Lovely walk today with Neighbour, walking 15 km plus ! and it went really really well. Hardly any protests from my blessed feet at all :) And after being a virtual cripple for more than two years, this is a refreshing change.

We walked through Kampina, a nature reserve about half an hours drive to the south from where we live. It lies in the province of Brabant – and in a different world altogether. We live between two major rivers, with an open landscape and the horizon visible everywhere. Brabant has a different rithm altogether, more small-scale and intimate. Villages are built around a central village green, luxurious villa’s set in landscaped parks on their very edges. There are small shrines along the waysides and longhouse-type farm buildings. There is also more intensive livestock farming than anywhere else in the Netherlands – but today we did not smell any.

Kampina offers a landscape as it could have been 100 years ago – heathland, small pools, sand dunes and large stretches of mixed woods where pines, oak and beach predominate. Not that I’d want to go back in time as I am very much attached to my mod cons – a long hot soak after a long walk being one of these.

We both came equipped with food and drinks, feeding ourselves at well-spaced intervals. The above picture shows what all came out of our backpacks – with Neighbour leading the pack as far as providing small, compact treats go.