Stuif's Adventures

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Noord-Holland, 23-9-2007
Noord-Holland is one of the twelve Dutch provinces.

More than half of the province consists of reclaimed land in the form of polders and is below sea level. Everywhere you can still see dikes, some of them date back to the thirteenth century. The land is protected from the sea by dunes. In 1421, during a big storm, part of the dunes was swept away. A sea dike has been built to replace them, the Hondsbossche Zeewering.

In spring the region is famous for its tulip fields. Earlier this year I have published an album about these flower fields. This time it was autumn, a different atmosphere, but equally beautiful.
My brother Pim and I visited my sister and we made a bicycle trip through the countryside.

First we drove along one of the medieval dikes to the coast. Cattle farms and vegetable fields everywhere. In Schoorl we had a coffee and bread with "kroket", a kind of Dutch spring roll..:-). In the village there is one dune. the "Klimduin", which is quite high, and a tourist attraction for the locals, because it is almost a "mountain". Then we crossed the dunes. Lonely trees, fields of heather, a stark landscape.

It was busy on the beach, many people were enjoying the nice autumn weather, and there were even kids, who were brave enough to take a sea bath. We drove along the sea dike with a strong tail wind, easy going! Many birds, the sea gulls were not shy at all.

The Hondsbossche sea dike is one of the weak spots in the Dutch defense agains the sea. Currents, sand depletion, everything is continuously monitored.

The West Friese Zeewering
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Cattle Farm
 

Agriculture
 

Dutch jungle?
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Schoorl
 

Bread with "Kroket"
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Dutch bicycles
 

The Klimduin
 

Dune landscape
 

Isolated tree
 

Stark landscape
 

Rose hip
 

Heather bush
 

Heather flowers
 

Mondrian landscape
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Beach access road
 

North Sea beach
 

Sea gull (juvenile)
 

Enjoying a nice autumn day
 

Brave boy, the water is cold!
 

More brave people, brrrr..
 

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Will they come back safe and sound?
 

The Hondsbossche Sea Dike
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The sea dike
 

Curious gull
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detail
 

More gulls
 

Waders
 

Oystercatchers
 

A juvenile cormorant
 

Monitor station
 

For me this is an evocation of Holland
 

Alternative energy
 

wrote on Dec 12, 2007:
I remember a story I read as a child about this Dutch boy who became a hero after he put his hand to plug a hole in the dyke, staying there the whole night and thus preventing a flood.

wrote on Dec 12, 2007:
Beautiful country!

Kwai Loh wrote on Dec 12, 2007:
That is the story of Hans Brinker. It is based on the novel "Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates" (1865) by an American writer, Mary Mapes Dodge.

wrote on Dec 12, 2007:
I wonder if the word "kroket" is actually from "croquette" -- mashed potato with fish/meat, coated with breadcrumbs and deep fried.

lightlingmk2 wrote on Dec 12, 2007:
Yak .. don't look good ..

Kwai Loh wrote on Dec 12, 2007:
Correct. But the filling is beef (or pork) ragout.

Kwai Loh wrote on Dec 12, 2007:
It tastes better than it looks..:-)

wrote on Dec 13, 2007:
hi, good you are back to your Kwai Loh country ;p

it's beatiful country.

wrote on Dec 13, 2007:
Wow -- we had globalization even then in those days -- a little girl in the land of the headhunters (or hornbill, whichever way you want to look at it) reading a story about a Dutch boy written by an American. "There's nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9) ;-)

wrote on Dec 13, 2007:
Beautiful

wrote on Dec 14, 2007:
HI Jan, A beautiful album. Unfortunately the exchange rate for the Euro is preventing yoke Sim & me from visiting your country. Sigh!!

wrote on Dec 14, 2007:
A sensitive question to a question. But even at the danger of being impolite I have to ask -- are they droppings of the cattle??

wrote on Dec 14, 2007:
Are the dykes progressively increased in height in the face of global warming?

Kwai Loh wrote on Dec 17, 2007:
Nope. It is a cabbage field, not 100% sure which kind of cabbage, I think it is farmer's cabbage (Kale)

Kwai Loh wrote on Dec 17, 2007:
Not at the moment. But a discussion has started about the need for a new "Deltaplan"

Liz wrote on Dec 18, 2007:
It's probably the same in Holland, but in UK, especially London suburbs, there are so many gulls now - probably more than are left at the coast. I suppose there's more food and an easier source of food in the cities than at the coast.

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