Gitstapper Mill Tour

The hike starts at the Visitor Center National Park De Meinweg and goes through a part of the National Park De Meinweg and then returns along the German side of the Rode Beek.

Route description

• Both areas are part of the German-Dutch border park Maas-Swalm-Nette.
• The Meinweg is a unique terraced landscape, with steep transitions between the terraces.
• The terraces were created in the course of tens of thousands of years due to recessing of the Maas and shifts in the earth's crust along the three fault lines that run through the area.
• One of these fault lines is the well-known Peel Edge Fault.
• One of the two streams that flow through this area is the Rode Beek, a beautiful meandering stream that originates just across the border in Germany and forms the national border between Vlodrop Station and Vlodrop.
• There are two water mills along this stream: on the German side, the Dalheimer mill, and on the Dutch side, the Gitstapper mill, from which the name of this walk is derived.
• The paddle wheel of the Gitstapper mill is just on the Dutch side.
• The walking tour follows a section of the Iron Rhine, a disused railway line. Initially the intention was to dig a canal, but later on a railway line was preferred, hence the name Iron Rhine.
• Furthermore, one passes a chapel with a cemetery of a former Franciscan monastery complex.
• In 2012, Staatsbosbeheer renovated the dilapidated chapel.