In Zierikzee: the Oosterschelde

August 27, 2024

First, a brief language lesson regarding today’s title. If like me you’re weak on anything other than your native language, are almost completely unfamiliar with Dutch, and knew from last night’s walk around Zierikzee that mussel fishing is an important industry here, it’s entirely natural that you’d think that Oosterschelde is Dutch for oystershell. Don’t be fooled though and don’t embarrass yourself the next time you try to use Oosterschelde in a sentence in front of your friends. It doesn’t mean oystershell, but rather it’s the Dutch name for the Eastern Scheldt, the former estuary that in Roman times was the major mouth of the Scheldt River.

Second, some context that was inspired by Suzanne Gibson sharing a link to a post of their tour through this region fifteen years ago. I want to highlight the page where she gives an overview of the Delta Works, the massive infrastructure project that over the course of decades created the dams, locks and storm surge barriers that protects southern Holland from the kind of inundation that occurred in 1953.

And I want to include this useful overview map of the region that she found on the Wikipedia Delta Works page, showing the major components of the Delta Project. I think the map alone provides a lot of context, but the extensive article is really well worth your time to read also. We’ll wait here while you check it out.

I stole Suzanne’s map, so I might as well rip off her caption too: “Overview of the Delta Works (taken from Wikipedia). It has been declared one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers!”

The day begins with breakfast in Tiziana’s kitchen, where we’re grudging granted entrance by Tiziana’s dogs who seem to have forgotten already that we were acquainted in the back yard just yesterday, a bonding facilitated by my salty calves. It goes more quickly this time though, so perhaps some learning has taken place. We’ll see tomorrow if there’s been any further improvement.

Breakfast is excellent, a generous spread with scrambled eggs, sliced meats and cheeses, yogurt, cereal, bread, fresh fruit, coffeee - and conversation. Tiziana sits at or stands by the table throughout the meal, carrying on an extensive and wide ranging conversation. She learns a bit more about us, and we hear about how she once led walking tours in the hills of central Italy - which I think looking at the map now must have been in southern Umbria or Lazio - and of how she came to this property and the decision to take in lodgers. She’s an engaging conversationalist and we look coming down to pick up the thread over breakfast tomorrow.

After two days battling headwinds, Rachael’s ready for a day on foot. She opts for a more or less out and back walk west along the shore, primarily on the bike path, but when I ask her how it went later she gives it a lukewarm review. She had two issues with it - first, there really are a lot of bicyclists here. There are enough of them that it was uncomfortable to walk with them incessantly cycling past her. If we come to this area again, we’d try harder to find unpaved routes that are primarily footpaths - or she could go with the flow and do as the Dutch do in such numbers, and bike.

Probably the bigger issue for her though was that in her entire twelve mile walk she never came across a single bathroom or outhouse or any reasonable spot where she could slip off into the trees for privacy. For probably the entire last half of her ride she was intent on making it back to the room in a timely fashion.
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It makes me feel almost guilty to say that my day was excellent. It began with me making a brief detour back through town to take a few more photos, this time of subjects that were too much in the shadows last night to show well. I could have spent much longer, because Zierikzee is a fascinating historical city, boasting over 500 listed historical properties. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Tiziana’s home is one of them.

The South Gate and its bridge, with the smaller bridge on the right leading to the North Gate (I think).

The drawbridge across the canal, leading to the South Gate.

Here’s a map of Zierikzee’s listed historical properties. We’re really barely scratching the surface here obviously. There’s a whole other 15th century gate and a second windmill we didn’t stumble across. Really, this is a place we should come back to for a week some year.

It’s too fine a day to just wander around town though. When we arrived yesterday I asked our host if she had any thoughts on where to look for birds. She did, and pulled out a map to show me. I should go west along the north side of the inlet, the Oosterschelde. It’s a well known birding area, and out in the water there’s even the chance that we might see porpoises. That picked up Rachael’s ears, so we both started out in the same direction. I’d gotten an earlier start, but by the time I was done looking around the old port she was out the door. I caught up with her about a mile out of town, we chatted for a minute, and then I continued on.

Shortly after that I came to the end of the canal, turned the corner and started biking west up the inlet.

I wish I’d taken more care with this shot and got a better photo of the bridge behind, the nearly four mile long Zeeland Bridge that crosses the Oosterschelde. At the time I’d forgotten we’ll be biking across it tomorrow, because I haven’t really thought about that route since I drew it up half a year ago.

Looking west. Its about fifteen miles in this direction until we come to its mouth, where the sea is kept at bay by the Oosterscheldekering (Eastern Scheldt storm surge barrier) that you can see in the context map above.

This is interesting, now that I think I understand what I’m looking at. These are cart field patterns, places where strips of peat and clay were carted away for use in strengthening the dikes.

