Garmerwolde with Deva

Deva and I took our first trip out to through the Dutch countryside towards a tiny city called Garmerwolde that is just north-east of Groningen. Lucky for us it was a beautiful, sunny day!

On the way out of the city we passed a petting zoo and just had to stop to take a look. There was mostly baby goats there that were sleeping and lazing in the sun while naughty children climbed all over them. There was also sheep and a baby cow that tried to get it on with the sheep, and a turkey that was very camera shy! We petted the animals and the animals chewed my skirt and I bought local strawberry jam. A very adorable place to hang out for a half an hour!

After the petting zoo, we ran into some wild animals that I thought were giant cows at first (Dutch cows are really, really big!) . But, lo and behold, they were not cows! They were water buffalo (I think) !! The whole family was relaxing in the afternoon sun and we managed to get up really close! They were very beautiful creatures and I feel lucky to have gotten to see them.


Closer to Garmerwolde we spotted a real, working windmill - not a fake one that poses as a tourist attraction. I love this picture. It screams "here I am in the middle of Holland with my bike and a windmill!". I hope you like it too :)

We arrived at Garmerwolde later in the afternoon. I didn't post the pics but there is a beautiful church in the town with a really old cemetery with nice gravestones and stuff. The church is pretty much the only thing in the town. We wanted ice cream and managed to find one single corner store in the entire town. Not even a restaurant.

Finally, we arrived at what was my initial destination - Liberation Forest. This is a group of trees that were planted by children in memory of the Canadians that fought for the liberation of the Netherlands - one tree for each Canadian soldier. The trees are actually very young so it is not much of an actual forest.

However, at the end of the trail is a very quaint memorial for the Canadian soldiers. People had laid out flowers on the memorial, which has the names of the different regiments engraved in it (including, of course the South Saskatchewan Regiment!). There is also a giant maple tree (Deva and I are posing by it), a lane called maple leafpad, and a sculpture of a giant maple leaf with birds silhouetted in it. I didn't post all of the pictures but I have them to show you later.