Farm Activities on Texel
If your kids are like ours they love seeing farm animals. I’ve mentioned before that our life in the Netherlands involves interactions with loads of animals. It has become one of our favorite things about life here. In our neighborhood alone, we have sheep, goats, chickens, swans, ducks and pheasants. Texel, was no exception, offering lots of opportunity to interact with farm animals.
Cheese Farm
Our favorite farm interaction occurred at the Kassboerderij Wezenspyk. This cheese farm has an afternoon full of activities and a lovely place to grab a bite to eat. Making it a perfect outing with kids.
Our first stop was the Cheese Cafe to try the Cheese Fondue! The fondue is only served between 12pm and 4pm on Saturdays. We literally planned our trip around this fondue, as it is billed as the best on the island. It was in fact delicious.
The Big Little, who is typically our best eater refused to eat the cheese fondue and instead ordered a toasti. I snuck a bite and it was also quite good. You can choose your toasti cheese from one of four on offer.
After lunch we popped into the cheese store to sample some of the amazing cheeses made on the farm. You can see into the cheese making area from the store. They also have a variety of other goodies made from the sheep wool.
Next we set off on an adventure around the farm to see how sheep and cow grazing have influenced Texel.
The farm’s Sheep Boet has a film about the Texel sheep.
You also get sweeping views of the Texel landscape which year-round have grazing sheep. Our visit in May was full of little lambs everywhere. We loved watching them all in the field.
The farmers encouraged us to collect wool that was stuck on the fences. Each boy had a nice little collection when our walk was over. It went straight into our treasure jar.
The farm has plenty of other animals to visit as well. A shaded path takes you through the chicken coups. There were several hens sitting on eggs, while others searched the yard for food.
We also came across some cute little piggies rolling in the mud. Our Middle Little makes an excellent pig grunt, and even got the pigs to answer in return.
We ran out of time at the farm, but the Skeep and Lantskap Path that meanders around the polder and over the dike, including a small ferry boat you pull yourself, looks like a perfect afternoon jaunt.
Sheep Farm
The Texel sheep farm looks amazing and was on our itinerary, but got cut when we just spent too much time enjoying all the things in front of it. We’ve been to several farms like this around the Netherlands and they are always a big hit with our kids. This farm features 25 types of sheep, lambs you can cuddle and pet, hay bails to roll in, a tractor to climb in and a store and picnic grounds.
Petting Zoo
The Texel Kinderboerderij is exactly what we have come to expect in towns across the Netherlands. These village-run petting zoos are always a perfect stop for our kids with animals to see and pet. This one had some amazingly hairy pigs, lovely bunnies, chickens and goats. The farm could not have been lovelier though with the Wisteria in full bloom and blue skies overhead. This kinderboerderij is conveniently located a block from Chocolaterie Smidt, where you can pop in to buy a few chocolate snacks.
Farm Animal Souvenirs
You won’t want to leave Texel without picking up some sort of sheep souvenir. Texel is known for its sheep – said to be a breed hardy enough to winter outside. Texel sheep are known around the world having been exported to far-off places like New Zealand. We received some little lambs from the hotel that the boys now call their “sleep sheep” and who can resist these bike seat rain covers that look like little lambs! Find more Texel souvenirs here.
Our Texel Visit was provided for by the Texel VVV. They organized our activities and our hotel stay was provided by the Grand Hotel Opduin in return for an unbiased review.