Stellendam

4 May 2015:  We hiked today from our hotel in the woods east of Rockanje to Stellendam (17 km).  Mostly sunny weather all day, with wind along the coast.  Shortly after starting, we came to an intersection of trails in the woods where it was unclear which path to follow.  The path that we chose turned out to be the wrong one – i.e., not the GR5 – but it went in the right general direction, and it passed through a beautiful area of dunes, with the Brede Water bird sanctuary nearby, so we were pleased to have followed that "variant" of the GR5.  

A walk on the beach after Rockanje soothed our tired feet and prepared us for an hour of walking across the Haringvliet on a paved bicycle path. 

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At the beginning of our trail, we encountered these big, shaggy black cattle.  This gave Carroll an opportunity to take a traditional "cow-on-the-trail" picture:

Hiking in the Voornes Duin:

Brede Water, a bird sanctuary:

Two families of geese paraded in front of us:

The gates that we passed through were built with a tilt, evidently to ensure that the gate will close by itself, even if a person fails to close it.  Simple and effective – an engineer's dream!

The trail was flooded in one area, so we hiked above it on the dunes:

More shaggy cattle, but brown this time:

Today's appelgebak met slagroom:

It was a good day for drying the laundry...

We greatly enjoyed the passage of our trail on the beach near Rockanje, approaching the Haringvliet:

Crossing the Haringvliet: 

The GR5 is the "E2" in the European classification of long distance trails.  This was the first "E2" marker that we've actually seen on the trail:

One of the 17 huge sluices in the Haringvlietsluizen:

Today's destination: Motel De Goede Reede in Stellendam