Travelog for: Oink

Hello Mum,

today was a fine and sunny day and we went to the Gruga-Park in Essen

With about 65ha is the Gruga one of the largest Parks in Germany


Look at the fantastic four fountains


And we were welcomed by a nice but shy pelicane

Here are the first views into the landscape of the park


And everywhere you find some more or less nice sculptures

Everywhere are nice and coloured flowers in large flowerbeds


And look at the bassin with water lilies

From a bridge You can see the "Hundertwasserhouse"

It is in the area of the park but not open for public, because its a temporary home for children who are very ill to recreate here together with their parents

And this Giant Reedwood is sooo huge that it needs 2 Photos


to show You how large this tree really is

Now we come nearer to the tropical houses

Look at the nice Agapanthus

And the Angel trumpet (Brugmansia or Datura) is even huge

Nice salmon colour it has

Now we are in the entrance of the tropical houses

It is a feeling like in a jungle but colder than outside at the moment

Oupps, I have forgotten the name of this nice blue blossom-plant

Have You ever seen such a mixture between blue and violet?

Me on a huge leaf strong enough to hold me

The smaller examples You often find in living rooms, could be Monstera

And look, I made it to balance on a banana leaf

But these are smaller bananas without any fruit

Me under a palm tree

not one coconut I was able to find

This was the most exotic tree I have ever seen

A silk floss tree (Ceiba or Chorisia speciosus)

Theese friendly parrots were very silent

What a pity that they are not allowed to fly free in the house...

Now we are in the cactus house

A golden barrel cactus (Echinocactus grusonii). Some people call it also "seat of mother in law"

Nice flower of a fig cactus

But no fruit was ready to eat

Now we change to the bonsai area





I like the small trees in our size

Now we change again the area and move to the farmers and the perennial gardens



Pink fuchsias

And pink roses

Orange lillies

And this small pink and white mixture is nice

Its called yarrow (Achillea)

Another very different part of the park


a huge rondel with mixed flowers surroundend by a huger old round hornbeam hedge

Now we change again and walk trough an area similar to a half-desert or maccia


Yucca gloriosa can be left outside in the winter here

I was overhelmed when I saw this flower bed



California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) in so many different colours

I love them

Here I play hide and seek in the huge leaf of a Gunnera


Do You see the dragonfly sitting on the buckled stem in front of the left yellow water lily?


Here we are at a lake with black swans



impressive birds and very angry...

Geese on the green


In the far You can see the Gruga-Tower and we want to go on the top of it


It´s quite huge, isn´t it?

Now we are on the top and the view is incredible





Don´t forget, we are still in the middle of a City in the Ruhr-Area, Essen

And what an additional surprise, we saw a zeppelin


...O.K., it was very far away....

Now we are on our way back to the entrance an we saw these two nice bronce horses


Red and blue, nice idea to mix these two colours

Do You see the bronce desert lion in the background?

I wanted to meet him


And he allowed us all to sit on his neck, very nice and kind cat

This was our day at the Gruga in Essen, I liked it there very much and hope, You saw how nice it was for me being here

Love and kisses to You Mum and all the others at home
See You soon
Yours Oink

Hi Mum

Today we gave the little skunk Mefito a warm welcome


He is a very cute but little shy boy

I like him from the first sight and look what for eyes he makes, when he saw me the first time...Oink Oink

Keep Your fingers crossed for me mum, that he is interested in me

Yours Oink ....Oink Oink

Hi Mum,

Great news: Today our holiday to the Northern Sea will start!

So we all packed our things we need there and Strunki cared that we have a safe seat

Well, that´s quite o.k. for a photo, but she convinced us that we would have a better view out of the car when we turn around 

O.K., let´s start our way to Büsum 

Now we have done the most of the journey and drive to direction Hamburg

There we we see the first views of Hamburg, Helmut is so happy to see the town again, he told me he liked it being there with RikeH and the other plushies



But we want to go further so we have to drive trough the Elbtunnel



Woow, that tunnel is quite amazing

During the travel we had a lot of fun together






Then we passed the Channel that connects the Northern and the Baltic sea


Now its not so far anymore and the rest of the way is done very fast




This windmill looks great 

Now we are in Büsum and had a late dinner there under the sky


And we are very happy and tired enough to have a nice place in the sleeping-bag

That was our first day of the holiday and more will follow

Love You Mum and give hugs to the others at home
Yours Oink

Hi Mum,

today the weather was not as sunny as the days before, the people told us...
So Helmut had to wait until he can put his shovel into the sand...

But we spent a nice day at the harbour of Büsum and saw a lot of ships

Most of them are shrimp boats, because Büsum is famous for shrimpfishing

but some other nice ships are here as well in the old harbour part





Here is a ship at the wharf

Nice to see people working when you are on holiday

But we didn´t only see ships there

This is an old light-fire

And here are some tons and nets from older times


And here You can see the modern lighthouse of Büsum


In the centre a nice clock


And a train for tourists



Some ships came in


and some came out of the harbour

But we also saw some animals, can You see the little hatchlings of the black-headed gull [Larus ridibundus]?



