Trips, Tracks and Travels

The river Vecht has its origin in Germany, and carries the result of rainfall and melting snow to Zwolle, and finally to the IJsselmeer. Today, it is straightened out to move the water quickly. But in older days, the river took many turns, the water couldn’t move quickly enough and flooded large areas of land. Dykes have been created but the riverbed remained very wide - and occasional flooding caused teh river to take different routes after the land was flooded.
Today, the eremains of the gone area are visible in the landscape. Not always clear when walking - though the relief shows old dunes and beds, and some meanders still remain as waters in the land. But very clear when looking on old maps - and on images taken from high altitude.
Todays walk leads from Ommen to Dalfsen, from station to station; a distance of 26 kilometers, following the streambed of the old river, crossing it twice: Near Ommen to get to the Northern shore, and halway, near Holt, heading to Dalfsen through the Southern area. Passing woods on river dunes, pastures and nature conservation areas, passing a number of estates - or locations where once stood a manor.
The imaginary impressions include wide views of the landscape. The track is available in Garmin, generic and CSV formats.

A long walk, over 30 kilometers from station to station. Mainly following the Regge river, from Midden-Regge, from Nijverdal to the Overijsselsche Kanaal - from there the river is named Beneden-Regge. Some diversions passing rural areas to pass old manors, halls, some just the location remains, and some still exist.
Somewhere at the end, the camara battry was exhausted - I forgot lo load it, so the last images are taken with the phone camera…

The tracks are available in Garmin, general and CSV formats. The images can read here.

This is the first of two stages in the Reggeland area. This little river (once an important trade route) runs South to North, from the hills in Twente to Ommen where it enters the Vecht river. However, in the route we took today, the stream seemed to be opposite, probably because the Vecht had higher levels.
The area lies between the hills of Salland in the West and Twente on the Eatern banks. These are sandy grounds, but relatively more fertile. Apart from woodland and moors, agriculture has been a important for ages: grazing sheep on the moors. In winter, spinning and weaving their wool for textiles was a normal activity.
It is no surprise that, when the English inventor Thomas Ainsworth - who created the first automated looms - came to the area In the middle of the 19th century, he opened the first Dutch weaving mill in this place; the factory started the village: Nijverdal (which means “Busy Dale”) was built around this factory. Thomas lived - and died - in an estate near the village.
But today, most of this business is gone. Today, Ten Cate, one of the remaining Dutch textile companies, still has a large complex in the town.

The walk to Nijverdal follows roads and paths in an agricultural environment; just before Nijverdal, a small patch of the former marshy moorland still exists, and is crossed twice, to get to the sheepshed in the Northern area.
The route has been tracked for about one third - my batteries gave up…So the rest has been “tracked” by hand - but it is the actual route. The whole track is available in Garmin, generic and CSV formats - and of course, here are the images…

A fair day, that ended in a shower: driving to Markelo via Rijssen, to drop off our bikes near the track, where we started the walk to Nijverdal, than continued to Markelo, parking the car at the Tourist office, where we ended the fourth walk. Next, walked 16 kilometers North through the rural area between the towns, and rode back along the main road.
The images are published here, the track is available in Garmin and generic format - no CSV file, this time.

The next part of the long-distance footpath would be Goor to Rijssen - since either has a railway station, travelling to get started - or to finish - would be easy. But that would mean a walk of 35 kilometers. Since the weather was fine and the actual distance between the two placses minor compared to the walk itself, we decided to cut this track in two, and walk from Goor to Markelo - a distance of about 20 kilometers, including the part from the station in Goor to the path - and cycle back along the main road - a mere 7 kilometers.
So we dropped the bikes at the Tourist Office in Markelo, drove on to Goor and started our walk - a long U-shape track, first South from Goor to the track, then to Diepenjeim where we had our rest, then bending slightly West tand finally North again.
We passed a number of estates - manors and halls - after which the path is named: Weldam, Nijenhuis, Diepenheim and Westerflier, in a rural, mainly agricultural landscape, but full of changes.
A number of images have been taken, and of course, the tracks are available in Garmin, General Exchange en CSV formats.

