Don’t Judge A Book By It’s Cover - Saturday July 17, 2010

Don’t Judge A Book By It’s Cover - Saturday July 17, 2010

Our destination today was Sylt, Germany’s most northerly island in the North Sea. It is accessible only by rail transportation across a narrow causeway. We had decided to take only our bicycles to navigate around the island so we left at 6:45 a.m. to ride to the bahnhof in Niebull. It is about a 30 minute ride from where we are staying. It was bright and sunny when we left. We got our tickets and boarded the train, bikes and all at 8:01 and the train left right on the dot. The ride north and across the causeway was what we had expected since we had seen some of the landscape yesterday. Upon arrival at the bahnhof in Westerland, we began to realize that what we had researched on the web and seen in books was not total reality. We had seen peaceful paths along the North Sea passing through small villages as it would it’s way from one end of the island to the other - a distance of some 35 km. We knew there would be cars and delivery trucks and a few busses maybe but what we saw was a major city train and bus terminal linked together - with hoards of people going in every direction. We had no idea where to start so we just began by riding down through the car free main street 7-8 blocks to the end - the North Sea. And what we saw here was another surprise. Admission to the beach was 3.50 Euro per person and it was already crowded at 8:30 a.m. Those now familiar and rentable wicker cabanas with large black numbers on the back were already scattered across the beach as far as we could see. It soon became clear that we were not on a quiet, peaceful little island - the first clue should have been the 13 rail lines leading into the station when we got off. The 2 outside rail lines were reserved for the trains carrying busses, trucks and lots of cars , the one side for unloading and the opposite side for loading. I counted 144 cars on the double decker rail cars as the occupants drove their vehicles off down the ramp. As soon as those rail cars were unloaded the train moved over to the other side for those loading/leaving the island. The schedule was trains arriving and leaving every 25 minutes all day long until 11 p.m. The middle 9 rail lines were for passanger trains coming and leaving from all over northern germany and Denmark.
It was often difficult to navigate around the island with so many vehicles, walkers and bicycles.
Most of the homes are upperclass but with thatched roofs - a lot of them are Zimmers and a lot in the towns are fashion stores or combinations of each.
From the end of the street at the North Sea we simply decided to ride paths as close to the shoreline but after seeing high sand dunes and too many little white admission shacks to the beach, we turned across to the other side of the island where we were told by a local that it was much quieter. For a few km we found a dirt path very close to the North Sea - not sure if we were to be on it with bikes but no one told us to get off. It was quieter at the other side but whenever we had to ride through towns it was - fight with the “traffic” again. By about 2 p.m. we had seen all of the island we wanted to see so headed back to the bahnhof. By then it was starting to rain so we found shelter at the train station and waited for the 3:52 train back to the mainland. It was still raining when we got off the train in Niebull so we donned the rain coats and road home the last 30 min. in the rain. We were glad we went and have no regrets but now we know not to totally trust what we see in fancy tourist information.

Lost out in the field - Friday July 16, 2010

Lost out in the field - Friday July 16, 2010


This morning we wanted to head to the closest town with internet connection since we do not have it here. We had driven into the town of Niebull last evening and found a library with internet at a reasonable price so planned to bike into the library this morning and send a few messages home. On a map that we had picked up there at Information in Zentrum last evening it showed a road - a shortcut through the fields over to Niebull from out stay here in Klixbull. Annika our contact person here had said it was only 20 minutes to the library by bicycle so we headed out. Found a road that showed on the map off the main highway here in the general direction of Niebull but it seemed to go away from the town - thought maybe it would curve around back. Now I must tell you that the grasses along the fence rows are very tall and it is difficult to see landmarks. Also it did seem that the road was getting closer to town - we had a tower in town Zentrum to guide us. Only trouble was when we biked closer to town, the big trees blocked the tower and we kept going further than we wanted. When we finally found the right trail, we had circled the town and entered from the south side - our stay is on the north side. About an hour later we arrived at the library.
Thought we would have learned from out mistakes when we returned home but seems they forgot to put the name of our town, Klixbull, on the signs so after 2 “rotaries” we were lost again. Finally after retracing out tracks for several km we got on the right road. Come to find out on our way home there are 2 other paths that head toward where we had wanted to go - think we will try those tomorrow but maybe should take TomTom with us - d’ya think? Another hour of peddeling and this time it was into the wind.

In the afternoon we took to the car to explore the northern shore of Germany. It is an interesting sight to see trains carrying cars, campers, large trucks with supplies, ambulances, fully loaded busses and bicycles, across a narrow causway to the island of Sylt - all these vehicles with the people still sitting in them, some vehicles facing forward and some backward but most with windows down and folks snapping pictures. We plan to hop that train tomorrow to experience the island ourselves. As we drove close to the shoreline of the North Sea, we drove through one dyke with an opening just the size for a vehicle - grooves in the walls of this “gate” indicate that the sea could be blocked if necessary by lowering huge beams down into these grooves. On the other side of the gate was a wide expanse of wheat fields with the odd farm and house in a clump of trees visible off in the distance - very much as we remembered our crossing of the Canadian praires some years ago - wheat fields as far as the eye could see. After driving across this expanse, we came to a dead end with a high dyke in front of us. Another car was parked there so we decided to climb the dyke and see the ocean on the other side. Surprise - from the top was visible another wide expanse of low grasses but even more surprising were the thousands of sheep grazing on these grasses some part way up the dyke, some sheep walking along the top.