Wadden Sea

After visiting the lovely old town of Franeker for the Eisinga Planetarium, my friend and I went back to Leeuwarden to embark on what was probably the craziest bike ride I have done so far. In the end, we cycled nearly 50-kms in total -- yes, on the regular thin-wheeled Dutch bike one can rent out at the stations-- to get to Zwarte Haan and back. I'm not sure if there could have been buses to get us there and back, but we never encountered any on the way. Also, I found the bike journey across rural Friesland rather enjoyable, something I never experienced in the more modern corners of the country. The journey was probably even more memorable than the destination itself, which in this case was the Wadden Sea. Upon reaching the seaside village, we had to climb the verdant dike that is dotted with sheep to finally set foot in the Wadden Sea. From the top on the dike, one can go to a viewing platform right in front of the HG Miedema Pumping Station to have a higher vantage point in appreciating the open views of the sea and the polder behind it. One can also move forward passing the tall grass, and get closer to explore the vast mudflats. On our visit, there was only one person there who was armed with long camera lenses, taking close-up shots of birds. We did not get too deep so as not to disturb the animals.

Given …

The Wadden Sea is probably the first WHS I visited (disregarding its inscription year). My grandfather was from Sylt, Germany's northernmost island, part of the North Frisian Islands and surrounded by the Wattenmeer Nationalpark. We would go once a year to visit relatives of my father's when I was little. When we crossed the Hindenburg Damm to get onto the island we were crossing right through the national park.

Growing up in Schleswig Holstein meant that the Wadden Sea featured prominently in any vacation or weekend excursion plans. Be it a daytrip to the beach in St. Peter-Ording, the nicest mainland beach in Schleswig Holstein, a cruise to Helgoland from Büsum, or spending repeated summer vacations as an adolescence in the Fünf Städte Heim in Hörnum, Sylt.

What makes the Wadden Sea so interesting is that there are few places in the world where you will experience the magnitude of the tides so directly. Paths between islands and to the mainland open up twice a day and get swallowed up a few hours later, rivers (Prils) appear and disappear. And the wildlife, most notably birds, capture the mudflats.

In addition, the Wadden Sea faces the rough North Sea with high dikes lining the shore lines and land won and lost over millennia. While not part of the site, the Frisian Houses, the Halligs, ... all the ways the locals adapted to the dangerous North Sea and transformed the landscape, are amazing to see. Personally, I feel this …

I think that in order to appreciate the Wadden Sea you have to go on a mudflat hike. Living in Hamburg, I have been to several ones, and I always find this weird ecosystem fascinating. Coming from Hamburg you can reach the Northern Sea at Dünen/Cuxhaven in Lower Saxony or at Friedrichskoog/Büsum/Sankt Peter in Schleswig Holstein. I have been to mudflat hikes at all these points and, surprisingly enough, the landscape and the nature of the hike differ considerably. One of the reasons is a feature of the Wadden Sea called tidal creeks (Priele in German). These are streams which appear during low water and can be very strong. Their route remains steady. If you go hiking next to such a tidal creek you cannot normally cross it. This affects the distance you can reach from the beach. This is why a mudflat walk from Büsum, for example, cannot take you to the deep sea. The terrain is also different, with mud of various degrees of density. Finally, in some hikes you can reach areas in which you can observe seals. I personally preferred Cuxhaven as a point of departure. Hikes can take from 1 hour up to 6 hours. Make sure to either join a tour or take the necessary precautions as mudflat hikes can be dangerous.

A couple of years ago we visited the German part of the Wadden Sea WHS with stops in Dorum (where you can have a look inside the Obereversand lighthouse) and Dornum (where you can make a walk along the Wadden Sea following the Heller path).

However, to get a proper feel of this WHS we decided to participate in a ‘wadloop’ (mud hike) in the Dutch part of the Wadden Sea WHS. There are various agencies offering such hikes using different routes. We opted for the one starting from the little village of Wierum to the Engelsmanplaat (Englishman sandbank) and back to Wierum.

In total it’s about 12 km which takes about 4 hours, a short break on the sandbank included. A guide is recommended (or even obligatory?) since the sea currents can be very dangerous.

The hike itself is quite exhausting as you are walking in the mud all the time and for a fair amount of time also knee/waist deep through the water. Nevertheless it’s a special sensation and in the future we might also try out other routes.

I spent some time exploring the German part of this WHS, particularly around the coastal town of Norden, which has good access to mudflats which you can go out and see for yourself.

There are the mudflats, of course, for those who want to see the importance of the region close up. For birdwatchers, the area around Norden and the Wadden Sea more generally provide viewpoints to see the millions of migrating birds that stop here to rest during their journeys.

The popular ‘Seehund Station’ is a centre near the coastline of Norden that rescues and looks after injured or orphaned seals. Experts nurse them back to health and then release them back into the sea when they are strong enough to look after themselves.

Although there is human development along the coastline, the most important areas of natural significance have been well protected for everyone to enjoy.

With the expansion of this WHS to unclude the area within the borders of Denmark, I decided to include a visit to this area whilst in the Kingdom.

