A day at the Veluwe

I'm having a photography day today, together with Peter.
Peter had his birthday recently and as present he was promised a photo day at the Veluwe, all inclusive. Today is that day.

We left at stupid o'clock (as in 03:15) and arrived one hour before sunrise at the Posbank, where by now the heather is in full purple bloom. 
But, despite all the mist and fog we had on our way to get here, there was no fog at all and on top of that, there was no light either. The sun rose behind a layer of clouds, blocking all the light we needed so desperately on the heather. We walked several kilometers to find an acceptable spot, but once there I didn't even take my camera out of the bag. All grey and dull.

We left the Posbank rather dissapointed. But, a nice extensive breakfast at a Fletcher Hotel in Ellecom made us forget about that very soon. After breakfast it was around 9 am, so we had the whole day still ahead of us.

It was going to be hot and sunny, so we planned to go into the woods during the daytime. We started a walk in Hoog Soeren and in the afternoon we went into the Speulderbos near Garderen. We both managed to capture some nice summer-green-wood-photos.

For the evening we thought it would me a nice idea to go into the National Park Hoge Veluwe, to capture deer and may even some wild pigs. I saw on the website that when you entered the park after 17:00 pm and would have diner in the Park restaurant, the entrance fee would be refunded. So, at 17:02 I bought two tickets for the park and at 18:00 we had a nice dinner in the park. Perfect! The Dutch way....

After diner we did see and capture quite some deer and pigs. Even though we'd seen lots of deer in previous years, it's still a beautiful sight when they come out of the woods as soon as dusk sets in. Rutting season hasn't started yet. All the male deer are still in groups together. In a few weeks they'll be fighting each other and live alone.
As for the pigs, I never saw so much wild pigs in a group before. I think this group existed of at least 30 to 40 pigs, maybe more. On the photo a group of young ones is running after their mommy. A great view, that lasted only seconds.

At 20:30 we left the park and went home. We arrived safely in Delfzijl at 22:30. Both very very tired but with another great photo day in the pocket!