The Dutch are absolute experts in hydraulic engineering and infrastructure. It is amazing how complex these systems are and how far inland they reach. It's not just the monumental Afsluitdijk dam, but also lakes, channels, locks and spillways that extend far into the Netherlands. I am an engineer myself and travel a lot on the waterways of our neighbors and am always impressed by how well connected and developed their infrastructure is for bicycles, cars and boats. For me, the Netherlands has the most modern, efficient and liveable infrastructure in the world.
Most complicated is the oosterschelde dam :-) look at that .. they first wanted to close of the sea arm completely but times changed and environmentalists and fisherman protested and finally a dam they could open and close was build, when there is storm or high tide they close it, otherwise its open for tide coming in and out
The best part is that there are no sweeping rules for traffic infrastructure. The authority is just liable for damages incurred that could have been reasonably prevented. So if a road is subpar lawsuits would be more expensieve than just replacing it.
@@WimvdBrink Have you seen the Maeslantkering? Look at aerial photos of that construction and realise each of those arms is the size of the Eiffel-tower. Well, that last part might be mildly exaggerated :)
@@DG20202 As a Dutch, I confirm this, though there are not many such lawsuits. Usually you first have to report the damaged spot. If it persists and it causes an accident then "de wegbeheerder" (road manager, for lack of better word) can be held liable.
Those big mattresses are made out of bundles of willow twigs, lowered on the sea bottom that consists of soft clay. They are fixed in place with stone blocks from Norway, the Netherlands do not have any stone except chalk in the very south, but that's not strong and heavy enough. When the soft soil on both sides is stabilized, works could begin. It is called Afsluitdijk (Closing off dyke), but it is a dam. It is 90 years old, and not leaky, but we have to prepare for the future and make it stronger. Also correct some mistakes... fish could not pass, but they get a special fish river now.
The retrofit of the dyke has just been done (still the sluices under construction) and and another bikelane has been added at the seaside of the Dyke. "Zinkstukken" are still a major part of the Civil Engineering Studies at university today. Proud to be a civil engineer ;-)
The first video oversimplifies it a little. When the afsluitdijk was built, dry land didn't magically appear. Those areas were created by damming off the borders, then pumping out the water using windmills (now diesel pumps). We call them 'polders'.
I'm a Brit who lived 25 years in NL. My second language is Dutch. There is so much more info behind the subjects you chose to watch. E.g. the 'bay' enclosed by the afsluitdijk was once the South Sea (Zuiderzee), with several very beautiful major trading (& fishing) ports of the Dutch East India Company from the 'golden' 16th century. The former salt sea has now transformed to sweet water. Den Helder is the home port of the Royal Dutch Navy and also the main offshore oil & gas exploration base. In Friesland province, where your video started, the language is different and older than Dutch. Fresian cows, prolific milk producers, came from here, but also suikerbrood (sugar bread), which you have GOT to try one time 😋 Fryslân boppe ! In the 90's it was calculated that if 2% of the leisure vessels in NL hit the extensive waterways and canals of NL at the same time - nobody is going anywhere ! The routes would be blocked by too many boats.
The Dutch golden age started well before the "Dutch East India" company/VOC, the 1570's while the VOC was founded in 1602, and was well past it's first half before the VOC started paying profits to it's shareholders. The city of Hoorn was relatively big in the VOC but it was the Dutch Republic's dominance of all European trade that made the age golden economically, the East-Indies trade of the VOC was just peanuts.
@@DenUitvreter Yeah it's funny to me how we managed to forget that religious refugees from other countries brought in the capital needed to start the golden age.
@@Alakablam No, the freedom certainly contributed but it was the invention of modern capitalism including a de facto central bank in combination with the invention of the wind sawmill in 1592 that allowed the Dutch to build ships 30 times faster and trade with much lower interest rates.
@@Alakablam No. I have not forgotten that the invention of the wind sawmill in 1592 that allowed the Dutch to build ships 30 times faster and the development of modern capitalism here that allowed Dutch merchants to work cheaper because the de facto central bank kept the interests low. Freedom of and the end of Spanish oppression helped to of course, the Netherlands were already thriving before Philip II.
Great reaction Ian! 1, yes that's a bicycle path and yes I've used it. 2, Speed is max 100km/h during daytime and 130km/h at night. Except near the sluice gates, there the max. speed is reduced too 70km/h. 3, whenever you want to visit, I'll be happy to show you around. 😊
@@roykliffen9674 Mopeds and e-bikes are the fastest motorized vehicles allowed on the bike-path at 45km/h, but a fast cyclist (like Lance Armstrong) can easily hit over 70km/h. So that is not that far off as you might think.
@@vogel2280 A fast cyclist will not keep up 70 km/h for long. Just a couple days ago I saw a rider in the tour de France escape the peleton with 51 km/h. and most time trials have average speed of around 50 km/h. 70+ km/h is more for downhill and sprints.
@@larswilms8275 That dam has no curves, no hills, no intersections and is "only" 20 miles (vs 120). Agreed, most speed cyclists will not manage this, but some will.
The speed limit on the Afsluitdijk is 100km/h the 70km/h sections were construction zones. And yes it was the same café as the other video, there is only the one café in the middle.
Indeed the same cafe (Haje) as in the first video. But not in the middle. Haje is on the north side (Zurich / Kop afsluitdijk). The cafe in the middle is currently closed. Don't know if it will reopen.
@@HeavenlyWarrior We did that back in the day before they put speed cameras everywhere, fastest my dad ever drove was a test drive he did on the afsluitdijk with 300km/h on the speedometer in a BMW B10 bi-turbo. His own car only reached 240 at the time.
5:20 - what he got wrong is that the water level wasn't dropped, instead dykes were built around areas and water pumped out, and dirt etc. brought in. The reason the Afsluitdijk exists is that they were planning (way back then) to reclaim the entire Zuiderzee - which didn't end up happening, obviously :D
La Hollande est un pays plat mais magnifique , les gens sont gentil et poli , le pays est un des moins dangereux au monde ! c est calme et rassurant ! vive la Hollande ! signé un Français
Gotta remember, this was in the same era as the Hoover Dam (construction started 1930), and the Sydney Harbour Bridge (commenced 1923). And only a decade after WW1.
It was especially during a time when Europe was shook by various crises, and there were severe problems with unemployment. Heavy government infrastructure investment was a way to get people into paid work, while creating demand for goods and improving the infrastructure for other economic activity. We could do with a few of these things now, instead we choose to give the wealthy tax breaks.
We didn't have WW I we were neutral and it was respected by the emperor of Germany. We did get invaded by nazi Germany in WW II. This was built before the crisis the polder (reclaimed land) was built during.
Also 18 years before the completion of Titanic, and more then years after the US trans-continental railroad. The cranes halfway through the video also look largely unchanged from the Victorian era. Not to say this isn't impressive, but looking at other projects this seems simple in comparison.
@@jacksonteller1337 But it still caused problems for The Netherlands because of the economic problems that were the result of the countries around us being occupied and in war. Suggesting that neutrality being respected didn't cause to much trouble was not exactly the real story. Yes, the Flevopolder was built way after the Afsluitdijk, true.
@@Dutch3DMaster beter opletten de volgende keer dat je geschiedenis krijgt. Minimale problemen vooral vergeleken met betrokken landen. De echte problemen waren in de nasleep ervan en ten gevolge van de beurs crisis. Geniet van je gebrek aan opleiding en volg de basiscursus economie daarna praten we verder.
Aussie here, and I was lucky enough to drive across in December 1990. Also, remember the wind was so strong, I wasn't able to speed up until I got close to a truck that blocked the wind for me. Felt really weird.
Shame over me, that I hadn't heard of it, though growing up in northern Germany with wind and bike... Seems quite the obvious contest to have! When is it on?
As a Dutch person from Leeuwarden, I'm proud of the Afsluitdijk. It has created extra fertile land, provided fresh water for fish, and shortened travel distances.
One could debate on the fish. Salt water fish does not thrive in fresh water lake. The lake stank like hell for years, until a fresh water ecosystem started to develop. I don't think currently the amount of fish surpasses the amount of fish before the closing....yet.
I love your reaction about Flevoland and Noordoostpolder not existing before the Afsluitdijk. The primary goal of the Afsluitdijk was to prevent flooding of the area around Kampen and Zwolle, building two new polders was just a big bonus.
Make that four (Wieringermeer, Noord Oost Polder, Oost Flevoland & Zuid Flevoland, the latter two now only separated by a sleeper dike called the Knardijk).
Heerhugowaard here, we got 'poldered' in 1630 after De Beemster was found to have such good soil for agriculture. Heerhugowaard's soil was not that... which resulted in it now being a 55k town and still growing fast, but you can see the old polders in the layout of the neighborhoods ps we're 3.6 to 3.8 meter below sea level.... but I'm safe either way, my apartment is on the fifth floor ;)
The big boat you see early in the second video is the ferry to Texel. TESO on the side of the ship stands for Texels own steamboot company (Texels eigen stoomboot onderneming). This ferry commutes between Den Helder and Texel (the most southern island of the Frisian Islands) and takes about 20 minutes.
The fastest speed that a car was driven across was 326 km/h by Robert Doornbos in a Red bull F1 car about 15 years ago. I’ve been driving/ been driven across my whole life to visit family in Friesland and coming from Amsterdam so it’s funny to see people fascinated by something so normal to me 😊 I now live in the Flevopolder in a city that did not exist at all when I was born 🤯 and it’s about 5 meters below sea-level.
10:47 Definitely didn't notice that submarine on the left. 16:22 Yellow lines indicate work in progress. Depending on the location and type of road, the speed can vary. On motorways, the maximum speed is 130 km per hour, unless a traffic sign indicates otherwise. And that is often the case, certainly between 06 and 19 hour. This has to do with noise pollution and the supply of traffic. The more cars, the lower the speed. For example, you can go from 130 km per hour to 80 km per hour. Or as in the video 70 km per hour in connection with work in progress.
