A Journey to the West

After another delicious start to the day- real Dutch coffee, blackberries, blueberries, Greek yoghurt, and muesli we headed to the car and Tineke took us in the direction of Neeltje Jans, in the Zeelande province. What strikes you, driving around The Netherlands, is how green and rich the countryside looks. Zeelande is no exception.

Neeltje Jans is an artificial island constructed towards the end of the 1960s and was the construction site for the mind bogglingly huge storm surge barrier built to protect the land from the vicious and devastating storms which ten years earlier had  taken the lives of more than 1000 inhabitants. The original dykes were in disrepair after the war and no longer served their original purpose of protecting the region. These new barriers are not only built to be protective of humans, but also of migrating birdlife and sea life.

Zeelande

The pamphlet tells us that that Neeltje Jans is roughly translated as goddess of the sea. It’s now a cross between a theme park and museum which tells the story of the origins of this new island as well as some history. The theme park side includes seal shows, a giant whale you can walk inside, an aquarium with live sharks and stingrays , and a hurricane maker. Mostly we just wanted to see the surge barrier. It was a great walk, and the rain had stopped just in time.  Once at the site, we were able to climb inside and walk through and read information about previous storms, the construction of the site, the official opening, and a little on how the whole thing operates. In one year these gates closed seven times. Since then, they have not been needed for five years. This perhaps gives us some indication of the fickleness of weather patterns.

We walked back along the path, and stopped in to see a seal show and then  visit the aquarium with the sharks and stingrays (I actually wasn’t aware that stingrays have a number of different skins). The one I liked the most was the ray with the pebble pattern. It was difficult to photograph, as the children kept rippling the water with their hands. The tank allowed for petting these fish, so we guessed the stings must have been removed.

Our next stop was a small beachside town called Domburg. It was getting on for 4.30pm and we hadn’t eaten anything much all day, so we were quite hungry. Tineke had been to this place with her Mum previously, and had nice memories of it. It has a lovely walk above the beach. We followed a man with a sweatshirt labelled “New Zealand Aeronautics;” however, when I spoke to him he was from Germany and didn’t speak much English at all. Domburg, Tineke told us, is a very popular tourist destination for Germans. We had some finger food in the restaurant overlooking the sea. This included cockles, oysters, prawns, and raw fish. It was all very tasty.

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                               A view from our table at Domburg out to sea

                                                     A view of Domburg from the walkway

Our final tourist stop was the quiet town of Veere with its quaint narrow alleys, courtyards, and very old houses. I noticed one with the date 1759, and some houses with a very distinct lean. There was also a dock with a range of sailboats of varying ages and modern launches. The town hall clock tower looked like something out of Rapunzel, and the church was imposing in both size and shape with a domed ceiling and extraordinarily high windows. Unfortunately it was locked (even on a Sunday) so we were unable to explore inside. After having a good look around the wee town (it won the prize for “cute” according to S), we settled on a quiet drink outside a bar accompanied with cheeses, and an apple tart. This was a light meal before heading home. There was hardly a soul on the tree-lined street and it was a very peaceful end to what had been a pretty hectic day.

The quiet streets of Veere