10 Oct: Last Day in Hamburg

The schedule was for an easy last day in Hamburg... OK, you know how our easy days work out, right?

Anyway, David had scheduled a visit to the Carl Zeiss Bird Observatory maintained by NABU, a wildlife/ecology organization (Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union). This spot on the western outskirts of Hamburg was said to have hides from which you can watch lots of water birds (Google translated page on it).

The NABU website had a clear map showing how to get to the place from Wedel, the end of the S-1 train, which David had printed out back in February for pete's sake. What David the Doofus had failed to note until this morning was, the directions with the map clearly say "walking 60 min." Oops, an hour walk? (and at whose pace?)

So, with low expectations of actually reaching the place we set out on the most beautiful clear bright breezy autumn day you can imagine, the best weather we've seen the whole trip.

The walk did not start auspiciously when we spent 10 minutes walking the wrong way and had to walk back to the S-bahn station and start over. We won't mention whose fault this was since he's in enough trouble already.

Once on the correct route we soon reached the end of a city street which continued as a woodsy footpath for half a mile and then opened out onto a grassy flood control dike on the bank of the Elbe.

Sheep on the path? Shades of New Zealand!

There were many, many people out enjoying the beautiful day.

Click through to see many, many people. And sheep.

We watched people flying kites.

We watched boats passing on the Elbe.

At what we calculated was about 3/4 of the way there was, out in the middle of the fields, a restaurant. If we had had a car, or if we had taken a taxi from the station, we could have gotten to that point without walking. We stopped and had lunch.

And then resumed walking toward the bird station which we finally reached. It's a lovely facility with walkways tucked in between levees so the birds don't see the people (of whom there were many) coming and going.

And well-maintained hides from which to observe.

After looking at swans, zillions of Gray Geese and a few grebes and egrets, we started walking back. And walked and walked. In round numbers, we walked for three hours at two mph, or six miles. Easy last day, yup.

An interesting thing happened after we reached the Wedel S-bahn station. We got on the train and it started and went one stop, and didn't start again for many minutes. Every once in a while there would be a brief PA announcement. These are the times when you really wish you understood the language!

Anyway after one announcement, quite a few people, but not all, got off the train. This was getting serious so we spoke to the nice-looking family across the aisle, "bitte, do you speak any English?"

The young woman didn't answer but waved to the elderly man across from her, who immediately said, "Oh, yes, how can I help you?" Anyway, long story short, there was a fire at a station two stops down the line, and the train was going back to Wedel and we would take a bus around to another station further down. The people getting off were local or wanted to take a bus from where we were.

This chap was born in Hamburg but now lived in Victoria BC, but he actually learned his English in South Africa. He was visiting his son and daugher-in-law (who was from the Ukraine) because he needed a hip replacement and the German medical system was much better than the Canadian one. He was a boy in Hamburg when the RAF bombing caused a firestorm (as we described some days ago) and his family only escaped alive by very good luck. We chatted quite a while as the train rolled back to Wedel and we waited for the bus.

The bus got us four stops down and we got a train that finally got us in to the Hauptbahnhof at 7pm. We grabbed a sandwich supper in the station and got to work packing. We need to rearrange luggage and simplify in order to avoid another overweight bag charge.

Last Journal Entry!

Tomorrow we catch a 10am train to Frankfurt airport, from whence we fly at 5pm, arriving SFO at 8pm (twelve hours, minus 9 time zones, equals 3 hours).

So, this will be our last post to this blog until next week, when we will add perhaps a few general comments to sum up the experience of six weeks schlängel-ing around Germany. We hope you enjoyed taking the trip along with us.