Drents-Friese Wold

The Netherlands, 6 August 2026

We like summer. This means longer days and a lot of sunshine! This year we are already treated with a lot of sunny days during spring and summer just made her start, we really cannot complain. During the summer a lot of tourist come visit the Netherlands because of the coast and beaches or to enjoy places by bike, but as you might have noticed, we avoid the mainstream and visit the Silent places. National Park Drents-Friese Wold is one of those. You can find it on the border of Drenthe and Fryslân in the East of the Netherlands. Here you can truly unwind between the smell of pine- and deciduous trees of the forest, your eyes will be treated with dry brown- and colored open heathland and you will feel the sand in your shoes, not from beaches but from the drift-sand area of Aekingerzand, also known as the 'Kale Duinen' (Bare Dunes).  There are hiking paths and a lot of cycling paths too. We noticed that the cycling paths were sometimes more beautiful as it crossed the forest more closely through mossy paths between the trees so we decided to walk on both. As the park is over 6.000ha of land we visited the area for two full days so we gave us more time to capture the most beautiful spots!

The (dry) heatland is a common Nature beauty in our Silent Hiking video's and around this time it is slowly starting to bloom colors. One year ago, in August, we already made a movie about the purple heat at Dwingelderveld which is close to the Drents-Friese Wold. This year we wanted to visit the pruple heat on another place to show you it's natural beauty once again. The purple color comes from the common heather (Calluna vulgaris) which you mostly see in dry to moist, nutrient-poor, acidic sandy soils and attract all kinds of nectar-loving insects. 

Next to the purple heat we also went to this place to look for roe deer as the rutting season, also known as the mating seaon in the Netherlands has started (from mid-July to mid-August.) During this time, roe deer are much more active during the day and are easier to spot along forest edges and in open fields where they might drink at the small, wet pools of the Drents-Friese Wold. We were hiking approx. 30KM along the edges of the forest and open fields but the weather was quite hot (first day 25C and next day it was even hitting above 30C). Also for animals hot weather can be stressfull and they need to relax more. The roe deers are not active during hot days and they need to drink more so they need to visit water pools. At the Drent-Friese Wold there are a couple of pools but some are quite hidden and not easy reach or not allowed to be, only reserved for the animals. We walked around the 'Adderveen', the 'Grenspoel' and the 'Ganzepoel' but unfortunately the roe deers were not there at this moment. They might sleep in the forest in a sheltered hollow in the ground, located in dense bushes or tall grass fields. As we were walking around we noticed that a lot of placed are closed off due to breeding season or there was no hiking trail at all as Nature has densely overgrown which is good for the animals as they can rest and live without being disturbed.

So long no luck for us but during the walk in the forest we got treated with a big black form. A Black Woodpecker was flying into his home. In a Visitor Centre runned by Staatsbosbeheer, we have read that a black woodpecker have a body lenght of around 50cm and his wings can reach up to 70cm. Quite easy to spot when he is flying around or when he lands on a tree. But because he flies fast through the trees (approx. 35km p/h) we also needed to be fast with our camera and tripod. As we are walking a lot we are not always have our tripod fully expanded as that's not comfortable during the hike. So unfortunately that means we were not fast enough as things like this always overcomes you so we missed to film it as he was already flewing out of his home. Grrr that feeling! We were waiting another 30min all set up for him to come back as he might fed his juveniles but we also thought we were scaring and disturbing him and his home as Black Woodpackers rarely show their homes to others so we decided to move on.

This place has a lot to offer as long as you spend time to look around and choose to live in the moment. Mostly when you are chasing things you will not be able to find it. So we were heading back to the car (while still looking around but just with another view) and almost at the very end of our walk, somewhat around 8 in evening we heard a weird screaming noise coming from the trees around us. So here we are again, standing completely still, made absolutely no sound and set up the tripod ASAP and quietly once again. While holding the camera in our hands, filming freestyle we found the spot of a bird, high up on the tree where it could oversee the whole area. It was an Eurasian Jay. After this shot we made a small dance of joy as we really like these moments Nature gives us by not chasing things but just enjoy the moment with your surroundings. Let us know what you think, see link to our movie below.

See you outside!


- Tim and Dorien