On the trail of Noord Holland wildfowl and hares
The alarm ejected me out of bed at 5am and I made the hour’s drive from my home in Zuid (south) Holland to a hamlet in the flat farming polders (paddocks) of Noord (north) Holland, about 20 minutes outside the Dutch capital of Amsterdam.
When I arrived, I was greeted by Frans, who I had met six years earlier during a wild boar and deer hunt in the Netherland’s eastern Veluwe region. Born and raised in Tasmania, I moved to The Hague a good number of years ago. After our first meeting, Frans invited me on a hunt in Noord Holland and we had been returning there annually since. Frans’ daughter, Jitske, was also joining us and had been going on hunting trips with her dad since she was six years old. Jitske was accompanied by her friend Bart-Jan and Niels, who I had linked up with on several hunts previously. Camiel, a long-time mate of Niels, also came with us.
On this morning, Niels and I would be going together to a goose hide at the end of a kilometre-long paddock. These areas, like much of the Dutch farming and residential land, are about a metre under sea level. The low-lying land is shielded from flooding
