---~@ Afsluitdijk @~---

i remember end of last year aku plan nak gi sini, at last we arrived at ''De Afsluitdijk" last saturday. unfortunately the weather was not at our side, its been raining all day long (dr umah lagi).

De Afsluitdijk (pronouced "afsluitdaik"-in malay la) is actually a dam connecting the province Friesland and Noord-Holland (North-Holland). the idea of building the dam is already been around since 1667 by Hendrik Stevin but it took over two centuries later the thought of his was picked up again.

the man who responsible for the build of Afsluitdijk is Cornelis Lely, he started the Zuiderzee Society (south sea society) and headed the project of closing and draining the Zuiderzee until 1821. and at 1932 exactly two minutes past one o'clock in the afternoon on 28th May 1932, the final hole in The Afsluidijk was closed. it is unfortunately that the engineer Cornelis Lely was not able to live the completion of the works, he died on 14th January 1929.

the statue of Cornelis Lely

the statue of the "bricklayer"

"de strijd tegen het water blijft een strijd door en voor de mens" translated as

"the fights against the water remains a fight through and for the man"

the exact location where the final water passage was closed "De Vlieter", a watch tower was built in 1933


left side view from the watch tower (mainland Noord-Holland)

right side view from the watch tower (mainland Friesland)

Afsluitdijk is 32km long. during the 2nd World War (1940-1945) it is estimated that 20,000 people were able to go into hiding here. The German occupiers tolerated them as polder workers until they were raided in 1944.

P.S. amazing fact; with 60,000 km of canals and rivers and other waters all across the country and in combination with many lakes, Holland can definitely call itself a "Waterland".

until then