Tour of Mantinge and Balinge

Your route starts at Hotel Het Witte Veen. It is named after nearby Witteveen, the youngest village in Drenthe: it was founded in 1926 as a job creation project on the Balingerveld. Further on you pass through Balinge itself. This name comes from a farm that used to be here. For a long time, the Mantingerveld consisted of small pieces of forest, drifting sand hills and many more types of nature that were not contiguous. In recent years, agricultural land has been purchased, forests planted and fens restored in this area, resulting in a beautiful nature reserve. The heathland and drifting sand hills with juniper berries, in combination with the stream valley, form a true mosaic. The Mantingerveld is one of the nature reserves of the Heart of Drenthe, together accounting for more than 5,000 hectares of contiguous nature!