By Porter Lang
Start with the boat. You cannot drive to Texel, and that settles a good deal about the trip before you have packed.
The island in figures
Wikipedia calls Texel the largest and most populated of the West Frisian Islands, in the Wadden Sea in North Holland, north of Den Helder. It gives the island 463.16 square kilometres in all, of which 162.00 are land and 301.16 are water, about 23.7 kilometres long and 9.6 wide. Population is where the page disagrees with itself: 13,656 in January 2021 in the infobox, 13,846 in the running text. We show both. Density is given as 84 people per square kilometre.
The same article names Den Burg, Oudeschild and Driehuizen among the settlements, and Eierland, a former island in the north-east now joined to Texel. A ferry run by Royal TESO links the island to Den Helder, and Wikipedia also lists Texel International Airport. Our reading: for planning, the ferry is the one fixed point. Check the operator’s own timetable, which we have not reproduced.
How it got here
According to Wikipedia, the All Saints’ Flood of 1170 created Texel out of the North Holland coast, and the island received city rights in 1415. About 70 per cent of its economic activity is now tourism, the page says, with farming (sheep, potatoes, dairy, tulips, grain) and fishing from Oudeschild as the older trades.
The Eierland lighthouse
At the northern tip stands a lighthouse that Wikipedia says was begun on 25 July 1863 and first lit on 1 November 1864, to a design by Quirinus Harder. The tower is 34.7 metres tall, with the light at 53.2 metres. It began with a kerosene lamp; the present lamp is a 2,000-watt Philips fluorescent lamp with two automatic spares. Wikipedia gives its character as two white flashes every ten seconds, an intensity of 2,850,000 candela and a range of 29 nautical miles (54 kilometres). Visitors can climb to the sixth floor, and the tower has been open since it reopened in 2009. The island’s official tourism site shows the large beach in front of the lighthouse in its header photograph, and says nothing more about it.
The dunes and the salt marsh
Wikipedia says the Dunes of Texel National Park protects the western dune coast and covers about 43 square kilometres, with national park status from 2002. The highest point on the island is the dune Bertusnol, at 19.6 metres, and about a third of Texel is protected nature reserve. The park’s page lists dune systems, wet valleys, lakes and salt marsh, and gives the visitor centre as the Ecomare museum.
One place in the park is worth a note for the calendar. De Slufter is a wide dune valley open to the North Sea through a gap in the outer dunes, and the tide runs in and out along its creeks. Its salt-marsh plants turn purple in June and red in October, says Wikipedia; common eiders breed there, and fossil shells from the Eemian Stage wash up on its plain. Wikipedia also records the largest spoonbill colony on Texel at De Geul. Our reading: October is a good month for the red.
Seals and a whale hall
Ecomare’s own site describes itself as a nature museum and seal rehabilitation centre on Texel. Exhibits it names include The Wonderful Wadden Sea and a Whale Hall about North Sea whales, and a guided tour that includes releasing seals back into the sea. The site invites visitors to report a seal, porpoise or bird that needs help, and does not give ticket prices or a street address on the page we read. That is a producer’s own site, so we treat the visitor reviews on it as the museum’s selection.
The sheep
Texel is also a sheep breed, and the breed’s story starts on the island. Wikipedia says that from the early 1800s the island’s long-legged marsh sheep were crossed with British breeds such as the Border Leicester and the Lincoln Longwool to improve meat production, and that a herd-book began in 1909. The result is a heavy, muscular, hornless sheep with a white face and white wool. A fleece weighs 3.5 to 5.5 kilograms, with fibre averaging about 32 microns, and the wool goes mostly into knitting yarn and hosiery. The page says the breed makes up roughly 70 per cent of the Netherlands’ meat sheep and is found in about 35 countries. In Britain, it adds, the British Texel is the most numerous breed, with about 350,000 ewes in the early twenty-first century.
Dates in order
- 1170: All Saints’ Flood forms Texel (Wikipedia).
- 1415: city rights (Wikipedia).
- Early 1800s: marsh sheep crossed with British breeds (Wikipedia).
- 1863 to 1864: Eierland lighthouse built and first lit (Wikipedia).
- 1909: breed herd-book begins (Wikipedia).
- 2002: national park status for the dunes (Wikipedia).
- 2009: lighthouse reopens to visitors (Wikipedia).
What we left out
Ticket prices, ferry fares, opening hours and seal-presentation times, because the pages we read either omitted them or would go stale. Cycle routes and the Wadden mudflat walks, which have their own page on this site.
Quick answers
How big is Texel? Wikipedia gives 463.16 square kilometres in total, of which 162.00 is land, about 23.7 kilometres long and 9.6 wide.
How do you get to Texel? Wikipedia says a ferry run by Royal TESO connects the island to Den Helder; it also lists an airport. Check the operator for times.
When was the Eierland lighthouse first lit? According to Wikipedia, on 1 November 1864, after construction began in July 1863.
Related on this site: night-watch-rembrandt-militia-portrait-name-trim, tulip-mania-what-the-records-show, limburgse-vlaai-pie-pgi-tradition
Roam first. Shop later.