After a great week in Berlin, Mutti and Papa made their way, via train, back to sleepy Meisenheim. Heiko took the reins as pilot of the great holiday machine with Merrilee, Zachary, Luther, myself and Jorris as willing passengers. We were headed to Elmshorn, north of Hamburg, and then further on to the North Sea. Fortunately, there were no major disruptions on the autobahn and we got to Elmshorn in good time. Our purpose was to visit Heiko's sister Kirstin, (Merrilee's 'host' sister), and spend a couple of days with her and her beautiful daughters Siri and Ira. (Siri came to Australia as an exchange student last year and stayed with us in Darwin for a couple of months) A wonderful, comfortable little home greeted us on our arrival and our stay with Kirstin and the girls was truly delightful. We even had a barbecue in the back yard and then hauled the ping pong table out to the side yard where many laughs were heartily enjoyed. One of my enduring memories is of the shower. Two heads, the main one glowing with blue LED lights when you turned the water on and stereo speakers directly above. Now THAT'S the way to get clean.
Whilst we were in Elmshorn, we took a day trip on the train to Hamburg. It was a cool and drizzly Sunday, but our spirits were high and we enjoyed the day. After having a Berliner in Berlin I also thought it prudent to indulge in a hamburger in Hamburg.
Of course, I then began to worry what I might need to eat in another week or so's time when we were due to visit Worms. But I figured I'd cross that bridge when it arrived.
Being a cold, wet Sunday, we did what hundreds of other Hamburgers, (??, Hamburgians... Hamburgolians... Hamburglars..... whatever?), decided to do. We visited the Miniatur Wunderland of model trains. We entered the building and climbed the sopping stairs surrounded on all sides by dripping umbrellas connected to other Wunderland Sunday revellers. Bought our tickets and waited for the 2 hours it would take before we would be able to enter. Sure is a popular spot on a wet weekend. After wandering around the centuries old docks our time finally arrived and we made our way in toward the waiting train sets. What greeted us was quite remarkable. Then as we made our way further in and up to the next level it was beyond astounding. When one thinks of train sets, something on this scale never enters your reckoning. At current standings, they have 930 trains with 14 000 wagons spread over 1300 square metres of floor space, 13 km of track together with 215 000 hand made figurines. They have workers there full time to operate the 46 computers that run it all.
There were areas that were designed on the Swiss Alps, the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Austria, Scandinavia it just goes on and on. There was even an airport where trains would arrive, fire and safety vehicles would drive out to the runways and back, and the planes actually took off and disappeared though the painted clouds on the wall. There was smoke billowing from castles and tunnels that caught on "fire" requiring miniature fire brigade vehicles to attend, tiny amusement parks with fully operational roller coasters, ferris wheels and other rides, a rock concert attended by throngs of fans holding lighters into the air, and all the while, trains would whizz by over bridges, through tunnels and even at one spot, underneath the very floor that you stood on whilst every few minutes, the lighting above it all would gently change from day to night and all of the 335 000 lights on the trains, cars, buildings, planes, boats and streets would transform the entire set to a magical night scene before gently returning to day and beginning the cycle once more. It was, rather astoundingly, absolutely breathtaking.
Half the fun, if you spent long enough looking carefully, was discovering the stories that were going on in the surrounding towns and mountains. They really were quite fascinating and often rather amusing or even slightly risqué. You could find fairy tale characters, nudists, base jumpers, hippies, cowboys, lost boyscouts, and the odd fellow being pursued in the forest by velociraptors. I even came across a crime scene with police divers finding a dead body in a small brook. It believe it would likely take months or even years to uncover every wonderful little story. It truly was a Wunderland.
Before making our way home we had what seemed to have become the obligatory stop for ice-cream. (I do believe that with all the pretzels, sausages, beer and ice-cream I may have possibly added a few pounds to my already aging frame.) After two wonderful days we said our goodbyes to Kirstin and headed for the North Sea.