@jurriendevries3522 It is a formerly active submarine. It is permanently stationed like that now and is connected to the main building of the Marinemuseum as part of their exhibition. Volunteers who used to serve on that submarine now tell visitors how that was. The beginning of that video shows another ship that is part of the museum.
The Netherlands has many windmill parks in the water because there are almost no places where people aren't living and no one wants a windmill farm near their house. There is also often more wind on the sea/lakes.
My great grandfather helped build the Afsluitdijk. He used to go every other week with his bicycle from Veendam in the province of Groningen to the worksite. Which is roughly 130 kilometers by bicycle or 7 hours by bicycle. No matter the weather... he'd go there for a week, slept there on site, and go back by the end of it.
When it comes to Dutch engineering and water management, I suggest you dive into the rabbit hole that are the Delta Works. In my opinion, as a Dutch national, the greatest engineering marvel of the modern world. It is cause for many countries who have water management issues to visit us to learn from our methods. Also, if you want to see more of my country, here's a playlist of a Dutch tv show named 'Nederland van Boven' or 'The Netherlands from above'. It is subtitled in English. 😊
In primary school I held a talk about some parts of the Deltaworks. I didn't fully grasp it at the time, but the mere fact we were able to built such giant concrete pillars, built the massive ships for transporting them, and having the alignment precision to put them in the required straight line and have the big gates lower without getting stuck due to misalignment is absolutely insane. We managed to pull something off absolutely incredible.
The idea of the Afsluitdijk was born because with every north western storm water was pushed into the Zuiderzee (funnel effect) and towns, farms and land was flooded. Completing the Afsluitdijk turned the Zuiderzee (Southern See) into a lake (meer); the IJsselmeer.
Funny fact: In 2006, then Dutch Formula 1 driver Robert Doornbos (who was attached to Red Bull) was asked what his dream drive would be. He said "de Afsluitdijk". So Red Bull organized it so that he could drive a section of it in his Formula 1 car. He hit 326 Km/h (or about 203 MPH). There is footage of it on UA-cam, you can find it if you search for "red bull f1 team letting Robert Doornbos drive the f1 on the road". It's not the greatest quality, since its a capture from a TV news broadcast, but its still fun to watch.
The second part of the video starts at the grounds of the dutch marine (Navy) museum. Den helder is home to the biggest part of our navy. I live on the island of Texel. The huge white ship is one of our ferry's its called Texelstroom. Its nice to see familiar places! When i walk from the train station to the ferry i always go via the navy museum its on an old shipyard, beautifully restored and open for the public.
It is fascinating to me that you are so fascinated by all this stuff (decent roads, logical road layouts, a dam that you can drive on, wind turbines in the water...) that are so normal to me
You should also look into the Deltawerken/Delta works. There are some very interesting videos about those (e.g. Hindsight). They're a set of storm barriers built following a devastating flood in 1953. They are incredible feats of engineering, and together with the Afsluitdijk they keep the North Sea from flooding the country.
One thing that's also interesting to know is that one side is sea water and the other side became fresh water in just a couple of years after completion.
When it's Winter and freezing only the fresh water (in the bay) side is the only water that will freeze, the sea water is not. This gives even more surreal image when you are there :-)
The main reason to build the afsluitdijk was not to build more land, but to protect ten existing land. The bay of the then called Zuiderzee, was prone to fill up during northern storms and raise the level of the water ,that was being pushed in and could go nowhere else flood the land around the bay. Thousands of people have died from flooding over the long history. By closing it with the dike this problem was fixed for ever. The polders they could build afterwards would bring in extra income, farm land and living space. This however was more a side affect than original motivation. It was planned as an extra from the start and helped politicians to be in favor of the immense financial burden. The project that was undertaken later to protect the Southern part of the country was even bigger. The Delta Works are being considered on of the modern engineering wonders of the world. There are plenty of videos to be found about the project, the build and the maintenance of it. Pretty cool stuff. You would definitely like to learn about it.
it was also a money issue, choice was or they would dyke the whole zuiderzee, or closing the zuiderzee, the last option was way cheaper and more effective. As you know, the dutch like it cheap haha.
That channel (The Tim Traveler) is great. The guy is pretty funny and he visits mostly the quirky and less known places all over Europe. Highly recommended.
As Dutch civil servants of the ministry of Traffic and Waterworks tend to brag: The Netherlands is already completed, "Nederland is al af." There were already plans to dam off that North Sea bay in the 17th century. But it was also the access to many port cities including that of Amsterdam, the trade hub of Europe back then. The food shortage of WW1 in which the Netherlands were neutral made the government give the go ahead. Also Rotterdam was now the main port with it's direct North Sea access in the West. The Great Depression helped, lots of unemployed who had to be paid support otherwise anyway. It was finished 2 years ahead of schedual. The reclaiming of land was mostly done post WWII. I was ready and inhabitable in the late 60's and in the early 70's the first towns emerged, planned of course. The new province, Flevoland has now almost half a million inhabitants and one city of over 200K people, Almere. That is in the top 10 of Dutch cities by size. The Afsluitdijk is actually one of the less impressive waterworks technically, it's huge but also just a dam. De Oosterscheldekering (where the head wind cycling championships are), the Maeslantkering and many others are more inventive and sophisticated.
This video shows more about how the Afsluitdijk was built, upgraded, the puspose of it etc. It's a short video. The Sea Wall That Saved A Nation (6:01). ua-cam.com/video/jdGjgmyFP9M/v-deo.html There went a lot more into it and the purpose was saving lives, not extra land, that was a byproduct. How the Dutch built the Netherlands (9:23), is also a good option. It basicly gives the same information but adds info on the new reclaimed landplots. ua-cam.com/video/KYctymHzZgQ/v-deo.html
Yes and the ones scattered across the country are Wind Pumps controlling water levels, only a few are actually Grain Mills. The same with those in Norfolk, Lincolnshire and the Wash area of England, parts of which also below sea level. There is a whole mass of land beneath the North Sea that was known as Doggerland, that connected England and the Low Countries, now known as the Dogger Bank.
I'd like to challenge that statement "mill" ≠ "grinding", but indicates an apparatus that converts lateral movement (of air) to a turning motion. A lumber-mill is an obvious example where grinding is clearly not the objective.
@@vogel2280 Mill is both a verb and a noun, to mill - to grind, engrave markings or move around aimlessly. A Mill - the machinery for milling, a factory that processes goods e.g. a Flour Mill, a Cotton Mill, a Timber Mill etc.
@@tonys1636 And that is how you know the English had no understanding of mills when they wrote their dictionaries. Google-Translate this: "Een molen is een werktuig met een draaiend mechaniek en een aandrijving, dat kan dienen voor het malen, persen of stampen van granen, verfpigmenten en andere grondstoffen, het zagen van hout, pompen van water, takelen van een last of opwekken van elektriciteit. Een molen kan worden aangedreven door de wind (windmolen), water (watermolen), de spierkracht van mensen (handmolen, tredmolen) en dieren (rosmolen) of door een motor."
Another thing of note, the afsluitdijk caused the salty Southern Sea (as this bay south of the North Sea was called) to become a freshwater lake. By design and not by accident. The detrimental effects to local wildlife were observed and taken into consideration with creation of the Delta Works (another pieces of Dutch engineering telling the sea to bugger off)
About one third of the Netherlands lies below sea level, with the lowest point being 22 feet below sea level.The highest Point is about 1000 feet over sea level
those pylons along the road with diagonal lines are indicators for drivers that it is a construction area, so slow down and be alert. (max speed 70KM/h) the normal allowed speed on the dijk is 100 Km/h
Before the Afsluitdijk was built, it was called the Zuiderzee / Southern Sea. Lots of small ports were dotted around the area, but there was a huge port in the south - Amsterdam. Amsterdam was also home of the admiralty, and both the East India Trading Company and the West India Trading companies headquarters. There was an island with a fortress off the shore of Amsterdam called Pampus. When the big trading ships and warships were waiting for assignments or re-fitting, they were laid up at Pampus, guarded by the fortress. This led to the dutch saying "Lying for Pampus" which got to mean lying on the floor intoxicated. They build the city and port of Den Helder to better protect the Dutch coastal lines. It's our main naval base. West of Amsterdam they dug a huge canal from Amsterdam to the northsea port of IJmuiden, called the Nieuwe Waterweg / the New Water Road. Thats how seafaring merchant ships can still reach the now land-locked harbours of Amsterdam. It's also how the big cruise ships reach Amsterdam.
@@JanBinnendijk maar zijn grootste creatieve wonder, was toch wel den Hellemonder. (Part of a poem on a tile in my grandparents' toilet *correction, on the wall in the bathroom 😂)
This is actually a really impressive reaction video. Not only did you react to a great video, you went beyond and looked at footage of riding over the afsluitdijk, but also of historical footage of the construction. That makes this video so much more. This is why I'm subscribed.
Dutch infrastructure as a whole is on another level. Edit: kilo = 1000. So 1000 meters. That should tell you how to pronounce it ;) kilo-meter And yes 😅. Red asphalt = bike lane.
@@SamThredder hehe, yes, it is m=meter, km=kilo-meter, cm=centi-meter, mm=milli-meter, etc, and NOT kil-ome-ter, cent-ime-ter, or mill-ime-ter. the unit is meter (m), and the other part is a prefix for a multiplicator or divisor, eg: kilo for *1000, centi for /100, milli for /1000, resulting in km,cm,mm _just like kilo-byte, mega-byte, giga-byte, terra-byte, and NOT kil-oby-te, meg-aby-te, gig-aby-te, ter-raby-te :-) LOL_
@@peterhoz it is the metric system and SI-units, thus should be well defined with no option for _that kind_ of regional variations. the only differences should be language dependent variants eg meter vs metre, or pronunciation like meter vs miter vs meeter or such, but prefix and unit are two defined words (eg kilo-meter), and thus no option for madeup syllables like kilom-eter, kil-omet-er or ki-lome-ter.