Then we drove bicycle and bought some shrimps



What a nice first full day


That´s it for the day, love You Mum
Yours Oink

Hi Mum,

today we spent the complete day on the beach of Büsum: The new Pearl Lagoon. Altough heaven was very cloudy, it wasn´t very cold...until the wind came...

There is a dam in the middle where You can walk on to the sandy beach

This is the view from the other side

And here to the sea itself

A lot of colurful tents with shops are there


The first we did was playing in the sand

Helmut with his shovel filled a bucket with sand

There we built a little castle of sand


Then he had fun on the water





We chilled in a huge swingcircle





That was a lot of fun for us all

In the afternoon we heard a shanty choire singing

Helmut knew most of the songs and sang the whole time.

Together with Mefito I swayed to the music 

I like him very much

That was it for today, tomorrow we plan to drive to Friederchskoog and want to visit the seal-station

Love and hugs
from Your Oink

Hello Mum,

today we visited the Sealstation in Friedrichskoog, founded in the early 80thies to hatch baby seals lost their mothers

There is a large tower to climb on and You have a wonderful view all over the landscape

At first we learned the difference between a common seal or harbour seal and a grey seal


Then we climbed on the tower to have a first view from above




There You can see a building formed as a whale, it´s an indoor-playground for childrend

In the pools are a lot of small baby seals to hatch


They have been found on the beaches at the northern sea without their mothers and brought here to take care of them until they are old enough



But You can also watch adult seals.


The huge dark one is a grey seal

and this is a harbour seal

They are not able to live on their own because they were ill as babys

Can You see me on the largest seal I have ever seen?


Here I am with a real seal


At the end alltogether we donated an amount for the station


What a nice and informative place

I would love to come back again here.

In the afternoon we vistited Meldorf, a very old town with an impressive dome, almost a cathedral.

The first we did was drinking koffee at the nice "Dome-Café" at the market, it was a very good advice by mcdaniels who knows the place very well, and, Meldorf is also the birthplace of Soeren her funny elk.


See us plushies having coffee, strawberry-cake and a huge portion of curd with honey and crunchies

Then we saw some nice old houses there around the market



The dome was still open in the afternoon



So we went into the dome and saw the impressive interiour there





Light was a little bit difficult, Strunki apologizes for that

Before we went home we saw this nice blooming rosebush at a house

I loved it to take a bath in theese wonderful roses


That was a nice sunday here in the North

See You soon, give You lots of kisses and hugs, love You Mum
Yours
Oink

Hi Mum,

today we drove to the Eidersperrwerk, that is a huge protection building against storm tides and connects Dithmarschen in the south and Eiderstedt in the north


It was built between 1967 and 1973 and has its 40th anniversary this year

It is almost 250m long and about 15m high

There You can see the huge double portals to close or to open up and down

Here we are on the top, you can walk above and the cars drive under the way


There is a bridge that can be opened for ships


From the top You have a beautiful view on the river Eider



But we want to go on by car and so we drove the tunnel



That was exciting!

After the Eidersperrwerk we drove on to St.-Peter-Ording.




In the old village are nice houses with beautiful gardens

Strunki promised us that there is also a large beach with a lot of sand where we can build sandcastles


Such a castle we want to build

O.K., let´s drive to the beach

Well, not only TO the beach but ON the beach itsself


This place is the only one in Germany where You are allowed to drive on the beach by car, its unique...

Together with Mefito I digged a moat around our castle






I must admit, it hasn´t the same size of the sandcastle we saw in the village but we had a lot of fun building it

After so much work we had to recreate in the beachchair





Then we found a kite


It was complete and so we started kiting

After kiting and so much activities on the beach we had to chill out again in a lounge at one of the famous stilt houses


What a great place (when the sun shines...)

On our way back from St.-Peter-Ording we made a short trip to Toenning

This is an old town with nice houses and a beautiful small harbour






What a full day

Today we visited another very old town with interesting dutch architecture and small water canals trough the town

Here are some first impressions from the market place and the dutch facades



Here is one of the canals with nice bridges

Everywhere You find nice portals and rosebushes at the housefronts


The people even have flowers planted in their boats...





Then we had the idea to make a guided roundtrip through the canals by boat

That was a great fun to see the town from the waterside












I like this bridge in dutch style


Now we are on the river Treene


See the nice water lilies there


A great day with much to see

See You soon Mum, love and hugs
Yours
Oink

Hi Mum,

today we made a walk across the mudflats and saw some interesting things

At first we noticed the sign that You have to be careful because of the tide

Then we started our walk

and found our first shell

Helmut put it into his bucket

Then we walked further on

and found some more interesting habitants of the mudflat

O.K., this is not a lugworm [Arenicola marina] itself but the little hills he makes when the water is not there

But it looks very interesting

The next we found was seaweed or little kelp


And here are some very very very small edible crabs, in German it is called Taschenkrebs  [Cancer pagurus]


Here is a bigger one

Some different seaweed



And here is a jellyfish



Here are some more different shells


The nice guide digged a bit and in the mud we found this interesting worm


But here is the real lugworm [Arenicola marina]



It tries to dig itself back into the mud, it doesn´t like the sun

Then the hightide came back and we finished our mudflat-walk


And came back safe to the point we started

What an interesting day

That´s it for today
Love and hugs for You Mummy
Yours
Oink