Late UK Breaks ISLAND SANCTUARY AWAY FROM IT ALL LIFE

around the yurt. The campsite has a restaurant, outdoor pool (best suited to kids) and play area.

But there’s much to see and do on Texel. We hire bikes from the on-site rental shop – €36.50 a week – and are soon on our way up through the national park to the west coast.

Mile upon mile of deep sandy beaches are identified by Paals – marker points.

We have a surf lesson at the super-wide Paal 17 beach – €25 for kids, €35 for adults. The surf may have been up but me and my son Sam, 13, rarely were. Gruelling, but real fun.

Ecomare, a seal sanctuary and aquarium, is nearby. From here, 40-80 injured or abandoned seals are returned to the sea each year. A couple of miles inland is the

Juttersmuseum – a fantastic, quirky collection of wrecked boats and belongings washed up on Texel shores.

While walking the gorgeous purple-heathered moorland, we discover Paal 10 beach. And, blessed by a heatwave, it feels more like the South of France than the edge of the chilly North Sea.

The beach facilities are good – typically a snack shop with sunbed hire, plus smart restaurant (or two) serving really nice grub.

There are 14,500 islanders, largely employed in farming or tourism. A third live in Den Burg, a half-hour cycle from the yurts.

We go on market day and the town is bustling.

The cycle paths are fantastic and next day we ride east to Oudeschild, with a fabulous harbour where you can take a seal-watching trip (€15).

On the north of the island, De Cocksdorp lighthouse overlooks a deep and enormously wide beach where kite-surfing buggies thrash across the sand.

On our last day we head a mile south to De Geul, a spectacular watering hole for wild cattle, horses and hundreds of geese.

Finally, after a hike through sand dunes, we hit upon De Hors beach, which dwarfs anything we have seen so far.

If you’re lucky you’ll spot a seal or two, including a 10ft-long beast nicknamed Torpedo by locals.

The shifting sands of Texel – the island is slowly creeping east – are a graveyard for sunken ships, plane wreckage and the skeletons of sailors and airmen who met their fate from 17th Century Anglo-Dutch wars through to World War Two.

Which takes us to the musket balls and the Lancaster shells, from a bomber downed on June

26, 1943.

They are given to me by beachcomber Paul Dekker, whose collection is mindboggling, far left.

A Lancaster wheel he found is on display at the Aviation and War Museum near De Cocksdorp.

As we chat, Paul produces the cartridge belt badge of a British soldier from 1799. Then four Inca coins, brought from South America by Dutch sailors in the

18th Century.

More proof, not that we needed it, that Texel – with its yurts, cycling, surf and fascinating history – truly is a treasured island.