Croonaert Wood - Access

[dugout]

Hello everyone,

To reply on Kerry's item about Croonaert Wood, I show you a letter we received from peoples who worked there during the prospection.

[BatterySergeantMajor]

Kerry

If you were in the Salient with Army Cadets, you were probably staying in the Ieper army barracks. In this case, you should have asked Warrant Officer Lamond for additional information. The local unit has two battlefield guides who can help you in planning a battlefield tour. The actual colonel is very history-minded.

Best regards

Erwin

[kerry]

Dear Erwin,

for my recce visits I stayed at Toc H in Pop, and my party of 10 Army Cadets will be staying there again in August.

Very interested in the local Army historians - would you be able to provide contact details so I might e-mail them to see if they have any time to help, and also what their specialist knoweldge is?

Many thanks.

Kerry

[Guest stefaan decrock]

Hellow everybody

Franky Bostyn, the conservator off Zonnebeke, a college of my, told me of this Forum and the different reactions about Bayernwald.

I have just read these remarks very carefully and as the responsable 'cultural functionary' of Heuvelland I want to give you more information about this site.

I saw that Sir Paul Reed had a bad experience with the local tourist office and the way they take care of the code.

I must say that I regret what has happened. I already asked the office that they shoud be more friendly and give a better service. I had a meeting with the president of that office and gave him a copy of the writing of Sir Paul Reed.

Please, let my tell you why we have to work with a code.

Bayernwald is still private properthy. So we have as village Heuvelland an agreement with the owner that we could restore this site under certain conditions. At first we wanted to buy the ground but the owner was not interested.

As some of you already saw, the site is in the middle of farming land, in a little wood. The roads are very narrow. So to prevent that we had a 'traffic jam' on the site and that the neighbour farmers couldn't do their work on the land, we had to look for an system that takes the pressure of the site and spraid it in the time.

It's like you want to use your local sportcentre : you have to make a reservation and say when you will go. It's the same for Bayernwald: just say in forehand when you will go to prevent that 4 coaches and 3 cars arrives at the same time on the site.

I know that this is not the normal way to do.. But it was this system or nothing...

A larger parking place is not possible: it's farming land and the Flemisch gouvernment will not allowed big constructions in that zone.

However, the system will be improved and we will place a system with a doorpump that will make it more easy to enter.

So with a little bit of understanding of your side and a friendly tourist office of our side , we can work it out..

The trenches are restored by ABAF and Franky and his mates did a great effort to realise this unique German site. The trenches made in 1975 where fake and had no historical fundations. For your information: the budget was around 150.000 euro, not included the effort off the owner.

Soon, we will have also an Englisch flyer with more information about this site.

I hope this mail gives everybody a little bit more information why we have to work with a code. But I agree, it's not the most ideal situation.

Stefaan Decrock

village of Heuvelland

culturale service

057/ 450.472

e mail: Stefaan.decrock@heuvelland.be

[Paul Reed]

I saw that Sir Paul Reed had a bad experience with the local tourist office and the way they take care of the code.

Blimey, I've been knighted...

Seriously, I quite understand your system; I just felt at the time the person on the phone dealing with it could have been more 'user friendly'.

Having visited the wood, I am very impressed; so much so, we are aiming to add it to the itinerary of one of our new tours in 2005.

And I promise to book all our coaches in, well in advance!

[BatterySergeantMajor]

Kerry

I haven't been on the forum for a while. Would there be a possibility to exchange our e-mail adresses without having them published on the forum? I will be very pleased to help you, but the Army barracks are not in the possibility to cope with massive interest.

Erwin