For the last part of our excellent road-trip, it was off to Zeeland (where New Zealand comes from) to see the Delta Works. Another UNESCO site, here we celebrate human engineering I suppose. The Netherlands has a very long coastline, and it would be even longer without the Delta Works. What the Delta Works does, is to shorten the coastline. Here’s a picture (CC:BY Classical Geographer)

The Netherlands came up with a risk profile that they were prepared to agree to, and then enshrined that in law and put aside the cash to keep the flood defences maintained. Different parts of the country have differing levels of risk associated depending on whether you’re in a flood zone. That is, some places will be purposefully flooded if the water gets to certain levels.

Anyway, a magnificent feat of engineering, but it sure had ecological effects, as you can imagine (places which were seawater becoming fresh etc.)

This was put in place because of the huge floods of 1953 when 1,836 people died in The Netherlands (307 in England)

We visited an excellent museum of the disaster (partly designed by Eveline du Perron, a friend of Maaike’s)

And then it was back to Posterholt and the end of the road trip. I had a really excellent time travelling around and getting to see a bit more of The Netherlands and spending time with Maaike’s mum and dad :)

Leaving Fort Vuren behind us, we headed into town to hire a couple of bikes for the day.

I can empathize with this sign… it still surprises me how sore my posterior gets when biking longish distances on the (otherwise) very comfortable Dutch bikes..

Anyway, hired bikes, and went for a bit of tour through the streets of Dordrecht.. (I think?)

and then took a boat up towards Kinderdijk Kinderdijk. Kinderdijk is a UNESCO site which is the largest concentration of old windmills in The Netherlands. They were built in 1750, and while not strictly required for draining the polders, they are still in operational use. People do live in them (you can apply), but you have to be a certified windmill operator.

Anyway, a very pretty place, and interesting to see the drainage in operation.

You can go inside a couple of the windmills and see what life was like, back in the day. Here for example is one of the (childrens) beds:

Then it was a nice bike around the surrounds. It’s just such a lovely way to get around, and so many bikers everywhere.. good country for it (if windy)

I imagine this is a road that tall vehicles don’t travel down. I wonder if accidents happen… I guess they must?

After breakfast (traditional Dutch style – being breads, cheeses, meats and decent coffee) it was off on the bikes. A lovely place to explore, old buildings everywhere, often leaning (falling?!) towards the road, held back by cables. Slightly disconcerting at first.

And yes, that’s marshmallows foamy stuff in a jar. This I have not seen before. It was fun biking around, every so often we had to take a short boat trip crossing, a nice way to break up the ride.

Oh, this old church had had the top of the tower blown off by the Spanish during one of the many wars. They didn’t put it back on again.

The main event for the day was visiting Castle (Slot) Loevestein. The building started as a small stone structure in 1357, and then built on over the years until finished in it’s current state around 1600. There was a good exhibition showing the transition of the castle, and how it became less effectual once warfare included the use of planes. It was also used as a prison. One famous prisoner was Hugo Grotius. He was imprisoned (political prisoner), but was allowed to receive books etc.. eventually escaping in the book chest…

Hugo wrote a lot of the foundation of international law concerning the freedom of the seas and the rights / obligations of nations going to war.

Back via another road / canal crossing.