Last week I visited the park called Broekpolder in Vlaardingen. I have never been there before, but it is quite close to my home. I read on the internet that if you like woodland, this is the place to go in this part of the Netherlands. And since I am always interested in woodland, I decided to have look.

After a minute of walking I saw a herd of sheep running in the distance (above). Of course I wanted to see that up close, but the path was leading in the wrong direction. So I took a short cut, ran into a ditch, found a spot for crossing, and moved towards the sheep (see the gps-track from my Garmin below).

It turned out that the sheep were escorted by a shepherd. And this nice man, Thomas, told me that I could go as close as I wanted to, the sheep wouldn’t mind. So I got as close as I could (a bit too close for my lens?):

The sheep were quite nice, I even think we bonded a bit. You can call me crazy, but I think this sheep is smiling at me (I almost feel a wink coming):

After a while Thomas asked me if I wanted him to make the sheep do tricks. He said that he could make them run towards me. Well, that sounds nice! I have photographed a herd of sheep before, but never with all the ears in the same direction 😉 .

Below you see Thomas leading his herd (he has help from Maggie his dog):

Well so far I didn’t see a lot of woodland, but it was fun! Thomas directed me towards a part of Broekpolder were I could find woodland. Good to meet the incrowd… The woodland is not very vast, but some parts have lovely little tracks, and nice trees.

But it wasn’t too long before I ran into some other residents of this park…

I admit I was a bit scared of them. And there was no one around to assure me that they would be friendly. Although they look more goofy than dangerous.

Needless to say I had a fun afternoon. And the park is nice enough to visit more often.

Finally, I have been playing around with Photoshop creating this gif:

Thanks for reading!