The Dutch have been masters of 'reclaiming' land from water for centuries. The area where I live in North Lincolnshire was once an extensive wetland/marsh. The drainage schemes to reclaim it were started by Dutch engineers in the 17th century. I learned about the Polders in primary school, simply because it was relevant to where I lived. Btw, it once featured on QI as the most geographically boring place in the UK, having the largest area of plain white space on an Ordnance Survey map!
The principle, though, is practiced along the north sea coast on different scales. Either to gain farmland or prevend erosion or just safeguard against havoc by floods and storms.
Fun fact we didn't just export the technology to the UK at that time. We also created many polders in northern Germany, Poland, France and even Russia and Spain. Without the Dutch engineering not only 30% of the Netherlands wouldn't exist but many coasts and rivers in Europe would look very different, not to mention the shallow lakes thatbwould exist but are now farmland.
@@MabuyaQ It doesn't surprise me. Cornelius Vermuyden was invited over by King James II on account of his known expertise. He was involved in several very large scale projects over here.
I've been on that road - stayed with some Dutch friends in Alkmaar and we drove over that one afternoon. Of course, to them it was perfectly normal so they didn't say anything about it and as a Brit who grew up in a city built on land reclaimed from marshes in the 13th century, I just assumed it was the Dutch doing their normal thing of stealing land from the sea. It wasn't until I got home that I realised how much land and how much sea! The largest offshore wind farms are in the UK, by the way. The British, Dutch, and Danes are pretty good at building those things but the one at Afsluitdijk is a baby compared with the farms off the English coast. Hornsea 1 and Hornsea 2 are the world's largest at present but those two will be dwarfed by the Dogger Bank wind farm with is currently being built. Between them they will power about 8 million homes - and they're not the only wind farms we have. You might like to look at the B1M channel - it has videos on various mega-engineering projects worldwide.
I have driven one time over the dike, for someone of the southeast of the Netherlands at possibly the furthest distance from the sea in our country it was an experience. The mats at the end are made from reeds bound together, their function was the support of the base of the dam, rocks and sand would be dumped on top and that would make them sink to the bottom. The mats would avoid the rocks from sinking in the silt on the bottom making the dam unstable. Nowadays modern polymers have taken the place as material for these mats, called geotextiles. The reeds submerged in salt water and under thick layers of earth will not rot.
I actually live within 10km from the Afsluitdijk. Drove over it many times, and even for me as a dutchie, it's special every time i drive over it. The speed limit is a weird one here in the Netherlands. During the day you are allowed to drive 100kph between 06:00 and 19:00. After 19:00 you are allowed to drive 130kph
These kind of videos help me to realize how awesome the Afsluitdijk actually is. I'm Dutch and have driven over it a few times, and it has always been just there. It was normal to me, just like almost anything else, which of course isn't. It actually makes me feel a bit proud, even knowing that I clearly didn't help a bit. All the credits to the innovators, engineers and workers who built it. And thank you for opening my eyes.
I'd love to see Leeuwarden and the Afsluitdijk. I'm from Leeuwarden, you know. It's amazing the amount of work, man-hours, and planning that went into the Afsluitdijk. It's funny because it's like a 25 km straight road with no elevation change. So what? It's a really popular road to check your car's top speed out and race on it. A lot of people do it illegally because this isn't Germany. :/ Oh, another fun fact: Leeuwarden is the capital of Friesland. They speak Frisian and Dutch, but the native language in Friesland is Frisian (Frysk).
13:20 Since it is part of the highway, the speed limit is 100km/h during the hours of 6am - 7pm and 130km/h for the rest of the day, just like on all highways in the Netherlands currently.
As many people have already commented, the Afsluitdijk was built in a period of big construction projects. You might also want to look at the Kiel Canal (Nord-Ostsee-Kanal in German), which connects the North Sea and the Baltic Sea and is about 100 km long. Its first version was completed in the 19th century already. It’s bonkers in many, many ways.
I have driven over the Afsluitdijk many times and i can say that with bad weather, snow and storm, it is no fun to drive there. If the weather gets too bad they close the dijk for safety reasons. I like how you find so many things interesting. Thank you for sharing all these interesting videos.
13:56 I drive it monthly to visit mom, who lives on the other side, and seeing video's like this makes me as Dutchman appreciate it more, not taking it for granted.
As Dutchman who's lived nearly 50 years with this just being an every day thing that's "just there", it's nice to see someone appreciate it for what it is. That bike lane along the afsluitdijk is also where they hold annual cycling-into-the-wind championships, iirc.
Yep, it's a bike lane. Tip: cross it from south east to north west, to make use of prevailing winds. Pedal 20 odd times, spread your jacket wide open with your arms and just bike-sail your way across, no need for more pedalling. Be shure to check your brakes before doing so, it gets up to speed! We discovered it on a biking holiday when I was 15...
On 20:40 they are knitting wicker mats. They use to place wicker mats on the surface of dams and dikes...then cover it up with soil and sow grass on it...the mats wouldnkeep the soil in place for the first period so it wouldn't erode or be washed away....eventually they would rot after a couple of years but by then the roots of the grass would have formed a dense mat to keep the soil in place in its turn.
Those markers around 13:20 are used on construction sites. Usually paired with yellow temporary lines and yellow signs. The sign 70 is because the lane gets narrower because of contruction. Base speedlimit is 130kph, unless a sign indicates otherwise. Sometimes you see little sub signs underneath that say something like 100 (between) 06:00 - 19:00. So after 19:00 (7pm) the speed goes back up to 130kph until 06:00
It's a dam for sure. Before the build, both sides were salt water, now the south side is fresh water. The closed off part was called the Southern Sea before the change, IJssel lake after the change. They are looking into getting energy from the difference in salt content between the two sides on the Afsluitdijk (closing dike) by Reverse ElectroDialysis. The Afsuitdijk is not the only project to keep sea water out of the Netherlands. At Zeeland you have quite a few of them for protection, not as big as this one though but quite innovative. The dutch have been conquering the sea for centuries. The first windmill pumping stations (poldergemalen) were used in the 1400's. A windmill corridor (1 to 3 wind mills) would pump up the water with an archimedes screw into a higher water ring where you had another windmill doing the same. You'd have up to 4 windmill corridors going uphill depending on the depth of the polder), pumping the water eventually into a "vaart" (canal) to get the water to sea. These mills needed to work continuously because polders are below the ground water level. The reason there are so many ditches on polder farm land is to have an efficient flow of water towards the pumps. In winter, these ditches were frozen solid and were somewhat highways to get people from town to town by ice skating, sometimes even with horse carriages on skates.
I drive the afsluitdijk daily. It is under construction at the moment that's why the traffic is directed to the other side and back. Speed limit is 100km/h at daytime and 120km/h after 7pm. The ship is the ferry to the island of Texel. Yes it's the same cafe.
I lived in Hoorn, had just learned to drive and had a job interview in Assen which meant I had to drive over the Afsluitdijk to get to an appointment at 9.00 am. It was the longest journey I'd ever done on my own as a new driver and after a few minutes on the dijk it started to snow! and it continued for an hour with the traffic slowing due to visibility and my ETA slowly slipping. By the time I was back on land there was 8 inches of snow everywhere, no gritters yet, and I had to slip and slide my way through an unknown city unable to steer properly or brake. The company put us in a hotel overnight, so I was spared the trauma of a return trip in the snow!
Was dat voor de dijk van Enkhuizen naar......? Ik heb familie in West Friesland en Groningen, wij nemen die dijk. Soms gesloten vanwege slecht weer of kruiend ijs. Ik rijd dan niet dus weet niet waar die stopt, ergens in de NOP?
Denmark also extended their landmass lately by shoving material in the sea. It's not that huge of a project, but it is now a recreational area with a huge highway in between connecting Scandinavia with central Europe
The IJsselmeer ( the innerlake ) contains sweet water, fed by the river IJssel ( tributary of the river Rijn ) as well as overflow from surrounding land pumping all excess water into IJsselmeer. Its level is regulated by large sluice gates on both ends of the Afsluitdijk, which are opend on low sea tides . It is almost 1200 km2 and in average 4.5 meters deep . In spring its level is raised between 10 to 20 cm in order to prevent in hot summers the drying out of surrounding dikes and land as well as an extra drinking water supply for the North West of NL
Very impressive. Also, nice to see a little clip of Den Helder. I've been there a few times and it's a great place. Lovely architecture, good food and the maritime museum is great... especially the submarine! Working offshore for most of my career, I know those waters well. I was involved in the early stages of that offshore wind farm construction.
The Afsluitdijk is also the place where the race in "cycling against the wind" takes place. Which obviously gets cancelled when the wind is not strong enough.
Yes, there is a bike lane on the dyke! I've been there on a bike-holiday when I was about 15yo. We started in Amsterdam, where we lived and after a stop in the first polder on the map you showed (Wieringermeer) we crossed the Afsluitdijk to enter Friesland. It was a nice holiday with a friend/class mate. The speed limit in the Netherlands is 100 km/h (between 07 and 19) and 130 after that. In the video there was a bit of construction going on so there the speed limit is lower.
In most of the world we do not post speed signs like in the USA, we have default speed limits and only if there is a reason to change the speed you get a sign. In this case this is a highway/motorway in the NL so the default speed is 100 in the day. Same if you enter a city, you won't get a speed limit sign but you know that since you've entered a city you have to go 50 max now.
