Kootwijkerzand

The Kootwijkerzand is about seven hundred hectares of open, actively shifting sand on the Veluwe, and it is generally described as the largest area of drift sand still moving in western Europe. It is entirely man-made in origin: from the Middle Ages the heath here was grazed by sheep and stripped of sods for fertiliser until the vegetation cover broke, the wind got underneath, and the sand began to travel - burying farmland and, at times, villages, which is why the Dutch spent centuries planting pine to stop it. Most drift sands were fixed that way; this one was kept open deliberately as habitat, because the species that depend on bare moving sand - specialist beetles, wasps, lichens, sand lizard, woodlark - have nowhere else. Scrub is cleared to hold it back. Walking it is genuinely like walking a small desert, with pine forest around the edges.

What you actually see

• Seven hundred hectares of moving sand - the largest active drift sand in western Europe.
• A man-made desert - created by medieval overgrazing and sod-stripping.
• Kept open deliberately - cleared of scrub to hold the habitat that needs bare sand.
• Specialist species - beetles, lichens, sand lizard and woodlark of open sand.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

Honest expectations

Walking sand is exhausting and there is no shade at all - it gets very hot in summer. Do not walk here in the middle of a hot day. Stay on marked routes; the surface is fragile. Parking is charged.

Nearby

Radio Kootwijk's concrete radio station is beside it; the Hoge Veluwe is south.