Walking through the dunes near Castricum

From Landgoed Duin & Bosch you can take a loop walk through the dunes. First you walk through the old Bakkum estate. The oldest pines in the North Holland Dune Reserve grow here. You can still recognize the old estate design on the straight avenues. In some places there are open, flat fields. They are remnants of failed attempts to develop the dune area for agriculture. About halfway through your walk you can make a pit stop at De Oude Keuken. You also walk through the dunes for the second part of the route. In this sub-area of the North Holland Dune Reserve you walk through a 150-year-old oak forest with a rich undergrowth of herbs and honeysuckle. The forest was originally planted for exploitation as oak coppice, but it is now a beautiful nature reserve.