Veluwezoom

Veluwezoom National Park was established in 1930 in the province of Gelderland, on the eastern edge of the Veluwe massif, and protects some 50 km². It was the first national park in the Netherlands, created on the private initiative of the Natuurmonumenten association from estates bought to prevent their development.

The relief, unusual for the country, is the work of ice: during the penultimate glaciation the Scandinavian ice sheet reached this far and pushed the sediments ahead of it, forming push moraines that today constitute hills of up to a hundred metres, the greatest elevations in this part of the Netherlands. From the Posbank a broad panorama over the whole opens out.

The landscape combines Calluna heaths, which in August turn considerable areas purple, with drift sands, pine woods and beech and oak woodland. The heaths are semi-natural and are maintained through grazing by sheep of a local breed and by cattle under extensive management. The wildlife includes an important population of red deer, wild boar and mouflon, and the park is one of the few places in the country where the rut can be heard.