This project stopped Amsterdam from being a sea port. That's why, at the same time, the Noordzeekanaal (from A'dam to IJmuiden) was digged to keep access to the sea. Since then, A'dam Port has fresh water, not sea water anymore.
The Noordhollandsch Kanaal runs from Den Helder to Amsterdam. It's about 80 km long and was constructed in the 1820's. Machinery such as excavators didn't yet exist, so it was dug by hand by an army of 9000 workers, which took about 5 years. It's 40 meters wide and 6-7 meters deep, making it the deepest and widest canal in the world at the time. Pretty impressive.
ok, the waterlevel in the lagoon wasn't lowered to create land. There are rivers spewing into the IJsselmeer. Indeed they are polders, so enclosed areas below the waterlevel.
Those green signs on the side of the road are 100 meter markers, every 1000 meters it will have a small speed limit sign on it too, Thought you'd like that bit of info. And the speed on the Afsluitdijk is 100 km/h, during maintanance when one lane is closed it goes down to 60 km/h
The speedlimite on the afsluitdijk is 100kmph but we have different speedlimits for day and night to still be able to get somewhere fast, but when there is rush hour its still save. So in the day, from 6 am till 7 pm (06.00 - 19.00) its 100 kmph and from 7 pm till 6 am its 130 kmph (19.00-06.00)
Love your reaction. i'm Dutch en for me is just part of the Netherlands, biggest part of the Netherlands is below sea level so we have to fight that constantly. If you are interested in those kind of things be sure to look up the 'delta werken'. I have driven de afsluitdijk often it's like riding a highway :-) you see the IJselmeer, former Zuiderzee, but thats al it's just a smooth drive. In the beginnings of the dijk there are some bridges en locks so the road can shorly be closed for passing ships. The speed limits in the Netherlands for a highway is 100 km/h during day time 07:00 - 19:00 an depending where you drive max 130 km/h during knight time.
My whole life I’ve lived in a town directly connected to a dijk/dam and honestly it still amazes me when I cross it and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of it.
fun fact! Every year a race is held on the afsluitduik called NK tegenwindfietsen. This translates to Dutch championship cycling against the wind. In this race people cycle across the entire dyke in the direction that goes against the wind. Instead of doing this on traditional racebikes it is done on regular city bikes
There are several windmill parks out in the North Sea as well, placed there by the countries that border it. You can find a list of them on wikipedia if you search for "List of offshore wind farms in the North Sea". That doesn't mean that there aren't any on land, but the sea locations are of course out there bothering no one, except shipping, and do catch a lot of wind.
The driving video starts at Den Helder, which is our main Naval base. It located at the northern most tip of North Holland, so he has to drive quite some distance to get to the Afsluitdijk (most commonly called the Closure Dam in English). Since it is a highway the regular speed would be 100 km/h, but in the areas that are being worked on it would be lowered.
The Amsteldiepdijk (the dijk from Den Helder to Wieringen) was a dijk to proof the Afsluitdijk was possible to build. So it is for sure part of the project back then.
I Like your reactions of amazement. I grew up there and lived their for almost 50 year, Crossed the dike ziljons of times so I more ro less take it all for granted. I live in France for 20 year now and I notice they are reconstructing. Have not seen the windmills in the sea for instance, at least not in daylight. I'm always there in winter and pass by at dark. Thank you for this, was fun!
den helder in the second video is where the dutch marine has its base. And the afsluit diijk made that they could build the land but it wasnt there as easy as the first vid make it look. They first build dikes around the areas sometimes even spilt one part in two. After the dike was there they start emptying the water and then add some grass seeds. And then burn that grass and add sand and water to make it stable and repeat that until you get land :D
A maximum speed of 130 km/h currently still applies on most of the Afsluitdijk. A lower speed limit now only applies at the locks (70 km/h) and the monument (100 km/h).
I used to cross the Afsluitdijk by bike regularly, when I was young, to visit my grandparents. It was a two-lane highway then, but already had a bicycle lane.
9:28 On such another level that we have a yearly competition on cycling over the Afsluitdijk on a bike without any gearing. And even though I've never done that, I can tell you it's quite windy. 😂
Of course there's a bike path, it's the Netherlands. I crossed it once on my bike during a tour with friends when we circled the IJsselmeer (the former Zuiderzee) by bike. The Afsluitdijk is kind of dull though, 32 km of nothing but straight dike and water (and wind!). But a great thing to do and accomplish! And indeed thanks for the café in the middle ... If you liked this you might also find it interesting to go for "Zuiderzeewerken", "Delta werken" and "On the shoulders of giants".
My great-grandfather was one of the engineers building this dam, it took them years and my grandmother (born 1927) grew up in the sandboxes they used for modeling and testing stuff.
The afsluitdijk is just 1 very big project of the whole water defense project keeping the high sea out of the Netherlands. In the 1953 a massive flood submerged big part of the netherlands. Called the Deltawerken including 5 high water blocking dam's where later build in the south too. Like the big gates into the port of rotterdam called the measlantkering. And not only do the dutch keep out the sea, the rivers and canals are also well managed. The Dutch lands (created) are up the like 9 meters below sea level and the massive flood of 1953 is a strong reminder we absolutely need to keep managing the water well. A dyke and flood space next to the river is a easy way to keep our feet dry with high waters. Dig a lot of canals between water ways and you can easy trade massive amounts of cargo on ships.
During the 6th century BC, the Greeks developed the earliest form of what we know as cranes today. The Greeks used them to build monuments, transport mining materials, and construct buildings like cathedrals.
Speed on the afsluitdijk is 100 km p/h in the daytime and 130 km p/h after 7 pm. The afluitdijk is under constuction so at some parts the speed limits are 70 km p/ h. The afsluitdijk is 32 km long and it takes 20 minutes to get to the other side.
Fun fact about the southern part of the sea, formerly knows as the southern sea (zuiderzee) is now called the ijsselmeer and has actually become fresh water
The speed-limit used to be 130 Km/h, but it's 100 Km/h these days (they lowered this maximum speed on all highways across the country). On most roads it's 100 during the day and 120 between 19:00h and 06:00h.
The name "Afsluitdijk" means something like Enclosure Dam. Last years there was a lot of construction work and the path you had to take did change a lot of times on lots of different parts in the years, it is stll in progress, last weekend the dam was closed at night because of construction with new sluice gates. The bike lanes where closed, and i think now partial open. During construction they also added lots of new windmills into the water. But you can get an good glimpse of the contruction state in the longer video The big boat is and Ferry, and goes to one of the 5 islands locate in the north of the Netherlands called "waddeneilanden".
The Dutch also build a little rare vehicle called DAF or DAFFODIL in 1958 with CVT gearbox, or in fact TWO CVT gearboxes for having Limited Slip Diff and aloud to move the rearwheels independent. It took to 1972 for having a 'real' diff...
As a Dutch citizen I crossed it twice by boat once, there is a bridge and lock on either side so boats can transfer from the lake to the sea. Never crossed it by car though, 5 hour round trip from were I am.
![[UA] Team Vitality проти NAVI | IEM Cologne 2024](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wttO1zVRTC0/mqdefault.jpg)
No Dutch infrastructure without bike lanes!
zoals het hoort😁
yupp, wouldn't have it any other way ;-)
It'll only take's 90 minutes to cycle to the other side, so...offcourse there's a bike path!😅
There is literaly bike lanes everywhere. You can bike any where you want and it is a great thing.
not on highways and freeways.
Kudos to our dutch neighbours! When it comes to coastal infrastructure and engineering they are top notch!
nah we aren't, we are below sea level ;)
@@Bertranddeghaul😂😂😂
@@Bertranddeghaul Arguably we compensate for that with legal weed, so in reality we are a bit higher than sea level.
The Dutch are absolute experts in hydraulic engineering and infrastructure. It is amazing how complex these systems are and how far inland they reach. It's not just the monumental Afsluitdijk dam, but also lakes, channels, locks and spillways that extend far into the Netherlands. I am an engineer myself and travel a lot on the waterways of our neighbors and am always impressed by how well connected and developed their infrastructure is for bicycles, cars and boats. For me, the Netherlands has the most modern, efficient and liveable infrastructure in the world.
Most complicated is the oosterschelde dam :-) look at that .. they first wanted to close of the sea arm completely but times changed and environmentalists and fisherman protested and finally a dam they could open and close was build, when there is storm or high tide they close it, otherwise its open for tide coming in and out
The best part is that there are no sweeping rules for traffic infrastructure. The authority is just liable for damages incurred that could have been reasonably prevented. So if a road is subpar lawsuits would be more expensieve than just replacing it.
@@WimvdBrink Have you seen the Maeslantkering? Look at aerial photos of that construction and realise each of those arms is the size of the Eiffel-tower. Well, that last part might be mildly exaggerated :)
@@DG20202 As a Dutch, I confirm this, though there are not many such lawsuits. Usually you first have to report the damaged spot. If it persists and it causes an accident then "de wegbeheerder" (road manager, for lack of better word) can be held liable.
@@stonytina5177 Yep, been there several times.
Massive props to my Dutch neighbors, they are constantly fighting the sea for land and keeping their gained land safe.
Love your Bratwurst, Karl-Heinz. 😂
Yes, we fight the sea and keep winning.
That is why water engineers from the Netherlands are in demand worldwide as ocean levels rise.
Those big mattresses are made out of bundles of willow twigs, lowered on the sea bottom that consists of soft clay. They are fixed in place with stone blocks from Norway, the Netherlands do not have any stone except chalk in the very south, but that's not strong and heavy enough. When the soft soil on both sides is stabilized, works could begin.
It is called Afsluitdijk (Closing off dyke), but it is a dam. It is 90 years old, and not leaky, but we have to prepare for the future and make it stronger. Also correct some mistakes... fish could not pass, but they get a special fish river now.
