Loon op Zand

Today we went caching in Loon op Zand. About the caching details you can read here
First we walked from the car to the nature area.

We passed by some farms.

And the walk brought us to an area called "Loonse en Drunense Duinen", that consists of marshes and sand dunes.

The weather being a little bit windy but with the sun in the sky lovely to be outside.

The dogs weren't allowed to run freely everywhere.

But where they could they enjoyed that a lot.

Happy Birthday Toby

Today Toby had his birthday. He became 4 years old. We had a little celebration and of course a cake.

Toby and Brego awaiting the cake.

Toby the birthday boy enjoying his half of the cake.

And Brego eating his half.

A little movie that shows the dogs eating their part of the cake very peacefully.

Toby laid himself down to enjoy the last part of the cake, well he's an old boy now, just kidding of course.

Snow in the Netherlands

When we awoke on Monday we opened the curtains and saw that it had snowed in the Netherlands. The whole week the temperature stayed below zero and therefore the snow stayed around. Toby loves laying in the back garden with his belly on the snow.

And Brego enjoys playing with a soccer ball even when snow is laying around and the ball is almost frozen.

In the weekend our niece and nephew came to sleep over and they wanted to go caching with us. Here you can see Tommy walking around with the GPS receiver.

The dogs are having fun in the snow. And what a nice weather it was with the sun out there.

Here is Mila posing in the forest.

And here you can see us all walking around on a frozen stream.

And Brego has a strange habit when he is on the ice. The next movie tells it all.

Bearded Collie Walk, Leende

While on holiday a friend of us suggested to organize a bearded collie walk close to our home. It is a forest where dogs are allowed to walk freely. We thought that was a good idea en together we agreed to let it happen on the Sunday after our holiday.
And so it happened about 20 Bearded Collies were present with their bosses.
When the dogs are released they are always very happy and they start running with each other.

We walk about 7 KM in the area, that is a mixture of forest.

A couple of open meadows inside the forest, where the dogs start running every time we arrive at one.

And there are also two sand hills.

White sand which for a bearded collie owner is good news, since they don't get to dirty with this kind of sand.

But the most part is forest area.

Christmas Holiday, Germany

The last destination of our Christmas holiday was in Kalkar Germany, just across the border in Germany.
Although a holiday park is located there, we didn't visit that, because we came here to enjoy peace and silence. We were hoping for a quiet new-year arrival without a lot of fireworks.
We walked to the historical town of Kalkar, that was just about a small KM away from the camping site.

The dogs could run free for the first part.

But of course when we arrived at the town itself they had to be on the leash.

We did a tour around the town, and one of the points to visit was this Jewish church, where we actually were invited to enter the church (with the dogs, since they were Gods creatures as well). We politely refused, since there is always a chance that Brego could mark one of the benches with his urine.

We visited different areas in town, and a what we noticed was a lot of nice buildings.

And last but not least we visited the Dutch Windmill that is present in the town.

On the last day of the year we walked towards an area nearby with dunes, not exactly like dunes at the sea, but dunes created by the river Rhine a long time ago.

At this old tree remains we needed to make a picture with the dogs and our GPS. But the dogs almost couldn't sit still because the liked the hoar-frost that was on the tree.

On the next picture it is visible that the area was frosted all over.

On the first day of the year 2009 we took the bikes again to drive towards a castle in the neighbourhood. Since we were the only visitors on this part of the camping site the dogs could run free once in a while.

The castle Moyland that we visited on the background.

And on the way back we came across this little chapel.

Christmas Holiday, Lauwersoog

After our stay at the island of Texel we wanted to drive to Germany and stay there until the new-year. On the way over to Germany we stopped at a camping site in Lauwersoog.
We arrived there when it was almost dark so we enjoyed a peaceful first night there and the next day we went for a walk in the neighbourhood.

The walk lead us through beautiful surrounding. Although it was a very cold day, but since the sun was shining it was overall a very pleasant day.

At one point there was a look-out tower, and when the boys see stairs they want to climb them so here a picture of them upstairs.

With this cold weather the dogs are very thirsty and here they are looking for water underneath the ice.

Here you can see us relaxing on a bench before we continued with the walk.

Christmas Holiday, Texel

On Monday we took our motor-home to enjoy a holiday, we first went to Texel, one of the islands in the North of the Netherlands, where we've been before and that we like a lot.
When we arrived the dogs needed to investigate the environment.

We immediately went to the beach that is very close-by the site that we were staying at. It was already starting to get dark when we arrived at the beach.

We stayed a mid-week on Texel. We took the bikes for a tour around the island three times. The first time we took the doggy-rides with us and we drove to the North part of the island.

On the way we stopped a couple of times to find a cache. One of the caches was hidden on a small airport.

Another was hidden near the station of the rescue people.

And the target of that day was a cache near a beautiful lighthouse.

We had a week with a lot of sun, but overall it was very cold, but that doesn't seem to harm the boys.

On Christmas day we took the bikes without the doggy-rides to ride to two earth caches not to far from where we were staying. The dogs walked beside the bicycles the whole part.
The areas were very beautiful. Here we are standing at a look-out point of one of the earth caches.

We walked along the dunes towards another earth cache located on the highest dune of the island.

On the way back we walked along the beach, which is always a lot of fun. Toby ran towards the sea and looks back where we are staying.

Both doggies running towards the sea.

A movie that shows the fun we had at the beach.

On Boxing day we took the bikes again to go for an almost 30 KM ride to the South of the island. Again a beautiful sunny day.

I created a trip where we had a stop every 3 or 4 Km. The boys walked all by them selves.

A lovely piece of nature where our favorite cattle walk loose and we had to pass by them on very short distances. Rather impressive, sunny, but cold, what a blessed people we are.

Another stop at a nice church.

And after a day full of activity what's better than to relax in the motor home.