Tour of Onlanden and the Leekstermeer

Nienoord Estate is best known for the former Nienoord Castle. A nineteenth-century country house now stands on the site where the castle was built in 1525. The Van Ewsum family of Nienoord Castle initiated extensive peat extraction here. They drained the area with the construction of the Leekster Hoofddiep canal. Around Leekstermeer lake, you cycle through rugged lowland peatlands. These are the Onlanden, with expansive grasslands, but also copses and hedgerows. Then you cycle to the esdorp Peize, where hops were grown for brewers from Groningen in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A little further on, you pass Woldzigt, a unique grain and oil mill from 1852. In appearance, this building is a cross between a farmhouse and a windmill.