The retrofit of the dyke has just been done (still the sluices under construction) and and another bikelane has been added at the seaside of the Dyke. "Zinkstukken" are still a major part of the Civil Engineering Studies at university today. Proud to be a civil engineer ;-)
Norway: "If we could sell them this mountain we would have more farmland too!" 🧠
The first video oversimplifies it a little. When the afsluitdijk was built, dry land didn't magically appear. Those areas were created by damming off the borders, then pumping out the water using windmills (now diesel pumps). We call them 'polders'.
I'm a Brit who lived 25 years in NL. My second language is Dutch. There is so much more info behind the subjects you chose to watch. E.g. the 'bay' enclosed by the afsluitdijk was once the South Sea (Zuiderzee), with several very beautiful major trading (& fishing) ports of the Dutch East India Company from the 'golden' 16th century. The former salt sea has now transformed to sweet water. Den Helder is the home port of the Royal Dutch Navy and also the main offshore oil & gas exploration base. In Friesland province, where your video started, the language is different and older than Dutch. Fresian cows, prolific milk producers, came from here, but also suikerbrood (sugar bread), which you have GOT to try one time 😋 Fryslân boppe ! In the 90's it was calculated that if 2% of the leisure vessels in NL hit the extensive waterways and canals of NL at the same time - nobody is going anywhere ! The routes would be blocked by too many boats.
Actually Friesian language is closely related to old English (think of Beowulf).
The Dutch golden age started well before the "Dutch East India" company/VOC, the 1570's while the VOC was founded in 1602, and was well past it's first half before the VOC started paying profits to it's shareholders. The city of Hoorn was relatively big in the VOC but it was the Dutch Republic's dominance of all European trade that made the age golden economically, the East-Indies trade of the VOC was just peanuts.
@@DenUitvreter Yeah it's funny to me how we managed to forget that religious refugees from other countries brought in the capital needed to start the golden age.
@@Alakablam No, the freedom certainly contributed but it was the invention of modern capitalism including a de facto central bank in combination with the invention of the wind sawmill in 1592 that allowed the Dutch to build ships 30 times faster and trade with much lower interest rates.
@@Alakablam No. I have not forgotten that the invention of the wind sawmill in 1592 that allowed the Dutch to build ships 30 times faster and the development of modern capitalism here that allowed Dutch merchants to work cheaper because the de facto central bank kept the interests low. Freedom of and the end of Spanish oppression helped to of course, the Netherlands were already thriving before Philip II.
Great reaction Ian!
1, yes that's a bicycle path and yes I've used it.
2, Speed is max 100km/h during daytime and 130km/h at night. Except near the sluice gates, there the max. speed is reduced too 70km/h.
3, whenever you want to visit, I'll be happy to show you around. 😊
I guess those speeds are not for the bicycle path 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@roykliffen9674 Mopeds and e-bikes are the fastest motorized vehicles allowed on the bike-path at 45km/h, but a fast cyclist (like Lance Armstrong) can easily hit over 70km/h. So that is not that far off as you might think.
@@vogel2280 A fast cyclist will not keep up 70 km/h for long. Just a couple days ago I saw a rider in the tour de France escape the peleton with 51 km/h. and most time trials have average speed of around 50 km/h. 70+ km/h is more for downhill and sprints.
@@larswilms8275 That dam has no curves, no hills, no intersections and is "only" 20 miles (vs 120). Agreed, most speed cyclists will not manage this, but some will.
@@roykliffen9674 Speed limits usually only applies to road vehicles.
I rode my bike over it twice and it was awesome , lots of wind but so satisfying when you get to the other side , loved it !
The speed limit on the Afsluitdijk is 100km/h the 70km/h sections were construction zones. And yes it was the same café as the other video, there is only the one café in the middle.
It is 100 from 6 in the morning til 7 in the evening. in the evening and night it is (was) 130 km/hr (80,74 mile/hr)
Indeed the same cafe (Haje) as in the first video. But not in the middle. Haje is on the north side (Zurich / Kop afsluitdijk). The cafe in the middle is currently closed. Don't know if it will reopen.
If I drove there I'd do more than 200km/h easily. 100km/h is a joke.
@@HeavenlyWarrior You misspelled KeyboardWarrior when you made this account buddy
@@HeavenlyWarrior We did that back in the day before they put speed cameras everywhere, fastest my dad ever drove was a test drive he did on the afsluitdijk with 300km/h on the speedometer in a BMW B10 bi-turbo. His own car only reached 240 at the time.
5:20 - what he got wrong is that the water level wasn't dropped, instead dykes were built around areas and water pumped out, and dirt etc. brought in. The reason the Afsluitdijk exists is that they were planning (way back then) to reclaim the entire Zuiderzee - which didn't end up happening, obviously :D
La Hollande est un pays plat mais magnifique , les gens sont gentil et poli , le pays est un des moins dangereux au monde ! c est calme et rassurant ! vive la Hollande ! signé un Français
Merci
Merci, j'étais en France en début d'année, un très beau pays, j'aime toute votre nature et votre culture! d'un Néerlandais.
We love you too!!!
Merci bien
Le pays est Les Pays-Bas. La digue est entre les provinces Hollande de Nord et Fryslân ;-)
Gotta remember, this was in the same era as the Hoover Dam (construction started 1930), and the Sydney Harbour Bridge (commenced 1923). And only a decade after WW1.
It was especially during a time when Europe was shook by various crises, and there were severe problems with unemployment. Heavy government infrastructure investment was a way to get people into paid work, while creating demand for goods and improving the infrastructure for other economic activity.
We could do with a few of these things now, instead we choose to give the wealthy tax breaks.
We didn't have WW I we were neutral and it was respected by the emperor of Germany. We did get invaded by nazi Germany in WW II. This was built before the crisis the polder (reclaimed land) was built during.
Also 18 years before the completion of Titanic, and more then years after the US trans-continental railroad. The cranes halfway through the video also look largely unchanged from the Victorian era.
Not to say this isn't impressive, but looking at other projects this seems simple in comparison.
@@jacksonteller1337 But it still caused problems for The Netherlands because of the economic problems that were the result of the countries around us being occupied and in war.
Suggesting that neutrality being respected didn't cause to much trouble was not exactly the real story.
Yes, the Flevopolder was built way after the Afsluitdijk, true.
@@Dutch3DMaster beter opletten de volgende keer dat je geschiedenis krijgt. Minimale problemen vooral vergeleken met betrokken landen. De echte problemen waren in de nasleep ervan en ten gevolge van de beurs crisis. Geniet van je gebrek aan opleiding en volg de basiscursus economie daarna praten we verder.
Aussie here, and I was lucky enough to drive across in December 1990.
Also, remember the wind was so strong, I wasn't able to speed up until I got close to a truck that blocked the wind for me. Felt really weird.
Yes, the wind is more often appint than water. Cycling there is an adventure, but boring too.
@@la-go-xy I'm pretty sure that each year the dutch cycling against the wind championships are held here
@@timheesterbeek4597 No, that is held on the Oosterscheldekering.
Shame over me, that I hadn't heard of it, though growing up in northern Germany with wind and bike...
Seems quite the obvious contest to have!
When is it on?
@@la-go-xy last time it was cancelled: too much wind
As a Dutch person from Leeuwarden, I'm proud of the Afsluitdijk. It has created extra fertile land, provided fresh water for fish, and shortened travel distances.
and it made live a lot safer for everyone living on along the former Zuiderzee.
One could debate on the fish. Salt water fish does not thrive in fresh water lake. The lake stank like hell for years, until a fresh water ecosystem started to develop. I don't think currently the amount of fish surpasses the amount of fish before the closing....yet.
Represent!💛💙
I love your reaction about Flevoland and Noordoostpolder not existing before the Afsluitdijk.
The primary goal of the Afsluitdijk was to prevent flooding of the area around Kampen and Zwolle, building two new polders was just a big bonus.
Make that four (Wieringermeer, Noord Oost Polder, Oost Flevoland & Zuid Flevoland, the latter two now only separated by a sleeper dike called the Knardijk).
Due to the afsluitdijk, I now live in a small town about 2 meters below sea level.
haarlemmermeer, schiphol -5😂😂😂
Zoetermeer -3.5m ong?
I live in Almere,also a few meters below sea level.In the polder that came from the closing off this dike.
Heerhugowaard here, we got 'poldered' in 1630 after De Beemster was found to have such good soil for agriculture.
Heerhugowaard's soil was not that... which resulted in it now being a 55k town and still growing fast, but you can see the old polders in the layout of the neighborhoods
ps we're 3.6 to 3.8 meter below sea level.... but I'm safe either way, my apartment is on the fifth floor ;)
Welp, if the dikes break. My village will be called veendam aan zee, 170 cm above sea level. I think i'll start a diving school here.
The big boat you see early in the second video is the ferry to Texel. TESO on the side of the ship stands for Texels own steamboot company (Texels eigen stoomboot onderneming). This ferry commutes between Den Helder and Texel (the most southern island of the Frisian Islands) and takes about 20 minutes.
The fastest speed that a car was driven across was 326 km/h by Robert Doornbos in a Red bull F1 car about 15 years ago.
I’ve been driving/ been driven across my whole life to visit family in Friesland and coming from Amsterdam so it’s funny to see people fascinated by something so normal to me 😊 I now live in the Flevopolder in a city that did not exist at all when I was born 🤯 and it’s about 5 meters below sea-level.
10:47 Definitely didn't notice that submarine on the left.
16:22 Yellow lines indicate work in progress. Depending on the location and type of road, the speed can vary.
On motorways, the maximum speed is 130 km per hour, unless a traffic sign indicates otherwise.
And that is often the case, certainly between 06 and 19 hour.
This has to do with noise pollution and the supply of traffic.
The more cars, the lower the speed. For example, you can go from 130 km per hour to 80 km per hour.
