This part of our trip was planned to be different, full of National Parks and admiring Holland’s landscape and nature. We started this section off with a visit to a former island, Schockland; it was an island in a previous life, now it’s reduced outline can still be seen within the ‘sea’ of reclaimed land surrounding it. It was a low lying strip of land with a farming community but they had to keep moving to higher ground because sea levels were rising, flooded by the sea on numerous occasions, the island was evacuated around 1859.
Following the draining of the Zuiderzee, a ‘Polder’ of land is formed by building sea defences and pumping out the water, the new land is usually lower and therefore at risk of flooding so is generally used as agricultural land although there are now villages and hotels on this land. This area of created land surrounded Schockland and another island called Urk, covers 208 square miles and is nearly 10 feet below sea level.
We had a beautiful sunny day and walked around the pathways of this former island with lovely views and wild flowers. There was the outline of an old church at one end and you could see where the building had been enlarged from the brick outlines. The wooded area was full of bird song, the most notable being 3 singing nightingales which was wonderful as the last one we heard was 10 years ago.
Enroute to a new campsite on a brilliant sunny day, we stopped at the National Park de Hoge Veluwe, a vast area of 21 square miles with woods, heathland and sand dunes. This was a real adventure because we were going on bikes and for those of you who don’t know, Chris cannot ride a bike. This place is fantastic, it has hundreds of white bikes parked at 3 different locations within the park, they are free to use so anyone can go to ride around the area. There are many styles of bikes available to hire for those with different requirements, tandems, side by sides, mountain bikes, wheelchair bikes, and child seats, also some electric bikes. Chris had a trike that we hired for €10 (£8) for the whole day and I rode a free white one; we took a picnic and rode around 17 miles in total with many stops for birds and breaks.
We peddled through the lovely deciduous woodland with foxgloves, around part of a lake and a country house, along the top of heathland where the views went on for miles and we found a pond where dragonflies skimmed the surface and garden warblers sang from the birch trees. At the end we were both seriously glad to get off and we probably should have only gone for half a day, but it was a great experience and one I can recommend.
From a campsite on the edge of Dordrecht we were able to walk along the waterways for several miles and watch the birds and butterflies before entering into a park with grassy spaces, trees and lake.
Some trees were covered with webs made by a type of ermine moth caterpillar. From the ground up, the tree trunks and branches were festooned with ghostly webs, not a leaf anywhere, all eaten by tiny mouths. Not just one tree either, lots of them had received the treatment and nettles and nearby bushes too. This happens usually in May and June then the caterpillars pupate and the trees recover.
We caught a train and two water-taxis to Kinderdijk , a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so we could visit a collection of 19 windmills built around 1740. Unfortunately it was a dull grey day so not as picturesque as it could be, but we had a lovely walk close to them and went inside one with the living quarters set out with typical furniture of the time. There was an information video explaining how the windmills pumped water from the low lying land up to the next dyke level, then another and another until it finally was pumped into the river, an on going process which explained the need for the numbers of windmills historically in Holland.
Another wet day and a train journey took us into Schiedam to visit the National Jenever Museum. Jenever is made from malted barley and distilled into malt wine. Originally there were around 400 distilleries over the past centuries in the old city of Schiedam so a massive quantity of milled barley was required. Traditional ‘bakers’ windmills had limited capacity and eventually dedicated windmills were constructed within the city, they needed to be built taller to catch the wind and are now the tallest in the world.
The museum was very interesting and exhibits well displayed with English panels and audio devices. I particularly liked the great number of ‘branding irons that were used to mark the barrels, the symbols became recognised as a certain distillers logo, hence ‘brand names’. Also a wonderful display of square bottles originally designed to go in wooden crates, padded by straw and the shape allowed them to be packed and removed easily. The display showed a large range of bottles with different labels changing annually right up to 2022. We paid for a tasting and shared samples of 6 different malt wines or Jenevers which can be used in various ways as straight drinks or cocktails.
With all the waterways and National Parks here, we thought we’d try a bit of boating at Beisbosch National Park. As the weather has been very mixed we opted for one with a cover for both the passenger and the driver, me! Well I soon discovered that I’m a bit short and sat on the driver’s seat with my legs dangling like a school kid. A folded coat didn’t help much, so we folded a seat cushion in thirds and I perched on that barely able to see over the length of the boat, so I peered around the outside or through the inside. Anyway we had a great time, ate our picnic enroute during our 3 hour voyage of discovery and added a little egret to our bird tally, it’s apparently quite rare in Holland.
For something completely different and to add a bit of ‘culture’s during our adventures, we visited Kasteel de Haar in the Utrecht region. It was surprisingly modern and beautiful with formal gardens and parkland, thankfully we first admired the gardens, scented roses, wisteria and rose arches plus the moated surround to the castle before the heavens opened, yet again!
The castle is the largest in Holland dating from the 13th century but having fallen into disrepair, it was basically rebuilt between 1892 and 1912. It was Baron Etienne Van Zuylen and his wife Hélène Rothschild who employed an famous architect called Pierre Cuypers to restyle and build the new castle. There were so many beautiful rooms both upstairs and down, modern bathrooms of the day and a huge kitchen. Everything was so colourful and lavish, the rooms were large and airy and overlooked the gardens and parkland.
As we left the palace the rain was coming down hard and we made a fast exit back through the gardens to Lisa where we ate our picnic in comfort, the plan was to have a pleasurable stop while walking around the park. Oh well, can’t win every time.
Our motorhome adventures 