As the bird flies, it is a little distance - and by train just 6 minutes from station to station, but all in all the walk is almost 30 kilometers - an S-shaped track, with the last 2.5 kilometers off route to get to the station in Goor
Starting in Delden at the railway station (opened , the residence of the Twickel estate, a large part of the route ran over paths on the estate, passing a restored mill, the base being laid out before 1350; at that point we crossed another long distance footpath we’ve done before (Marskramerpad, from Deventer to Oldenzaal (LAW3-1)), and we covered the same region, only several kilometers North of this path, until we reached the TwenteKanaal - where we kept following the canal, but the Marskeamerpad crossed the bridge.
We had our rest in the restaurant “De Markenrichter” - where the people in the area took care of their own business: making appointments, right would be spoken in case of failure - before Napolean rule closed the habit that had been there (and working well ) for ages….
In the area named “Kerspel Goor” we lost the signs - probably the route has been diverted because of works on removing asbest-polluted surface so the path was officially closed. But since the soil had been removed, we simply kept to our path according the booklet; the distance was just a two-hundred meters.It was only on the detour to Goor that we found the white-red signs again. What happened with the track, we don’t know.
Of course, the route has been tracked in Garmin, general and CSV formats - and because it’s such a nice environment, there are quite a few pictures.

Leg number 2 - another 23 kilometers (more or less) on a bright, sunny day. We started where we stopped last time: at the Drienerlo raiulway station, next to the FC Twente football stadium. The route has been diverted but signalling was poor - but keeping the same direction - towards the bridge crossing the Twentekanaal - we got back on track.
Passing old footpaths along meadows in the Twekkelo area - where people thrive to keep these old lanes open - to Boekelo. This village is where salt mining started in the 1920’s. You still see the little green barns everywhere, where steam in injected in the slat domes deep underground, and salt water is returned. The Boekelo Tourist Office houses in a black drikking tower.
From there we entered one of the largest estates in the area: Twickels. Every farm that belongs to the estate has black-and-white blinds aside the windows. The estate is famous for it’s nature reservation work. In the midst of the estate is the village of Beckum. From there, we followed one of the paths used by people to go to church - through low-lying woords - and in bad weather conditions, it must have been a hard walk of several kilometers - in muddy conditions.But the weather has been fair the previous week and today - so no mud-walk for us.
Again, the walk has been tracked (in Garmin, general and CSV formats) and a number of pictures have been taken

We started with a 23 kilometer walk from Oldenzaal to Drienerlo. The walk starts at the Oldenzaal Railway sation, passed through the rural area South of Oldenzaal and North of Enschede, traversed over the Technical University campus, to our destination: the Drienerlo railway station (just outside the football station of FC Twente), where we took the train back to Oldenzaal.
Not too bright weather, but nice to walk. Of course I took pictures - and tracked the walk in Garmin, Generic and CSV formats.

The Havezatenpad is a long distance path from Oldenzaal to Steenwijk, and it contains a kind of prologue - a two-day walk from Vollenhove to Zwartsluis and back.

In former days, Vollenhove used to be a bishop seat, and the capital of the Dutch Northern Territories, ruled by the bishop of Utrecht. This is still shown in the mansions that still exist in town.
When the daministraion moved to Zwolle, the major business of the town was fishing, which ended in first half of the 20th century, when the former Zuiderzee was dammed and new polders were created.
Zwartsluis used to be the statsion where turf was moved from the Eastern part of Overijssel and Drente to this towen, and moved over to larger vessels to bring the fuel to Amsterdam.
Today, watersports and tourism is the major source of income - for all towns and villages in the area;

Vollenhove lies on a bank of sandy material, high grounds aside an area that was long inaccesable except by boat; Turf was harvested and that causes shallow lakes to form; this area now is a nature reserve, attracting lots of visitors.

The walk is tracked (available in Garmin, general and CSV formats - and images have been taken to show the environment. We had two showers, one leaving Zwartsluis, and one just before re-entering Vollenhove. No pictures have been taken during these showers.

The snow has disappeared. We made a 20 kilometer walk nearby, through the patches of nature, squeezed between builded areas - the only remains of a vast landscapoe of heather and woodland, from the small town of Huizen, to the former fotress of Naarden, with it’s fortifications still present. Most of thee have been torn down in Napolean times, but since Naarden was part of the line of fortresses around Amsterdam, it has been restored in the 19th century.
Back along a park that once belonged to the estate of Oud Craailo.
A number of images have been taken, and tracks are available in the usual formats: Garmin, generic and CSV.