Or as in the video 70 km per hour in connection with work in progress.
Yes I was about to say that too. That is at the marine/navy museum in Den Helder. Interesting museum to visit!
That submarine looked like a building
Did you know us Dutch invented the submarine too? Cornelis Drebbel from the city of Alkmaar, in 1640... ;-)
@jurriendevries3522 It is a formerly active submarine. It is permanently stationed like that now and is connected to the main building of the Marinemuseum as part of their exhibition. Volunteers who used to serve on that submarine now tell visitors how that was. The beginning of that video shows another ship that is part of the museum.
The Netherlands has many windmill parks in the water because there are almost no places where people aren't living and no one wants a windmill farm near their house.
There is also often more wind on the sea/lakes.
My great grandfather helped build the Afsluitdijk. He used to go every other week with his bicycle from Veendam in the province of Groningen to the worksite. Which is roughly 130 kilometers by bicycle or 7 hours by bicycle.
No matter the weather... he'd go there for a week, slept there on site, and go back by the end of it.
Mine worked there too. But came from Brabant.
@e.w.3819 A long way from home! I guess he took the train on such distances? Did he stay at work longer to make it worth it?
When it comes to Dutch engineering and water management, I suggest you dive into the rabbit hole that are the Delta Works.
In my opinion, as a Dutch national, the greatest engineering marvel of the modern world.
It is cause for many countries who have water management issues to visit us to learn from our methods.
Also, if you want to see more of my country, here's a playlist of a Dutch tv show named 'Nederland van Boven' or 'The Netherlands from above'. It is subtitled in English. 😊
In primary school I held a talk about some parts of the Deltaworks. I didn't fully grasp it at the time, but the mere fact we were able to built such giant concrete pillars, built the massive ships for transporting them, and having the alignment precision to put them in the required straight line and have the big gates lower without getting stuck due to misalignment is absolutely insane.
We managed to pull something off absolutely incredible.
The idea of the Afsluitdijk was born because with every north western storm water was pushed into the Zuiderzee (funnel effect) and towns, farms and land was flooded. Completing the Afsluitdijk turned the Zuiderzee (Southern See) into a lake (meer); the IJsselmeer.
Funny fact: In 2006, then Dutch Formula 1 driver Robert Doornbos (who was attached to Red Bull) was asked what his dream drive would be. He said "de Afsluitdijk". So Red Bull organized it so that he could drive a section of it in his Formula 1 car. He hit 326 Km/h (or about 203 MPH). There is footage of it on UA-cam, you can find it if you search for "red bull f1 team letting Robert Doornbos drive the f1 on the road". It's not the greatest quality, since its a capture from a TV news broadcast, but its still fun to watch.
The second part of the video starts at the grounds of the dutch marine (Navy) museum. Den helder is home to the biggest part of our navy. I live on the island of Texel. The huge white ship is one of our ferry's its called Texelstroom. Its nice to see familiar places! When i walk from the train station to the ferry i always go via the navy museum its on an old shipyard, beautifully restored and open for the public.
It is fascinating to me that you are so fascinated by all this stuff (decent roads, logical road layouts, a dam that you can drive on, wind turbines in the water...) that are so normal to me
You should also look into the Deltawerken/Delta works. There are some very interesting videos about those (e.g. Hindsight). They're a set of storm barriers built following a devastating flood in 1953. They are incredible feats of engineering, and together with the Afsluitdijk they keep the North Sea from flooding the country.
One thing that's also interesting to know is that one side is sea water and the other side became fresh water in just a couple of years after completion.
When it's Winter and freezing only the fresh water (in the bay) side is the only water that will freeze, the sea water is not. This gives even more surreal image when you are there :-)
The main reason to build the afsluitdijk was not to build more land, but to protect ten existing land. The bay of the then called Zuiderzee, was prone to fill up during northern storms and raise the level of the water ,that was being pushed in and could go nowhere else flood the land around the bay. Thousands of people have died from flooding over the long history. By closing it with the dike this problem was fixed for ever. The polders they could build afterwards would bring in extra income, farm land and living space. This however was more a side affect than original motivation. It was planned as an extra from the start and helped politicians to be in favor of the immense financial burden.
The project that was undertaken later to protect the Southern part of the country was even bigger. The Delta Works are being considered on of the modern engineering wonders of the world. There are plenty of videos to be found about the project, the build and the maintenance of it. Pretty cool stuff. You would definitely like to learn about it.
it was also a money issue, choice was or they would dyke the whole zuiderzee, or closing the zuiderzee, the last option was way cheaper and more effective. As you know, the dutch like it cheap haha.
That channel (The Tim Traveler) is great. The guy is pretty funny and he visits mostly the quirky and less known places all over Europe. Highly recommended.
As Dutch civil servants of the ministry of Traffic and Waterworks tend to brag: The Netherlands is already completed, "Nederland is al af." There were already plans to dam off that North Sea bay in the 17th century. But it was also the access to many port cities including that of Amsterdam, the trade hub of Europe back then. The food shortage of WW1 in which the Netherlands were neutral made the government give the go ahead. Also Rotterdam was now the main port with it's direct North Sea access in the West.
The Great Depression helped, lots of unemployed who had to be paid support otherwise anyway. It was finished 2 years ahead of schedual. The reclaiming of land was mostly done post WWII. I was ready and inhabitable in the late 60's and in the early 70's the first towns emerged, planned of course. The new province, Flevoland has now almost half a million inhabitants and one city of over 200K people, Almere. That is in the top 10 of Dutch cities by size.
The Afsluitdijk is actually one of the less impressive waterworks technically, it's huge but also just a dam. De Oosterscheldekering (where the head wind cycling championships are), the Maeslantkering and many others are more inventive and sophisticated.
This video shows more about how the Afsluitdijk was built, upgraded, the puspose of it etc. It's a short video. The Sea Wall That Saved A Nation (6:01).
ua-cam.com/video/jdGjgmyFP9M/v-deo.html
There went a lot more into it and the purpose was saving lives, not extra land, that was a byproduct.
How the Dutch built the Netherlands (9:23), is also a good option. It basicly gives the same information but adds info on the new reclaimed landplots.
ua-cam.com/video/KYctymHzZgQ/v-deo.html
Tim's videos are all amazing dude he covers all sorts of weird stuff around Europe, really interesting.
Pease, it's not a windmill, its a wind turbine, it generates power, not milling anything (I build them) 😄
Yes and the ones scattered across the country are Wind Pumps controlling water levels, only a few are actually Grain Mills. The same with those in Norfolk, Lincolnshire and the Wash area of England, parts of which also below sea level. There is a whole mass of land beneath the North Sea that was known as Doggerland, that connected England and the Low Countries, now known as the Dogger Bank.
I'd like to challenge that statement "mill" ≠ "grinding", but indicates an apparatus that converts lateral movement (of air) to a turning motion. A lumber-mill is an obvious example where grinding is clearly not the objective.
@@vogel2280 Mill is both a verb and a noun, to mill - to grind, engrave markings or move around aimlessly. A Mill - the machinery for milling, a factory that processes goods e.g. a Flour Mill, a Cotton Mill, a Timber Mill etc.
@@tonys1636 And that is how you know the English had no understanding of mills when they wrote their dictionaries.
Google-Translate this: "Een molen is een werktuig met een draaiend mechaniek en een aandrijving, dat kan dienen voor het malen, persen of stampen van granen, verfpigmenten en andere grondstoffen, het zagen van hout, pompen van water, takelen van een last of opwekken van elektriciteit. Een molen kan worden aangedreven door de wind (windmolen), water (watermolen), de spierkracht van mensen (handmolen, tredmolen) en dieren (rosmolen) of door een motor."
They are millingwatts.
Another thing of note, the afsluitdijk caused the salty Southern Sea (as this bay south of the North Sea was called) to become a freshwater lake. By design and not by accident. The detrimental effects to local wildlife were observed and taken into consideration with creation of the Delta Works (another pieces of Dutch engineering telling the sea to bugger off)
About one third of the Netherlands lies below sea level, with the lowest point being 22 feet below sea level.The highest Point is about 1000 feet over sea level
Highest point of The Netherlands is Mount Scenery with 887m above sea level.
@@benverdel3073 Mount Scenery is a dormant volcano in the Caribbean Netherlands. Its lava dome forms the summit of the Saba island stratovolcano.
those pylons along the road with diagonal lines are indicators for drivers that it is a construction area, so slow down and be alert. (max speed 70KM/h)
the normal allowed speed on the dijk is 100 Km/h
Before the Afsluitdijk was built, it was called the Zuiderzee / Southern Sea. Lots of small ports were dotted around the area, but there was a huge port in the south - Amsterdam. Amsterdam was also home of the admiralty, and both the East India Trading Company and the West India Trading companies headquarters. There was an island with a fortress off the shore of Amsterdam called Pampus. When the big trading ships and warships were waiting for assignments or re-fitting, they were laid up at Pampus, guarded by the fortress. This led to the dutch saying "Lying for Pampus" which got to mean lying on the floor intoxicated.
They build the city and port of Den Helder to better protect the Dutch coastal lines. It's our main naval base. West of Amsterdam they dug a huge canal from Amsterdam to the northsea port of IJmuiden, called the Nieuwe Waterweg / the New Water Road. Thats how seafaring merchant ships can still reach the now land-locked harbours of Amsterdam. It's also how the big cruise ships reach Amsterdam.
Je bedoelt Noordzeekanaal. N Waterweg ligt bij Rotterdam.
This is why we have that saying: God created the earth but the Dutch created The Netherlands
That's because.. as a finishing touch, god created the Dutch.. :)
@@JanBinnendijk maar zijn grootste creatieve wonder, was toch wel den Hellemonder. (Part of a poem on a tile in my grandparents' toilet *correction, on the wall in the bathroom 😂)
@@dochouse6911
Thank god not in your grandparents toilet.
