Veluwezoom National Park

Report of a trip to the Veluwezoom National Park.
2023-10-11 – ⁠2023-10-14 3rd draft

While we were visiting family at Arnhem we not only went to the incredible Hoge Veluwe National Park, but also visited a tiny part of the neighboring Veluwezoom National Park, which is the oldest national park in the Netherlands.

After more than a week traveling through the country, I had started to forget what hills were and I was surprised to rediscover them. It felt like going back to Madrid for Christmas after months living in Ireland and worrying about having day after day of clear sunny skies.

Anyways, today we had hills and sun. I felt blessed.

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Loes’s family told us that Arnhem had laws to ensure that people lived within a certain maximum distance of green areas. I think it’s a great idea and here, with two natural parks 5km apart from each other, they nailed it.

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It was a short walk so I don’t have much to share besides pictures. We found cows that had a sign indicating they were “special”, but I didn’t find the explanations I was given, that they weren’t black and white spotted cows, satisfactory.

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Towards the end of our walk, we saw a small dog that was running back and forth over a 100m trail stretch staying at each end looking for someone, and then sprinting in the other direction. Its eyes looked scared and his legs were trembling. We looked around but didn’t see anyone and couldn’t help it. After a couple more sprints, the little dog took off and disappeared into the forest. I hope he found his human servants.

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