Dunes

You'll know you've reached the land dunes when you're plodding through the loose sand. Sand and dunes are not only found by the sea. But where do the land dunes of the Kalmthout heath come from?

During the ice ages (70,000 – 15,000 years ago), the Arctic Polar Cap was considerably larger than it is today. The North Sea and the Scheldt were dry: all the water was trapped in that ice cap. A cold wind was constantly blowing, bringing sand from the dry beds and thus covering the north of Belgium with a blanket of sand.

That sand blew up into dunes. Some dunes are still active drifting dunes that can be up to 25 high. Other dunes are covered and stabilized by the vegetation. On these poor soils, heather first grew, then the grasses took over and finally the landscape was covered with coniferous forests.

Through forest clearing and grazing, humans have stopped this evolution, and active dunes and heathland landscapes have been created again. The landscape you see now does indeed look exactly like that ancient landscape, but it is human activities that reversed natural evolution. Nature conservation has now taken over the task of preserving that original landscape.

Wandelpunt