It's hard to flush. 🤣
@@scorchedearth1451 yeah, I read that back and realized it needed some correction.
If it aint Dutch it aint much.
12:07 that is the ferry to the island of Texel.
And not particularly big. It's not for high sea.
This is actually a really impressive reaction video. Not only did you react to a great video, you went beyond and looked at footage of riding over the afsluitdijk, but also of historical footage of the construction. That makes this video so much more. This is why I'm subscribed.
Dutch infrastructure as a whole is on another level.
Edit: kilo = 1000. So 1000 meters. That should tell you how to pronounce it ;) kilo-meter
And yes 😅. Red asphalt = bike lane.
I agree re kilo-metre rather than kilom-eter, but I guess it's a bit like dance or tomato - same word but regional variations in pronunciation.
@@peterhoz kil-ometer just flows better. only just recently started noticing people pronounce it kilo-meter
@@SamThredder hehe, yes, it is m=meter, km=kilo-meter, cm=centi-meter, mm=milli-meter, etc, and NOT kil-ome-ter, cent-ime-ter, or mill-ime-ter.
the unit is meter (m), and the other part is a prefix for a multiplicator or divisor, eg: kilo for *1000, centi for /100, milli for /1000, resulting in km,cm,mm
_just like kilo-byte, mega-byte, giga-byte, terra-byte, and NOT kil-oby-te, meg-aby-te, gig-aby-te, ter-raby-te :-) LOL_
@@peterhoz it is the metric system and SI-units, thus should be well defined with no option for _that kind_ of regional variations.
the only differences should be language dependent variants eg meter vs metre, or pronunciation like meter vs miter vs meeter or such,
but prefix and unit are two defined words (eg kilo-meter), and thus no option for madeup syllables like kilom-eter, kil-omet-er or ki-lome-ter.
Its kilo-meter, kilo is a unit
The Dutch have been masters of 'reclaiming' land from water for centuries.
The area where I live in North Lincolnshire was once an extensive wetland/marsh.
The drainage schemes to reclaim it were started by Dutch engineers in the 17th century.
I learned about the Polders in primary school, simply because it was relevant to where I lived.
Btw, it once featured on QI as the most geographically boring place in the UK, having the largest area of plain white space on an Ordnance Survey map!
The principle, though, is practiced along the north sea coast on different scales.
Either to gain farmland or prevend erosion or just safeguard against havoc by floods and storms.
Fun fact we didn't just export the technology to the UK at that time. We also created many polders in northern Germany, Poland, France and even Russia and Spain. Without the Dutch engineering not only 30% of the Netherlands wouldn't exist but many coasts and rivers in Europe would look very different, not to mention the shallow lakes thatbwould exist but are now farmland.
@@MabuyaQ It doesn't surprise me. Cornelius Vermuyden was invited over by King James II on account of his known expertise.
He was involved in several very large scale projects over here.
I've been on that road - stayed with some Dutch friends in Alkmaar and we drove over that one afternoon. Of course, to them it was perfectly normal so they didn't say anything about it and as a Brit who grew up in a city built on land reclaimed from marshes in the 13th century, I just assumed it was the Dutch doing their normal thing of stealing land from the sea. It wasn't until I got home that I realised how much land and how much sea!
The largest offshore wind farms are in the UK, by the way. The British, Dutch, and Danes are pretty good at building those things but the one at Afsluitdijk is a baby compared with the farms off the English coast. Hornsea 1 and Hornsea 2 are the world's largest at present but those two will be dwarfed by the Dogger Bank wind farm with is currently being built. Between them they will power about 8 million homes - and they're not the only wind farms we have.
You might like to look at the B1M channel - it has videos on various mega-engineering projects worldwide.
I have driven one time over the dike, for someone of the southeast of the Netherlands at possibly the furthest distance from the sea in our country it was an experience.
The mats at the end are made from reeds bound together, their function was the support of the base of the dam, rocks and sand would be dumped on top and that would make them sink to the bottom. The mats would avoid the rocks from sinking in the silt on the bottom making the dam unstable. Nowadays modern polymers have taken the place as material for these mats, called geotextiles. The reeds submerged in salt water and under thick layers of earth will not rot.
I actually live within 10km from the Afsluitdijk.
Drove over it many times, and even for me as a dutchie, it's special every time i drive over it.
The speed limit is a weird one here in the Netherlands.
During the day you are allowed to drive 100kph between 06:00 and 19:00.
After 19:00 you are allowed to drive 130kph
These kind of videos help me to realize how awesome the Afsluitdijk actually is. I'm Dutch and have driven over it a few times, and it has always been just there. It was normal to me, just like almost anything else, which of course isn't. It actually makes me feel a bit proud, even knowing that I clearly didn't help a bit. All the credits to the innovators, engineers and workers who built it. And thank you for opening my eyes.
I'd love to see Leeuwarden and the Afsluitdijk. I'm from Leeuwarden, you know. It's amazing the amount of work, man-hours, and planning that went into the Afsluitdijk. It's funny because it's like a 25 km straight road with no elevation change. So what? It's a really popular road to check your car's top speed out and race on it. A lot of people do it illegally because this isn't Germany. :/
Oh, another fun fact: Leeuwarden is the capital of Friesland. They speak Frisian and Dutch, but the native language in Friesland is Frisian (Frysk).
13:20 Since it is part of the highway, the speed limit is 100km/h during the hours of 6am - 7pm and 130km/h for the rest of the day, just like on all highways in the Netherlands currently.
Yup. Going there tonight, coming from Germany. I plan to reach Venlo just around 7 pm. to speed up going to my GF's town just north of Amsterdam.
As many people have already commented, the Afsluitdijk was built in a period of big construction projects. You might also want to look at the Kiel Canal (Nord-Ostsee-Kanal in German), which connects the North Sea and the Baltic Sea and is about 100 km long. Its first version was completed in the 19th century already. It’s bonkers in many, many ways.
I have driven over the Afsluitdijk many times and i can say that with bad weather, snow and storm, it is no fun to drive there. If the weather gets too bad they close the dijk for safety reasons. I like how you find so many things interesting. Thank you for sharing all these interesting videos.
13:56 I drive it monthly to visit mom, who lives on the other side, and seeing video's like this makes me as Dutchman appreciate it more, not taking it for granted.
As Dutchman who's lived nearly 50 years with this just being an every day thing that's "just there", it's nice to see someone appreciate it for what it is. That bike lane along the afsluitdijk is also where they hold annual cycling-into-the-wind championships, iirc.
Not sure about the last bit. Surely that is held on the Oosterscheldekering?!
Mate, you are my favourite open minded American on UA-cam. Love how you are open to learn so much about what's going on in the world!
Yep, it's a bike lane.
Tip: cross it from south east to north west, to make use of prevailing winds.
Pedal 20 odd times, spread your jacket wide open with your arms and just bike-sail your way across,
no need for more pedalling. Be shure to check your brakes before doing so, it gets up to speed!
We discovered it on a biking holiday when I was 15...
On 20:40 they are knitting wicker mats. They use to place wicker mats on the surface of dams and dikes...then cover it up with soil and sow grass on it...the mats wouldnkeep the soil in place for the first period so it wouldn't erode or be washed away....eventually they would rot after a couple of years but by then the roots of the grass would have formed a dense mat to keep the soil in place in its turn.
Those markers around 13:20 are used on construction sites. Usually paired with yellow temporary lines and yellow signs. The sign 70 is because the lane gets narrower because of contruction.
Base speedlimit is 130kph, unless a sign indicates otherwise. Sometimes you see little sub signs underneath that say something like 100 (between) 06:00 - 19:00. So after 19:00 (7pm) the speed goes back up to 130kph until 06:00
It's a dam for sure. Before the build, both sides were salt water, now the south side is fresh water. The closed off part was called the Southern Sea before the change, IJssel lake after the change. They are looking into getting energy from the difference in salt content between the two sides on the Afsluitdijk (closing dike) by Reverse ElectroDialysis.
The Afsuitdijk is not the only project to keep sea water out of the Netherlands. At Zeeland you have quite a few of them for protection, not as big as this one though but quite innovative.
The dutch have been conquering the sea for centuries. The first windmill pumping stations (poldergemalen) were used in the 1400's. A windmill corridor (1 to 3 wind mills) would pump up the water with an archimedes screw into a higher water ring where you had another windmill doing the same. You'd have up to 4 windmill corridors going uphill depending on the depth of the polder), pumping the water eventually into a "vaart" (canal) to get the water to sea. These mills needed to work continuously because polders are below the ground water level. The reason there are so many ditches on polder farm land is to have an efficient flow of water towards the pumps. In winter, these ditches were frozen solid and were somewhat highways to get people from town to town by ice skating, sometimes even with horse carriages on skates.
I drive the afsluitdijk daily. It is under construction at the moment that's why the traffic is directed to the other side and back. Speed limit is 100km/h at daytime and 120km/h after 7pm.
The ship is the ferry to the island of Texel.
Yes it's the same cafe.
i am so happy to see that you want to learn about stuff outside of america, thats really really rare for americans.
I lived in Hoorn, had just learned to drive and had a job interview in Assen which meant I had to drive over the Afsluitdijk to get to an appointment at 9.00 am. It was the longest journey I'd ever done on my own as a new driver and after a few minutes on the dijk it started to snow! and it continued for an hour with the traffic slowing due to visibility and my ETA slowly slipping. By the time I was back on land there was 8 inches of snow everywhere, no gritters yet, and I had to slip and slide my way through an unknown city unable to steer properly or brake. The company put us in a hotel overnight, so I was spared the trauma of a return trip in the snow!
