A postcard from the North Sea island of Borkum (Spring 2012)

Hello @ Home

Hello both

MOIN !!!

 

Do you know what Moin means? It is the north german - or better: frisian - form to present one's compliments to someone. The Friesians use this word all day long - instead of 'good morning', 'good evening' or 'good night'. If one says it twice (like moin moin) he does not come from the frisian islands but from the german mainland - for example from Humburg.

 

 

The outward bound from Duesseldorf to Borkum was very pleasant with little traffic. When we arrived in Eemshaven a fog came up and covered the whole world. We even couldn't find the ferry first. Nor could our satnav. Fortunately we included enough time for unforeseen events in the journey time and came just in time to catch it.

 

 

Here you see the Borkum Island Railway. It leads from the ferry terminal to the island town and has a rough length of 7.5 km. No, this is not the train length but the total Borkum rail network length. We did not get by train from the terminal to the island town but took the car (although the car stood in the garage for the rest of this vacation). So don't let yourself be fooled by the foto on the right: we did not use the train. We explored all the island on foot, by bike or by coach.

 

 

The weather got nice right on the first morning on the island and so it was during our whole stay: an azur sky with a breeze that could have come straight from the freezer. As Borkum is .. uh .. built pretty flat the islanders have set some tall buildings to avoid ship crashs with the island. Take a look at the "high-lights":
The 'electric' lighthouse	The 'old' lighthouse	The 'new' lighthouse

 

 

	Dear ones at home, I tell you that a lot of Flora and Fauna creeps and crawls around on this island. Pardon? Florian? No, Flora! I brought some pictures around, you can expand each one with a click on it. There are no extremely rare or dangerous species amongst, except may be for the seal which is indeed the second largest predator in Germany. Pardon? The bumble bee? No, the bumble bee is not the biggest. And the seals that you see here were too far away to be dangerous.

 

 

	By the way, Borkum also provides a beautiful and varied landscape. Take a look around. It all belongs to Borkum. Various corners of Borkum. Although the island shape rather is kind of round. We have seen pretty much of everything which was worth seeing within those six days. We have explored the island from the North to the West, from the South to the East. By feet. By bike. By coach. Bye bye!

 

 

The only area we did not see was the harbour area (with ferry dock). The former lightship Borkumriff is located here and nowadays provides information of the Tideland National Park. We have been here only on arrival and at departure. The foto on the left shows us on the way back to mainland. And, no, Borkum is not connected to the mainland with the bridge on the right foto. We have seen this bridge within the Hoge Hoern area where it crosses one of the tidal creeks.

 

 

Now we showed some pictures here. If you click on the map below you will see where each picture was taken. Just search with the mouse for the links on the card. Have fun!

 

 

 

What's left? A brief report on the local national dish. Or, rather, this tasty ocean-burger on the left image and many of his colleagues were our staple diet on Borkum. The main ingredient herring is environmentally sound and provided us with enough fuel for 7 days Extreme-Island-Surrounding. MOIN!

 

This page was last updated on: 15.05.2012