Contact Information
Address:
Koningsweg 1
9660 Brakel
Belgium
Phone: 055/600617
E-mail: info@boskanter.be
Directions
We appreciate your efforts to use public transport or ride the bike.
You’ll be more mobile if you travel by backpack (rather than trailer).
By Bike
Maybe you want to follow the ‘Mijnwerkerspad’ (“miner’s path” in Dutch): this is an old railway embankment between Zottegem and Ronse, turned into a GR bicycle path. But be careful, the path is interrupted in Opbrakel. Coming from Ronse, it’s better to turn left at Hurdumont. Coming from Zottegem, you turn right at the interruption. If you want to follow the ‘fietsknooppunten’ (a network of fixed cycling routes between several points), we are between points 48 and 99.
By train.
You can reach us by bus (see next chapter) from the trainstations of Ronse and Zottegem. You can reach Nederbrakel (4.5 km from Boskanter) also by bus from the trainstations of Geraardsbergen and Oudenaarde. Zottegem, Geraardsbergen and Oudenaarde can be reached by a direct train from Brussels every hour. If you missed the last bus and have to be picked up by car, the nearest trainstations are Munkzwalm (if you come from Brussels or Kortrijk) and Lierde (if you come from Ghent).
For travel direction, check the website of the NMBS.
If you come by train from the border of Belgium, and you are younger than 27, this ticket could be the cheaper one. You have to buy it on-line.
If you plan to make at least ten trips in Belgium, this might be the cheapest option if you’re under 27 and this if you are older.
A trainticket in Belgium is valid for a certain day, not for a certain time. We don’t have a reservation system on our trains. We have local trains (stop everywhere) and IC-trains (Inter City, stops only in the big cities) but no ultra fast trains, except the ones that come from the neighbouring countries (TGV, Thallys, ICE, Inoui, …).
By local bus.
There is a busstop at 10 tot 15 min. walking from Boskanter.
It’s easiest to reach us by bus from the train stations of Ronse and Zottegem. From these train stations, you can use bus 20 and busses 207 and 208.
- During the week they drive from
- Zottegem from 6h21 till 20h21 (till 21.21 only to Brakel centre),
- Ronse from 6.00 till 20.30
- on saturday they drive from
- Zottegem from 7.45 till 19.56 (till 21.51 only to Brakel centre),
- Ronse from 7.28 till 19.37
- and on Sunday from
- Zottegem from 8h51 till 18h51
- Ronse from 8.33 till 18.30
You can find the timetables for these busses on the website of De Lijn. You have to press a button on the bus, to ask the driver to stop. Check for the stop on your route planner, or ask the bus driver beforehand to warn you.
Tickets can be bought on-line, even just before you get on the bus. The cheaper option is a ticket for ten rides that you can buy either on-line or in the trainstation or newspaper shops. We can take over remaining rides on the paper ticket if you would not use all of them.
As long as they are working on the ‘Ronsesestraat’, you need busstop ‘Herenhof’ to reach Boskanter. After that, it will be the stop ‘Landuitweg’.On the image below you see the stop ‘Herenhof’ and the dotted golden line you can follow to find Boskanter.
From abroad
France
Often the last part to Belgium, with a high spead train from Paris to Brussels, is the most expensive. It’s also a detour. You can avoid this by either taking a bus from Paris to Brussels, or by taking the train to Lille Flandres. From there you can take a ‘normal’ train for only 13€ accross the border, with a change in Kortrijk, to Oudenaarde, Zottegem or Munkzwalm (see ‘by train’).
Germany
If you come from Germany by train, it’s sometimes cheaper to take a ticket to the last station in Germany (Aachen, for example), then a ‘normal’ ticket to cross the border to the first station in Belgium (Hergenrath, for example), and then the ‘youth ticket’ in Belgium. That ticket brings you, for 7,5€, from one station in Belgium to another. The ticket to cross the border is usually 4,5€ or something like that. You would have to travel by IC-train from Aachen to Brussels, in stead of the ICE-train or another high speed train. That’s a bit more slowly. And you could take the border ticket only to Hergenrath and the Youth-ticket from Hergenrath to Brussels, even if your IC-train doesn’t stop in Hergenrath.
By international bus
Again, consider the youth ticket when traveling by bus. As you can take it, for the same price, from any station in Belgium, you can take a bus to any station in Belgium, for example to have a cheaper ticket, but also to arrive at 5 AM (in Antwerp, so you have a connection with the first train) in stead of 4 AM (and have to wait two hours in Brussels in the early hours).
By plane
We have two big airports: Zaventem airport and Charleroi airport (sometimes called Brussels South).
Zaventem airport has usually the more expensive flights and is close to Brussels. Every hour you have a train that goes directly from Zaventem to Zottegem, so you could arrive prety late and still be in Zottegem for the last bus or for us to pick you up by car. The only drawback is that you have to pay a supplement for the train from Zaventem airport to Brussels. If you want, you can avoid this by traveling with a local bus of the Flemisch bus company ‘de Lijn’ from Zaventem airport to Brussels.
Charleroi airport has most of the cheaper flights but is further from Zottegem. You have to take a bus brom the Walloon bus compagny ‘TEC’ to a trainstation (usually Charleroi), so it takes a while before you are in Brussels. There exists also a direct shuttle bus from Charleroi Airport to Brussels South trainstation, but also that takes a while. So take into account, when traveling over Charleroi, that early or late flights are no option, unless you stay in a hostel around the airport or in Brussels.
GPS
Aim for the crossroads between Pullem and Koningsweg instead of ‘Koningsweg 1’. Because Koningsweg consists of two parts with a forest in between and the GPS can send you to the wrong end.