Kraggenburg

From Ossenzijl to the first village Kalenburg,it’s only 5km ,and is along this footpath. The housing is tiny thatched cottages mostly.

Even the boat repair business was thatched ( *certainly not tiny though)*

Every 50 metres roughly, was a side canal heading out into the rushes. There are hundreds of hectares of swamp with canals dividing it up

Which is where most of the rushes to make thatch comes from

The lads have just come in with a part load of dried thatch

Every junction we come to has a handy mushroom type sign post. We’re now heading to Blokzijl

Blokzejl was once on the sea but with the dykes and land reclamation, it’s probably 15km from the Isselmeer now. The town basin is very old and pretty and alive with visiting boats of all descriptions.

Coffee. It was a perfect place to watch the comings and going’s. There was a constant stream of boats in both directions. Firstly they filed into the lock and then because they were going inland , were lowered about a metre. The lock keeper ( an elderly lady) then would raise the road bridge so they could proceed. She was busy !

Just a few km south of Blokzijl is the massive Gemaal Stroink pumping station. I’ll put a chart in to show where we’ve been and the levels of the land

If you zoom in on the map, the blue parts are lakes, green parts wetlands and the pink parts farmland.

The area around Kalenburg is 1.5 metres below sea level and the farmland around Sheerwolde 2.5 metres below .

Next to the pumping station about 20 trucks and diggers were building more dykes and canals. The soil is so rich I suppose it must be worth it

So to come directly from a canal at the level of Sheerwolde to the level of the Isselmeer you would come through this lock

You shouldn’t **HAVE TO** dismount to feed the rubbish bins

The old school house at Vollenhove. Built 1628

Vollenhove was once the capital of the north east of Holland. We had lunch here and found a couple of books in English but it’s lost most of its former glory

It boasted 10 big manors then but there are now just 2 lesser ones left

Kraggenburg. It’s been nice to have some fine weather today

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Published by Wallis Don