And now the second day of our adventure in this amazing little island north of the Netherlands: Ameland! To sum up: About 270 square kilometers with 4000 or so inhabitants, it is one of the four Wadden Islands belonging to the Friesland Province only reachable by boat from the mainland. What makes it special is that much of the coast is sand dunes surrounded by so much nature. Not surprising then to discover it is indeed part of the UNESCO World Heritage. And so impressed I was and so much fun we had that I, as usual, did a few kawaii pen sketches to describe our short time there!
Over the Rainbow…
It was a grey day with lots of intermittent rain and typically a Dutch autumn, especially in this neck of the woods. Although I don’t fancy walking in the rain much, this was one exception. We drove towards the seashore to a place called Ballum, parked our car there and began our stroll. And my my, what an amazing view of the vast “in the middle of nowhere” space there, enhanced further by a beautiful rainbow! In fact we came across one a few times along the way and at some point even the entire arch which I’ve never really encountered until now. And so that gave us even more reason to enjoy our 10km stroll along the sandy beach. As Ameland lies in the Wadden Sea, the body of water which is known to be world’s largest unbroken system of intertidal sand and mud flats, it is no surprise then that the shoreline is mainly composed of just sand dunes. So wide is the shoreline that we get at least 6 hours of low tide during the daytime, making it a pleasant walk along the beach.
Illusion of a Seal
What made the walk even more pleasant was that we were almost the only ones there apart from the occasional dog walker and a few locals. Talk about being in the middle of nowhere! The only animals we encountered were birds, namely seagulls, and quite a few jellyfish on wet sand. And of course lots of shells. At some point, though, we noticed from far away a lone dark shape protruding from the sand. “It’s a seal”, my partner beamed, “let’s walk over there and have a look!” And so we excitedly walked all the way there only to discover that it was a wooden stump that closely resembled the shape of a seal! That was indeed another highlight of our walk, which was 5 km to and back. And how amazing that was with almost nobody else around, lots of fresh air and the sound of nothing but birds and waves. Quite therapeutic, I must say! We certainly returned to the hotel all relaxed and uplifted. Rest of the afternoon was just chilling until dinner. Decided to don a huge pink baggy Hello Kitty sweatshirt to the restaurant as it was the only sweater I had to keep me warm… and to conclude the day with some kawaii!
My Kawaii Quarter 