Basing myself in the port city of Esbjerg I made journeys out to the off-shore islands of Romo and Fano.

To reach Romo I took a train to Skaerbaek,then a bus from there across a causeway to the island, and then to the southern end at Havneby. From here and from the causeway a variety of marine bird life could be seen.

Fano was reached by ferry from Esbjerg. A bus ran the length of the island from Nordby to Sonderho. Sonderho contained a number of examples of traditional domestic architecture, as well as bird life in the salt marshes. At Nordby I encountered the only mammals I saw; a family of seals basking on a sandbank.

The Wadden Sea WHS covers a huge area along the coasts of the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, so it’s an easy site to tick off. Getting a real feel for it though is a whole different story. I believe one should at least try to cover several different areas and take in both the marine and coastal aspects. In early August 2015 I made my third trip to the inscribed area, still searching for its soul.

My first visit was in 1982: I was 12 years old and went on a school trip to the Wadden island of Vlieland. It was the first time that I went away for a couple of days without my parents, not counting a disastrous girl scout camp that I left crying already after one night. Vlieland was more of a success, it’s a really popular holiday island geared to an active vacation. I still have some very funny pictures of that time. Although the islands are outside of the core zone of the WHS, you’ll inevitably cross the Wadden Sea by ferry. So technically – I had been there.

In 2011, on my way to the T-listed Eise Eisinga Planetarium in Franeker, I had driven the Afsluitdijk route. The Afsluitdijk is a major causeway damming off the former Zuiderzee and turning it into the freshwater lake of the IJsselmeer. It has been a candidate on its own for the Dutch Tentative List, but it was rejected because it isn’t a national monument …

The Wadden Sea WHS area is large. One part in the North of the Netherlands especially around the Lauwersmeer above is the area of my roots. I visited it mid June 2015. I went for a tour on the Waddenzee on boat, bad weather so only tour. We did some walking on the mud flats, but it was high tide so we could not walk far. And we eat gurnard fish from the Waddenzee, durable fish! It's a great area and for this i ticked of the Dutch part, the Islands are not really part of it. Ah, we saw some seals too of course. Check my site for some photos.

www.christravelblog.com/netherlands-seals-in-need-and-lots-of-dirty-fun-at-the-waddenzee-near-lauwersmeer/

I visited this WHS in May 2012. I visited the Netherlands side of the Wadden Sea around the Frisian islands. The highlight of my visit was exploring the Wadden Sea coast of Texel by boat, spotting seals and a huge variety of birds on the way.

“I’m going to visit some mudflats!”

“Why?” my colleagues asked, as they seem to delight in eking out the weirder destinations that visiting World Heritage Sites takes me. Therefore they had great fun when I unveiled my plans for New Years day 2011.

“They are a World Heritage Site”

“Why?”

“erm...[googling]...they seem to be home to 6.1 million migratory birds”

“Wow, will you get to see them”

“erm, probably not, I don’t think mid winter is the main time for them.”

“OK, so which part of the National Park are you going to visit”

“I found a Lighthouse opposite the container port”

“Doesn’t sound to Natural why are you heading there?”

“It looks walkable from the ferry port at near Bremerhaven”

“Walkable, how far?”

“About 12km round trip, probably in the snow I guess”

“Wow you must really like birds”

“No, not really I don’t have much interest in them”

“...”

“I told you it is a World Heritage Site right?”

And so that is how I planned my day and that is how it turned out. To walk off the excesses of the festive period I took a stroll to Langlütjen I on New Year's Day 2011.

To my surprise there were a few birds flying around near the sea, I saw some Geese (Barnacle?) Ducks (Eiders?) and something that I think may have been a Curlew, but as I said, birds really are not a speciality of mine.

I actually enjoyed my walk through the flooded grass lands …

This site covers almost 10,000 square kilometers, and stretches for 400km along the north coast of Europe from the Netherlands to the Danish border. To get an appreciation of this site I visited it at several diverse locations in the Netherlands and Germany:

Texel Island - reached by ferry from Den Helder, then by bus to Oudeschild, a small port facing the Wadden Sea. From here there are excursions by boat to see the wildlife on the sandbanks.

Terschelling Island - reached by ferry from Harlingen. From the port on the island I walked to Green Beach to see the bird life there, but saw more from the deck of the slow ferry on the way back to Harlingen.

Norddeich - from here there are ferries to Norderney and Juist Islands. I took an informative cruise to the National Park to see the seals and birds on the sandbanks adjacent both islands.

Wilhelmshaven - saw views over Jade Harbour from the Wattenmeerhaus, a museum of the fauna and flora of the Wadden Sea at South Beach.

Cuxhaven - I just timed it correctly to catch low tide at Dunen Beach in order to take a trip by horse and cart out onto the sandbanks. I also visited the National Park exhibition at Sahlenburg Beach.

Sylt Island - This island is accessible only by train or boat. I took the train to Westerland, then a bus to Hornum on the southern tip of the island. Then I took a boat cruise …