Leuvenumse Beek

Update 2025: free cycling is no longer allowed everywhere in the Leuvenumse Bossen. This path along the stream is unfortunately no longer accessible to cyclists. 🚳Beautiful singletrack path along the Leuvense beek. Due to the wet nature of the path, it can flood quite a bit, especially on the south-eastern side, and turn into a real mangrove forest. Keep this in mind when planning... you may have to turn around ;-)
Also popular with hikers, keep that in mind!

The Leuvenumse Beek, also called the Staverdense Beek, is one of the most beautiful and cleanest brooks in the Netherlands. The stream can flow over the high sandy soils of the Veluwe thanks to a clay layer in the subsoil that was deposited during the penultimate ice age.
The brook is one of the last naturally winding brooks in the Netherlands. It is not actually one stream, but rather a swampy area with a system of streams and streams that are partly meandering and partly channeled. The stream is one of the few lowland streams in our country. This means that it is fed by surface water and groundwater. Rainwater and groundwater collect in a system of ditches and small streams that flow into the main stream. During prolonged rainfall, the stream bursts its banks. There is not really a source where the water bubbles out of the ground, but more of a natural drainage of a wet valley with stagnant groundwater, which means that the water cannot sink into the underground because there is a poorly permeable layer. The stream is characterized by slow flowing water and a meandering (winding) course that goes with it. The meandering of the stream means that the banks in the outer bends have been scraped out steeply by the water. The clear water and the steep banks make it an ideal place for the kingfisher to breed.

Around the stream it can be boggy or flooded on unpaved trails during wet periods.