Early morning 11th July Anne and I took off from the Odense airport and headed for the Midden-Zeeland in the Netherlands. The skies looked a bit dramatic, but the weather forecast was good.
Our final destination was Britain. We were going to attend the RIAT airshow that celebrated 100 years of RAF (The Royal Air Force), and The Duxford Flying Legends annual air show. We went on this tour in a company of four other aircraft from Denmark: one ultralight from Ringsted, and three GA aircraft from Roskilde. Anne and I took off one day earlier, because we wanted to spend an extra day in Zeeland in the Netherlands.
We flew along the Wadden islands, off the coast of Germany, and had a refueling stop on the German island Borkum (EDWR), right on the boarder with the Netherlands:
Borkum island has supreme beaches – we were in holding for about 10 minutes on entering the Dutch airspace, and had a chance to take plenty of photos.
Flying along the Wadden islands was spectacular. Most of them are environmentally protected areas, with national parks, hills, endless white sand beaches, though some of them looked like an overcrowded tourists’ target.
After some time we reached The Hague. The famous Pier in Scheveningen is an icon on the Dutch coast:
And the photo below was taken north of Hauge; a huge amount of green houses… Looks terrible from air, but hey – they provide us with veggies all year around…
By mistake we flew over the port of Rotterdam. When we realized it, it was too late to divert, so we just continued, and the air traffic controllers had no objections, as long as we flew according to the rules. The port is huge; it is the largest in Europe. Till 2004 it was the busiest port in the world.
The port of Rotterdam covers 105 km2, and it stretches over a distance of 40 km.
Rotterdam port looked very colorful from the air. It consists of five distinct port areas and three distribution parks that facilitate the needs of 40,000,000 consumers. Most important for the port of Rotterdam is the petrochemical industry and general cargo transshipment handling.
After Rotterdam it wasn’t that far to the Midden-Zeeland (EHMZ), our destination aerodrome in Zeeland, a province in the Netherlands on the border with Belgium. The approach from the water side was so beautiful:
We flew in Anne’s Aeroprakt. Anne didn’t want to be photographed, but I though we had to have a photo on apron, so Anne took this picture of me:
We laughed when refueling our aircraft – the sign on a MOGAS station was “NON Aviation”. We use RON95 gas for the ultralight aircraft’ engines, and it is perfect for the purpose.
Photo from the tower where we did all the payments (with our Aeroprakt at the fuel station in the background):
The staff at EHMZ was very helpful. They had arranged a car for us, and gave some very useful tips for our stay. Before driving to our hotel, we had a lunch at the restaurant in the airport. They had a fine selection of food and drinks, and a rather slow service. I had a salad called “Midden-Zeeland” (the airport’s name, and the restaurant’s name), and pilot’s champagne (sparkling mineral water). The salad was a mix of vegetables, roast-beef, marinated salmon, and cooked prawns. It tasted great, and I couldn’t complain about the lack of protein:
Anne went for a more traditional Dutch dish with local cheese which was also of a high standard. The restaurant had an open terrace facing the aerodrome, and it was full of guests enjoying a lunch with the very best view:
The weather was warm and sunny, and we looked forward to exploring Zeeland by car.