Todd got his wish this weekend to head outside for little camping. Camping is not always at the top of my list of ways to spend a weekend, although I do usually end up having a good time. And that was the case this time around. The Hoge Veluwe National Park has been on our list of places to see since arriving in this country, and with no other plans for the weekend, we decided to head up on Friday night. We threw our tent, various camping supplies, and our dog in the car and hit the road for the, as it turned out, relatively short drive. It took us just over an hour to get there.
Upon arriving, and lugging our things from the car parking lot to the campground, we set about finding a spot to set up camp. The campground area was pretty small and it was a free for all in terms of where you set up your tent. We wandered around a bit, realizing that the place was busy and that we'd most likely have very close neighbors. But then we found a secluded spot that was beyond a small soccer field. We're still not sure if we were actually allowed to camp there or not, but it ended up working out perfectly. We spent the night sitting on our chairs, listening to music, playing with Jack, throwing together our dinner of meat and cheese, and having a few beers.
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| Campfires weren't allowed, so we made do with this citronella candle. |
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| Hond aan de lijn ("dog on the leash" as the park signs required). |
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| Boombox. |
The next morning, after a decent night's sleep, we set off to explore the Hoge Veluwe. Since we had Jack with us, all of our exploring was done on foot. Had we been there dog-less, we could have used 2 of the 1700 free white bikes. The park has hundreds of bikes stationed at spots around the park, that you can hop on and use, and then drop off anywhere else. It's a pretty great system for getting around the park, and we are planning to get back there sometime this fall to see more of the park that way.
We began by walking 5km to the center of the park where there's a visitor's center and a restaurant. We stopped for a coffee at the restaurant and then continued another nearly 2 km to an observation point. These points are set up throughout the park, allowing visitors to view the wildlife that lives there. Apparently there are deer, mouflon, wild boar, badgers, and lots of other creatures living there. We saw zero of these specimens, which I guess is another reason for us to get back there.
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| Restaurant for lunch and coffee.
After a bit more exploring we walked back to the restaurant for lunch, and then we hiked the 5km back to our campsite. All told, I think we walked around 8 or 9 miles that day. Jack was loving it, but she definitely needed lots of water breaks like this one:
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By the time we got back, it was late afternoon, so we packed our stuff up and loaded it on this cart, which we hadn't discovered as we were bringing our things in the day before:
On our way out, we made sure to snap a shot of this sign:
At first, we were concerned that wild roosters were going to be jumping out in the street making it hard to drive. But upon inspection of Google Translate, we discovered that word translates to this:
And apparently cattle grids are grates placed in the roads with slots into which an animal's legs will fall through and get caught, thus preventing them from getting across. We had discovered a few of those in the park as well since Jack got a little paw stuck in one. Proof that they work!
It was a great weekend that continued our theme of seeing more of the Netherlands this July.
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