We have visited the Sallandse Heuvelrug before. A national park with large hills, beautiful forests and beautiful heaths.
We have set ourselves the goal of visiting the 21 National Parks of the Netherlands within a year. Here you can read all about the parks we allready visited. Sallandse Heuvelrug is one of them!
Typical… ..National Park De Sallandse Heuvelrug
We have visited the Sallandse Heuvelrug before. We have already explored this park by bike and on foot. But this environment is never boring. The area has a foreign feel, with the hills and beautiful views. There are many opportunities to have fun in this park.
From the outdoor center in Nijverdal, the nature museum in Holtenberg or the information shed Erve de Pas in Hellendoorn you can start a walk or bicycle tour. You can also enjoy mountain biking here. You can have fun with those hills!
The sheepfold is in Twilhaar. The sheep are an important link in nature conservation here. They ensure that the heath remains open. Special animals live in this national park, such as the black grouse, grass snake, sand lizard and badger. Animals that you will not just spot.
My humble opinion
The Sallandse Heuvelrug National Park has conquered a special place for me. As a little girl I already came to visit here because family lived in Nijverdal. I still remember how the high sand drifts made a huge impression on me. They were huge! In addition, the family member told me that there were regular deer in the garden… .. something that I found very exciting.
The park is beautiful because it is so different from usual. Just like parks on the Veluwe and in Limburg, there are many differences in height and that makes it a different experience to walk or cycle here. You can already see the lateral moraine from afar and it still makes an impression. There are nice walks and we had a good time cycling.
The Sallandse Heuvelrug does attract many visitors. We are here on a cool day in May and it is quite calm and quiet, but when the weather is nice this park is busy. This makes the experience of nature different. So choose a quiet morning, then you have the park to yourself!
Cycling through the Sallandse Heuvelrug
We have put together a cycling route with Route.nl. It already contains some cycling routes, which I have used and adapted. We started our tour at Bistro Oale Ste, in Nijverdal. We had lunch here first. The total distance of our cycling tour is 34 kilometers.
Cycling through the Sallandse Heuvelrug is tough here and there, because you go up hills. But the advantage is that you also go off on the other side. Cycling down is wonderful! Not entirely without danger, by the way, because if it is busy on the cycle path, oncoming traffic or walkers then you have to pay attention!
The best part
The part of the route that goes through the south of the park, at Holterberg and the part that we drove through the park (between junctions 62 and 57) I liked the most. This part is the most attractive from a landscape point of view! Beautiful views!
The Sheep
At the end of the ride we encountered the flock of sheep. Here we stopped for a while and make a lot of pictures of these cozy animals.
