you continually move between enclosed sandy landscapes and wide open polder scenery.
The escarpment creates striking elevation changes that you would hardly expect in West Brabant, giving the route a gently rolling rhythm. Above, you cycle across dry ridges with forests and heathlands, while below the landscape shifts to wet lowlands and open polder plains.
Ride along with us on this virtual bike tour
Virtual cycling through Grenspark Kalmthoutse Heide lets you experience a remarkably varied border landscape of forests, heathlands, drifting sand dunes and shimmering fens. You enjoy the tranquillity of long sandy paths and open nature, where every bend reveals a new view.
During this virtual cycling route, you experience the remarkable elevation difference of the Brabantse Wal escarpment, where dry sandy soils abruptly transition into wet marine clay polders. From home, you discover a unique combination of nature, open space and cultural history in one of the most beautiful regions of West Brabant.
Want to learn more about virtual cycling? THIS IS HOW VIRTUAL CYCLING WORKS
Route map and cycling junctions
Start and finish near cycling junction 38 at the Onze Lieve Vrouwe Ter Duinenlaan in Ossendrecht. Because this is a circular route, you can also start at one of the other cycling junctions along the route.
Distance: 58 km
Estimated riding time: 3 hours 55 minutes
Elevation gain: 123 m
Paved roads: 91%
Unpaved / semi-paved: 9%
Ideal for: e-bikes and city bikes
Along the way: several options for a coffee break or lunch.
