What You Didn't Know About The Netherlands

[fj]

The Veluwe is an area in the middle of The Netherlands that is laregly designated as a nature preserve. This doesn't mean it is an untouched National Park like, say, Yellowstone; the Veluwe does have a number of villages and highways crossing through it. It is a visually very flat landscape, although it does contain some of The Netherland's rare hilly terrain. It is a very rural area with no large cities, consisting mostly of meager-looking forests and tundra-like flat fields, punctuated by small villages and isolated farms. Socially it is considered a backwater, but also a great place for a short nature holiday, like walking daytrips -- The Netherlands is too manicured to possibly call it 'hiking' -- or maybe even a long weekend on a camping farm. In poorer times, when half the country hadn't been to Thailand for the summer holidays, families might even take whole camping holidays in this area.

Now the Veluwe, and in my family's case, a small part of it called the Ginkelse Heide, is where my sister would, when we all still lived at home, on Saturdays take the dog to a spot where lots of people from surrounding small villages would take the dog on a Saturday in the car. They'd all let the dogs run loose on one of those flat fields with all the other dogs, having fun and playing around together.

Wildlife-wise, there are course the endless amounts of bunny rabbits, hares, and brown squirrels. There are some groups of deer, very few, but they have been seen. The Netherlands has no large predators in the wild anymore, althought there are some red-tailed foxes on The Veluwe. Besides owls there's always the odd sighting of near-extintc birds of prey trying to make a living there. No snakes, really, no deadly insects of course, for we have none in NL. The Veluwe is a nice safe almost sterile pleasant nature area in the middle of the Netherlands.



And right now, it seems to be harboring a mountain lion.

Comments

[danger-chick.livejournal.com]

Actually, I haven't taken snake training, so I'm like a snake safety incident waiting to happen.

[jss]

Beware badgers and mushrooms, too. At least until you've seen the safety video.

[danger-chick.livejournal.com]

Well, that doesn't look safe at all....

[jss]

:-)