Was dat voor de dijk van Enkhuizen naar......? Ik heb familie in West Friesland en Groningen, wij nemen die dijk. Soms gesloten vanwege slecht weer of kruiend ijs. Ik rijd dan niet dus weet niet waar die stopt, ergens in de NOP?
Denmark also extended their landmass lately by shoving material in the sea. It's not that huge of a project, but it is now a recreational area with a huge highway in between connecting Scandinavia with central Europe
The IJsselmeer ( the innerlake ) contains sweet water, fed by the river IJssel ( tributary of the river Rijn ) as well as overflow from surrounding land pumping all excess water into IJsselmeer. Its level is regulated by large sluice gates on both ends of the Afsluitdijk, which are opend on low sea tides . It is almost 1200 km2 and in average 4.5 meters deep .
In spring its level is raised between 10 to 20 cm in order to prevent in hot summers the drying out of surrounding dikes and land as well as an extra drinking water supply for the North West of NL
Very impressive. Also, nice to see a little clip of Den Helder. I've been there a few times and it's a great place. Lovely architecture, good food and the maritime museum is great... especially the submarine!
Working offshore for most of my career, I know those waters well. I was involved in the early stages of that offshore wind farm construction.
The Afsluitdijk is also the place where the race in "cycling against the wind" takes place. Which obviously gets cancelled when the wind is not strong enough.
Yes, there is a bike lane on the dyke! I've been there on a bike-holiday when I was about 15yo. We started in Amsterdam, where we lived and after a stop in the first polder on the map you showed (Wieringermeer) we crossed the Afsluitdijk to enter Friesland. It was a nice holiday with a friend/class mate.
The speed limit in the Netherlands is 100 km/h (between 07 and 19) and 130 after that. In the video there was a bit of construction going on so there the speed limit is lower.
In most of the world we do not post speed signs like in the USA, we have default speed limits and only if there is a reason to change the speed you get a sign.
In this case this is a highway/motorway in the NL so the default speed is 100 in the day.
Same if you enter a city, you won't get a speed limit sign but you know that since you've entered a city you have to go 50 max now.
This project stopped Amsterdam from being a sea port. That's why, at the same time, the Noordzeekanaal (from A'dam to IJmuiden) was digged to keep access to the sea. Since then, A'dam Port has fresh water, not sea water anymore.
Het Noordzeekanaal is ongeveer 50 jaar ouder dan de Afsluitdijk. De zoektocht voor dat kanaal startte al rond 1848, nog voor Lely geboren was.
The Noordhollandsch Kanaal runs from Den Helder to Amsterdam. It's about 80 km long and was constructed in the 1820's. Machinery such as excavators didn't yet exist, so it was dug by hand by an army of 9000 workers, which took about 5 years. It's 40 meters wide and 6-7 meters deep, making it the deepest and widest canal in the world at the time. Pretty impressive.
ok, the waterlevel in the lagoon wasn't lowered to create land. There are rivers spewing into the IJsselmeer. Indeed they are polders, so enclosed areas below the waterlevel.
Those green signs on the side of the road are 100 meter markers, every 1000 meters it will have a small speed limit sign on it too, Thought you'd like that bit of info.
And the speed on the Afsluitdijk is 100 km/h, during maintanance when one lane is closed it goes down to 60 km/h
The speedlimite on the afsluitdijk is 100kmph but we have different speedlimits for day and night to still be able to get somewhere fast, but when there is rush hour its still save. So in the day, from 6 am till 7 pm (06.00 - 19.00) its 100 kmph and from 7 pm till 6 am its 130 kmph (19.00-06.00)
In the North sea, many wind mills aren’t build on the sea floor but they are floating and kept on their positions by ground ankers.
Look at a map from the 1600’s… We started taming the sea back then with mills usually….
Love your reaction. i'm Dutch en for me is just part of the Netherlands, biggest part of the Netherlands is below sea level so we have to fight that constantly. If you are interested in those kind of things be sure to look up the 'delta werken'. I have driven de afsluitdijk often it's like riding a highway :-) you see the IJselmeer, former Zuiderzee, but thats al it's just a smooth drive. In the beginnings of the dijk there are some bridges en locks so the road can shorly be closed for passing ships. The speed limits in the Netherlands for a highway is 100 km/h during day time 07:00 - 19:00 an depending where you drive max 130 km/h during knight time.
My whole life I’ve lived in a town directly connected to a dijk/dam and honestly it still amazes me when I cross it and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of it.
Few years ago I hiked the 33 kilometer dam, most existing is the slight curve at the beginning, for the rest it is one straight line.
fun fact! Every year a race is held on the afsluitduik called NK tegenwindfietsen. This translates to Dutch championship cycling against the wind. In this race people cycle across the entire dyke in the direction that goes against the wind. Instead of doing this on traditional racebikes it is done on regular city bikes
Het NK tegenwindfietsen wordt op de Oosterscheldekering verreden.
There are several windmill parks out in the North Sea as well, placed there by the countries that border it. You can find a list of them on wikipedia if you search for "List of offshore wind farms in the North Sea". That doesn't mean that there aren't any on land, but the sea locations are of course out there bothering no one, except shipping, and do catch a lot of wind.
The driving video starts at Den Helder, which is our main Naval base. It located at the northern most tip of North Holland, so he has to drive quite some distance to get to the Afsluitdijk (most commonly called the Closure Dam in English). Since it is a highway the regular speed would be 100 km/h, but in the areas that are being worked on it would be lowered.
The Amsteldiepdijk (the dijk from Den Helder to Wieringen) was a dijk to proof the Afsluitdijk was possible to build. So it is for sure part of the project back then.
I Like your reactions of amazement. I grew up there and lived their for almost 50 year, Crossed the dike ziljons of times so I more ro less take it all for granted. I live in France for 20 year now and I notice they are reconstructing. Have not seen the windmills in the sea for instance, at least not in daylight. I'm always there in winter and pass by at dark. Thank you for this, was fun!
den helder in the second video is where the dutch marine has its base. And the afsluit diijk made that they could build the land but it wasnt there as easy as the first vid make it look. They first build dikes around the areas sometimes even spilt one part in two. After the dike was there they start emptying the water and then add some grass seeds. And then burn that grass and add sand and water to make it stable and repeat that until you get land :D
A maximum speed of 130 km/h currently still applies on most of the Afsluitdijk. A lower speed limit now only applies at the locks (70 km/h) and the monument (100 km/h).
I used to cross the Afsluitdijk by bike regularly, when I was young, to visit my grandparents. It was a two-lane highway then, but already had a bicycle lane.
9:28 On such another level that we have a yearly competition on cycling over the Afsluitdijk on a bike without any gearing. And even though I've never done that, I can tell you it's quite windy. 😂
Of course there's a bike path, it's the Netherlands. I crossed it once on my bike during a tour with friends when we circled the IJsselmeer (the former Zuiderzee) by bike. The Afsluitdijk is kind of dull though, 32 km of nothing but straight dike and water (and wind!). But a great thing to do and accomplish! And indeed thanks for the café in the middle ...
If you liked this you might also find it interesting to go for "Zuiderzeewerken", "Delta werken" and "On the shoulders of giants".
My great-grandfather was one of the engineers building this dam, it took them years and my grandmother (born 1927) grew up in the sandboxes they used for modeling and testing stuff.
Not just a bike lane, also an annual championship to see who can cycle best against the wind during a storm.
The afsluitdijk is just 1 very big project of the whole water defense project keeping the high sea out of the Netherlands. In the 1953 a massive flood submerged big part of the netherlands. Called the Deltawerken including 5 high water blocking dam's where later build in the south too. Like the big gates into the port of rotterdam called the measlantkering. And not only do the dutch keep out the sea, the rivers and canals are also well managed. The Dutch lands (created) are up the like 9 meters below sea level and the massive flood of 1953 is a strong reminder we absolutely need to keep managing the water well. A dyke and flood space next to the river is a easy way to keep our feet dry with high waters. Dig a lot of canals between water ways and you can easy trade massive amounts of cargo on ships.
During the 6th century BC, the Greeks developed the earliest form of what we know as cranes today. The Greeks used them to build monuments, transport mining materials, and construct buildings like cathedrals.
@9:20 there is an actual competition of cycling against the wind held here.
Speed on the afsluitdijk is 100 km p/h in the daytime and 130 km p/h after 7 pm.
The afluitdijk is under constuction so at some parts the speed limits are 70 km p/ h.
The afsluitdijk is 32 km long and it takes 20 minutes to get to the other side.
Fun fact about the southern part of the sea, formerly knows as the southern sea (zuiderzee) is now called the ijsselmeer and has actually become fresh water
The speed-limit used to be 130 Km/h, but it's 100 Km/h these days (they lowered this maximum speed on all highways across the country). On most roads it's 100 during the day and 120 between 19:00h and 06:00h.
Netherlands engineering with water is absolutely world class! Have a look at the whole "Delta works" if you want to see more examples.
The name "Afsluitdijk" means something like Enclosure Dam.
Last years there was a lot of construction work and the path you had to take did change a lot of times on lots of different parts in the years, it is stll in progress, last weekend the dam was closed at night because of construction with new sluice gates. The bike lanes where closed, and i think now partial open. During construction they also added lots of new windmills into the water. But you can get an good glimpse of the contruction state in the longer video
The big boat is and Ferry, and goes to one of the 5 islands locate in the north of the Netherlands called "waddeneilanden".
love the Tim Traveller
The Dutch also build a little rare vehicle called DAF or DAFFODIL in 1958 with CVT gearbox, or in fact TWO CVT gearboxes for having Limited Slip Diff and aloud to move the rearwheels independent. It took to 1972 for having a 'real' diff...
As a Dutch citizen I crossed it twice by boat once, there is a bridge and lock on either side so boats can transfer from the lake to the sea. Never crossed it by car though, 5 hour round trip from were I am.