Most of the land in southern Holland is below sea level and protected by dikes. I’m standing on one looking down into the flooded estuarine basin, and the farmlands beyond are protected by another set of dikes.

One thing I wasn’t aware of before is that much of the Oosterschelde is protected as a national park. In this section of it, bounded by fences and with livestock guards on the paths, wildlife roams free.

It’s too bad Rachael didn’t make it this far west on her walk, but it’s too far out. She would really have enjoyed this stretch.

There’s a lot of laughter and excitement in this group. The sheep in the middle of the bikes is like Tiziana’s dogs, licking up some salt.

I’m thoroughly enjoying the setting here and biking along at a leisurely pace. That’s not really the main reason I’m here though - I’m looking for birds and hoping to add one or two to the year’s total. It’s been pretty slim pickings for the first six miles though - mostly just gulls and swallows, with an occasional grebe or cormorant drifting by. The further west I go though the better it becomes, and I’m really excited with a new lifetime first that I was hoping I might see today: a barnacle goose. At first I see three or four of them well off in the distance, but it’s clear what they are by their distinctive piebald pattern.

It doesn’t take long though for the excitement to wear off when I see another dozen fairly close up, and then they seem to be everywhere. I’ll see certainly hundreds, maybe even a thousand before the day is done. And they’re not alone - this is really gooseland, and the Canadians, greylags and Egyptians are out in force too.

And then I’ll come across what’s probably my favorite sighting of the day: a large flock of lapwings, certainly the largest gathering of them I’ve ever seen. And then something sets them off and I’m lucky enough to witness them all take wing as one, circle about a bit in a bird panic, and then settle down again.

Some northern lapwings, by far the largest gathering of them I’ve ever seen. It was only about six weeks ago that II saw one for the first time back in the moors above Pately Bridge.

I wasn’t sure how far I was going to go today but I’d set my sights on seeing the Plompe Tower, an odd isolated structure standing tall beside the inlet. I ended up detouring inland away from the water though and by the time I turned back I’d overshot it by a mile or two.

Looking back east at the Plompe tower. now an information center and tourism site, it’s all that remains standing from what was a set of villages flooded out centuries ago.

I’m far enough west that I’m only a couple of miles from the sea barrier. It’s longer than the way we’ll take, but that’s another route we could have chosen as we continue south.

Back on the water again, I come upon mudflats that are rich in birdlife. Many gulls of course, and terns needling straight down into the water. What I most enjoy here though are the dozens of small waders scurrying around. I’ll take many photos of them, thinking more than one species is involved; but later they’ll all prove out to be redshanks.

A black headed gull, another very common species here.

I wish I’d taken more care to get a better shot here, because I’m pretty sure this is a different bird than the one above. It’s more uniformly white and its bill is a bit heavier, which to me looks like a Mediterranean gull. Good enough for me, so I’ll claim him as #278.

A segregated scene: Canadian geese in front, barnacles and Egyptians behind, and cattle keeping the order.

It doesn’t quite count as a big day, but it’s pretty good - 33 species*, and two new ones for the year. Time to head back for dinner.

Another prominent feature of Zierikzee’s skyline is the Saint-Livinus Monster Tower, also known as the Dikke Tor (Fat Tower). It’s pretty big, but the original vision was for something much grander when construction began in 1454. It was meant to be at least two or even four times this height which would have made it the tallest church in the world, but funding ran out in 1530.

The pathetically short Fat Tower. Makes me think of the Boston Stump.

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* Canada goose, Egyptian goose, Barnacle goose, Greylag goose, Great egret, Little egret, Grey heron, Eurasian blackbird, Eurasian coot, Barn swallow, Western house martin, House sparrow, Great crested grebe, Little grebe, Great cormorant, Rook, Jackdaw, Carrion crow, Eurasian oystercatcher , Mute swan, Mallard, Common redshank, Ring necked dove, Black-tailed godwit, Common tern, Northern lapwing, Herring gull, Black-headed gull, Greater black-backed gull, Lesser black-backed gull, Eurasian spoonbill, Mediterranean gull, Eurasian kestrel

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Suzanne GibsonThanks for the mention, Scott. I wrote the journal after we had returned home and had time to dawdle over background information.
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2 months ago

Susan CarpenterI rode through Zeelander in 2022 and loved it - the Delta works are an amazing engineering feat and a continuing project to combat rising seas resulting from climate change. Hope you enjoy(ed) crossing the bridge!!
Link to my post https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/skippingabout2022/zeeland-zeeuwse-wind-route/
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2 months ago

Scott AndersonTo Susan CarpenterThanks for pointing this out, Susan. I completely missed this day somehow. I didn’t pencil it out but wondered how this would be as a day ride. Looks pretty great.
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2 months ago