On the Old Sand Dunes o' Mook

I wonder if there's a song of the same title, because it seems like there ought to be one....

Anyway, in the Netherlands, the landscape is dotted with patches of forest that people ride and run and walk their dogs in. Sort of a cross between a wildlife preserve and a public park, these spaces are further puncutated by sandy clearings, where heather grows. This is a sign that, in days of old, sheep had overgrazed the land, and the sand dunes had taken over. To give you an idea of how bad the problem got, Jasper (our ecologist friend) recounted sandstorms blowing off of these dunes. Heather is about the only plant that will grow in sands like this, and indeed, the fact that sandstorms are so rare these days in the Netherlands is because the sand spots are covered with it. That, and grazing policies have been changed to reflect the growing collection of ecological wisdom.

The area between Mook and Molenhoek, then, has what's called de Mookerheide, a vast collection of sand dunes with nothing but heather and sand grass growing in it. I call it "vast" because it certain looks that way when you get there, after putzing about through the typically-artificial bos. Indeed, getting there is a bit of an epic, a nice little adventurous jaunt on a sunny day: for me, on my bike, it starts with following the Veolia tracks south, until we reach 't Zwaantje (a little charming restaurant) and turning right. At first there are some pasturelands, but then the woods start to close in and at some point the road becomes a dirt road. Pressing on, despite the risk of a flat, eventually puts you in front of a massive fence, at the foot of a hill. Walk up the hill, and the picture today is what greets you.

But in fact it's not really all that big. You can scramble around the whole thing in about an hour, two if you stop and take photos of everything. And "scramble" here is definitely the right word, because some of the inclines are steep--even worse than the Manayunk Wall, and because the whole place is just a collection of sand dunes, it can be rather treacherous. Supposedly there are also special cows grazing on the land--the kinds of cows that the Dutch use as wildlife management--but I've yet to see one there (they're all over Millingerward and the Bisonbaai).

The Mookerheide is, for obvious reasons, a favorite spot for the people who live nearby. On clear days you can see Cuijk, which has a cathedral with two towers. The whole place is really quite lovely and I'd encourage anybody who thinks that the Dutch are all about polders to come and take a wander. It's surprising how hilly some spots can be.

A Tour of the Forest Floor

In the rest of the world they have Great Walls and huge redwoods and enormous elephants. In the rest of the world there are pet cats that can eat small dogs and small dogs that fight with giant rats.

Here in the Netherlands, though, there are fungi. (Birds, too, but that's a later post--as in, "after I've saved up two months' salary and have taught myself how to shoot with a zoom lens longer than I am tall") In good years--i.e., years with cool damp summers that rot blackberries on the vine--you can get an impressive array of fungal growths on the forest, not the least of which include the kleverig koralzwammetje ("sticky coral fungus", or calocera viscosa).



These little lovelies sprout up mostly in the autumn, but even the big ones--as in, bigger than your head--can be surprisingly difficult to see if you're not looking for them. It might surprise you that something as vividly colored as the paarse pronkridder ("purple gaudy knight"--don't ask--Calocybe ionides) is actually extremely difficult to spot in a sea of brown decaying leaves.



Nevertheless, they are very common, and if you take the time to look, you will find them, and just about any fungus I've posted here. Including the infamous puntig kaalkopje, better known by its English name "Magic Mushrooms". These little suckers are only about one inch tall, so you've really got to look for them, but according to our friends who are well-versed in this matter, they are quite literally as common as weeds. And no, we did not smoke the one I've photographed. First of all, it was only one, and secondly, well, it was only one.



My boyfriend claims to be able to smell fungi in the air, so whenever we decide to go on a photo-jaunt through the Heumenbos nearby, I take him and my camera. He'll tell me, "I smell fungi," and I'll ready my camera. Actually they're not that hard to smell--I can whiff them, too. But only if there's a substantial lot of rot nearby. Rotting trees and humus is always a safe bet for interesting specimens, such as these parelstuifzwammen ("pearl-studded fungus", Lycoperdon perlatum).



But sometimes all you really have to do is look. We almost stepped on these vroege bekerzwam ("early cup-fungus", Peziza vesiculosa)just before my boyfriend grabbed me and pointed.



And of course, we have the infamous Amanitas muscaria, the real "Magic mushroom", in my opinion--people used to steep them in milk and set it out for the flies, as a fly-killer (the pretty red ones are always the deadly ones). I suppose they stopped using this when lawsuits came into existence and people could get sued for poisoning cats and small children as well. It's said that the Vikings used to take them (probably not neat) before combat because it induced some kind of psychedelic rage and made them impermeable to pain. Mostly they're known for killing people who don't know any better. These days you can buy the likeness of Amanitas in the Blokker, as a mushroom-bank, or as a tchotchka. I suppose it's a good thing people aren't more aware of nature--it's kind of like having a Jeffry Dahmer action figure on display in a kindergarten.



So that's what I've been up to these past couple weekends. See if you can see these for yourself!