Heading north west we decided to get off the autobahn and take a few back roads for a change of scenery. Wending our way through the northern tip of the Netherlands was delightfully refreshing. The long thin roads leading through endless fields of crops and passing tiny farm houses seemed quaint after the hustle and bustle of the city. Eventually, after one or two moments of backtracking, we arrived in Eemshaven and prepared to board the ferry to the German isle of Borkum.
Borkum is the largest of the East Fresian islands in the North Sea. It is oddly shaped and surrounded by very shallow waters which means there is only one way to approach it in a large vessel. The channel markers show a very narrow path with bare sandbars on either side. I would hate to be doing the hour long trip then entering that tiny entrance in a rough sea. My hopes of a quick dip in the North Sea were slightly put on hold when I discovered one of the sand banks was home to a resident pack of lounging seals. Perhaps it was going to be colder than I had even imagined. We set ourselves up at the local camping ground and walked to the main beach/town area. Perhaps it was the fact that it was overcast with a chance of rain, or maybe that it was very early in the summer yet. But the deserted beach covered in lonely huts, (all facing away from the sea view and instead toward the township promenade), was a striking but somewhat depressing image.
Of course, the other thing that I had neglected to take into account was the summer time. It was almost 10:00 pm when the above photo was taken, so there was good reason for the lack of life on the beach. It didn't get dark in Borkum until 11:30 pm and the sky would be light in the morning at 4:30. (Summer time like that would be awesome back home. You could still fit in 5 hours of surfing after work!) I can imagine though, that in the height of a summer's day this quite pretty little beach would be literally crawling with happy families. We made our way back to the camping ground and settled in for the night.
Every morning Merrilee would walk into the township to buy bread rolls and pretzels for breakfast. Sometimes one or more of us would join her on this pleasant outing and we would often take a different route just to discover more of this interesting little island. The weather whilst we were there was not the greatest. Mostly it was overcast and windy with a few drizzly bits and the odd downpour accompanied by a fairly impressive thunderstorm. This made it all the more funny when, hiding in our tent from the early rain, the campground speakers would erupt with morning greetings and a rousing rendition of a hilarious song about Borkum that loudly proclaimed "auf dort gibt's Sonnenschein" (...there, there is sunshine...) Still, it was of no matter to us. We had a very enjoyable time. There were enough dry spells to get out and about and do some exploring. I wandered to the beach directly over the hill from the camp one evening and decided to walk to the sea. I thought the tide went out a long way in Darwin but this was ridiculous. It took almost 20 minutes from when I reached the beach to make it to the water.
We had one day that was sunny with blue skies, so we hired bikes and did some longer range exploring.
There are bike and walking tracks all over the island and we covered some serious miles. Some of the tracks through the marshes and dunes were more walking tracks really which made for a few stacks between us, but that was all part of the fun. We stopped at an area where the sea reaches much closer to the land and finally managed a swim in the North Sea. Not exactly crystal clear tropical water, but certainly nowhere near as cold as expected, so that mission was accomplished and thankfully without the loss of the family jewels.
Borkum is a very quiet and friendly island that has been a popular summer holiday destination for German families for many years. (When we finally returned to Meisenheim, Papa showed us photos of him in Borkum when he's was 4.) I imagine returning here someday, it really was quite lovely.
One of the main reasons to come to Borkum was so that Heiko could take Jorris kitesurfing. Unfortunately the school was booked out for the first two days and then there wasn't enough wind so Jorris was pretty disappointed that he had missed out on the opportunity. One of the strange things about Borkum however is that it has a Flo-Rider, so this would have to be a replacement. A Flo-rider is basically a man made standing wave where a few inches of water gushes up a slope at a great rate of knots enabling the rider to essentially 'surf' upon it.
They were planning to take the centre divider out the following day which meant we could have ridden it on stand-up boards but because we were leaving the next day we had to make do with the body/knee option. (This was probably a good idea in the end given how difficult it was to get used to.) We all still had a whale of a time and were blessed with many spills and much boisterous amusement.
We caught the ferry back to Eemshaven and drove to Bremen where we said a sad farewell to Heiko and Jorris and boarded a train to head on to the next part of our journey.
This is one beer I didn't expect to be sampling in Germany.
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