Break-In Trip: De Maasduinen NP
In case you can’t hear it, that’s Willy Nelson singing, “On the road again!” We couldn’t wait to get back on the road again. It was a long time coming. And while we aren’t quite on the road, we finally had our first test run to see how things might play out for when we do truly hit the road. As with all test runs, we learned a lot, though we have a bit more to figure out.
Even though it was more than a year after we’d expected to do our first outing, it was the type of outing we wanted to do with Beast, but didn’t get to do because of Beast’s delivery a couple of weeks before a scheduled long vacation. This time, however, it was a short 2 night trip (made possible in the middle of the week because of the ending of one work project and a delayed start to another project) with no pressure to produce good photographs as part of the trip.
We decided to head down south a bit to De Maasduinen National Park. In case you think that “Maasduinen” resembles the term massive dunes, you’re right. It’s a massive sand dune plateau along the Meuse River near the German border, well away from the coastal shoreline. Apparently, it’s not unusual in The Netherlands to find extensive stabilized dunes well-inland. We decided to explore the northern part of the park.
The trip took about an hour to get there and we settled into our camping spot by early afternoon on a Wednesday. Once set up, we headed out on a hike.
Extensive parts of the park are fenced off, with easy, self-closing gates for folks to enter restricted areas.
As you can see, the trails within the dunes are . . . sand. What is even more strange (though really, it shouldn’t be if you think about it) is that much of the other vegetation, from grasses to bushes to trees, resemble the older stabilized dunes we’ve come across in our travels in Oregon and Washington. Even the windswept pines look familiar.
It is a bit odd to be wandering rolling dunes 80 miles from the ocean coast, but it was enjoyable given the cool weather we’ve been having.
We’d initially planned on a short hike, but after seeing a viewing tower off in the distance (they’re apparently a big deal here), we decided to extend our walk to check it out.
The view from above confirmed what we already knew, the area is a string of massive sand dunes surrounded by forest lands.
The decision to extend our hike did have one drawback though . . . we got caught in a very long rain shower. After sheltering under a tree during the heaviest of the downpour, we decided to head back on what our google map apps showed was the shortest way back.
Of course, along the way, I had to stop for an image or two. Like I said, it was a lot like being at the beach.
Anyway, Google maps betrayed us because several of the hiking trails the app said were there, were not, and we had to take a circuitous route back and, by the time we got back, we were totally drenched. That was it for the day. We dried off and settled into life in the vehicle. We quickly appreciated the decision-making we made to upgrade, size-wise from Beast. We had plenty of room to change clothes and to get ourselves settled. We still have to work out how to coordinate between two people moving about at the same time, but the extra room is greatly appreciated.
One of the things we’re going to have to get used to is the inability to free camp in most of Europe. Fortunately, we discovered the Natuurkampeerterreinen line of campsites in The Netherlands (and some in France), where there is a more primitive camping experience. By that I mean that there is more space between campsites, few (this one had one) sites with electrical power, none with other built-in services, and being largely surrounded by nature. We passed by quite a few of the other types of campgrounds, which either resemble large, open fields with vehicles parked one next to the other, or deluxe camp parks with swimming pools, game houses and stuff like that - places geared for entertaining lots of noisy kids.
I think we’ll be sticking with the Natuurkampeerterreinen as much as possible. Though I’m interested in the program in France where you can stay on farms (there is a similar program in the US).
For not knowing what we’re doing, we landed up in a good spot our first time out. (And yes, those are our light walking shoes drying out from the downpour on our tire rack. Along with a couple of solar lamps and some boots that needed airing out).
The next morning we decided to head south from the top of the dune instead of north (i.e., turning right instead of left).
That route took us down the dune and into a forest. Woodland photography is not easy, but when we came across a fern-filled part of the walk, we decided to pull out our cameras.
Leaving the forest, we wound up near the location that led me to suggest a southern trek that second day. Not too far from our campsite was a “castle,” Kasteel Bleijenbeek. As we approached it, there was a small placard, much like the one on our usual morning walk in Didam, discussing the site’s significance during WWII. Apparently, a Nazi unit decided that they had to make a stand here. I guess that’s not too surprising considering Germany is only a couple of kilometers away (I’d say a good 1/3 to 1/2 of the cars had German license plates). As you can see, the defensive position took a pounding.
We walked around the castle, hoping to be able to enter it and wander around, but the gates at the bridge across the moat were closed and locked. So much for that.
So we headed southward again through yet another forest. This one was much older and much less undergrowth than the forested area we crossed earlier in the day. And given the partly cloudy skies, the light in the forest was lovely.
We continued onward and suddenly came across a field of wildflowers. It’s hard to tell from this image, but they were of a broad range of colors, and were definitely not planted for harvesting.
We decided to make our way back to the nearby town, Afferden, to have lunch.
On the way there we passed farmers’ fields, wooded areas, low-lying areas that are probably marsh for parts of the year.
And, by the way, lunch was excellent!
After lunch, we headed back to our campsite to relax a bit, and then decided to take a late afternoon hike to another area towards the north.
We crossed over the sand dune and then headed north instead of south, walking along the base of the dune we hiked the day before. It gave us a different perspective on the size of the dunes, that for sure.
We had no real “destination” other than an area that had appeared as a pond on the map. The water level was very, very low, but what that took away from larger landscape shots, it gave back by revealing a whole different range of plants and vegetation to examine and photograph.
Since we were wandering and taking our time, and the broader landscape wasn’t much to speak of, we turned our attention to the trees and vegetation around us.
Significantly, along the pond was a grouping of beech trees that were just lovely. While in Portugal, Ann had talked about trying to find some beech tree forests (there are several protected beech forests in Europe). Now I can see why. Don’t be surprised if you see more images of these trees over the next few years. They’re beautiful.
We continued our way around the pond, which you can see below was basically full of grasses. Perhaps the grasses make for a more interesting image than if it had been full of water. Sometimes (read: always for landscape photographers), you take what is offered and work with it. Grasses it was.
And that’s what we did on the way back, wandered through a new environment to see what it had to offer.
There are no great revelations from this trip. All of the images were made with our point-and-shoot camera. Neither of us felt compelled to pull out the better cameras. We’re learning we are going to have to explore a whole lot more of the landscape to discover its gems. I’m sure they are there, I just have to learn to see them, which means becoming familiar with a new landscape. Still, any time you feel compelled to pull out the camera, even if it’s the fall-back point-and-shoot (or the iPhone), it’s a good thing.
As for the vehicle break-in. I think much of our preparation was spot on in terms of how we’re going to live inside of the vehicle. I greatly appreciate that many of the controls simply make sense. Others require a few steps to get things operational, so I’ll just have to learn those routines. Other things were way off, which we promptly corrected last weekend and this. Most of the personal organizational end of the vehicle we managed to sort out. Other things were real discoveries, such as finding out that if I open the interior cabin door to get into the driver’s compartment to grab something, if the alarm is set it will go off. Oops!
Other little bugs we need to figure out, but that’s why one takes these type of short trips - to identify what those things are and how to get them to work, or fix them. It’s a process.
As for the Maasduinen NP? I wouldn’t rule out a trip to the southern portions of the park. Particularly if we feel the need to just get away for a couple of days.
For future plans, hopefully we’ll be able to make another trip before Kit’s wedding (August is the big holiday month in Europe, so we may just avoid trying that month). But we’re considering a short-ish late fall trip that should put the rig to good use. We’ll keep you posted on that as it develops.
For now, I’ll just say the first test outing was a good start, if not a long time coming!