Archiv der Kategorie: world

Radfahren um Deutschland

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Gestern abend habe ich in Aachen eine älteren Herrn kennengelert, der sich einen Traum verwirklicht, wo ich nur staunend mich verneigen kann: er fährt mit dem Fahrrad alles Grenzen Deutschlands ab. Gestartet 2009 im Oldenburgischen ging es über Schleswig-Holstein an der Ostsee entlang. Dann an Polen, Tschechien und Österreich bis Lindau, wo er krankheitsbedingt unterbrechen musste. Aber in diesem Jahr von Linau aus die Tour zu vervollständigen begonnen hat. Nun liegt ‘nur’ noch der Rest von Aachen an den Niederlanden und der Nordsee vor ihm, bis er dann wieder daheim ankommt.

Alleine mit dem Fahrrad eine solche Strecke auf sich zu nehmen, sich jeden Morgen erneut zu motivieren, nicht abzubrechen, nicht auf die Strecke zu schauen, die vor ihm liegt und bei jedem Wetter weiter. Hut ab!

So, wie ich ihn kennengelernt habe, nehme ich ihm ab, dass er es jeden morgen schafft, sich zu motivieren (er sagt, die ersten 20 Minuten sind die schwersten, weil man erst wieder in seinen Rhythmus kommen muss).

The February meeting

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Yesterday was the first Saturday of a month. Thus I met some fellow photographers here in the region. We usually meet for taking photographs. The month we met a an illuminated castle. That castle is not allways illuminated. Only for 4 weeks from mid January ’til mid February.  The title of this years installation is “1001 night”, while the last years title was “Ice palace”.

We had a wonderful time, even it was slightly raining. But it was not as cold as last year.

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I’m back …

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… from another island: Helgoland.

Helgoland is a small island in the German Bight in the  North Sea. The shortest distance to the German mainland is 70 km. It’s also the island with the largest distance to the mainland.

To go to Helgoland you have take a ferry boat (or a small plane) and it lasts 2,5 hours for coping that distance. During winter the ships are able to sail into the harbor while you have to change to a small boat on the sea tobe brought to land  during the summer. During the summer many ships starting to Helgoland from different harbors while in winter only one ship sails every other day.

We were a small group of 9 people starting on Tuesday to Cuxhaven and sailing with the ship on Wednesday. We stayed until Sunday and had a wonderful time.

When we  arrived at Helgoland we had a nice sunny day and walked around the island in the afternoon. It’s an interesting island with in interesting geologic history. Nowadays the most impressing view is the red rock.

We were at Helgoland during winter to watch the gray seals and also the baby seals. They are born during winter.

Weather was fine. No rain, but some sunshine. Unfortunately also two foggy days.

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4 weeks of real winter

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Yes, it’s true. The current amounts of snow were not common here over the last approximately 30 years. Such snow amounts were common when I was at school. But now the city governments are not used with such conditions and have serious troubles to handle with them.

Two weeks ago it became a bit warmer and started to rain. Beside the fear of getting a green Christmas again we got very dangerous conditions on the strees because of black ice from the rain falling onto the cold frozen streets. On the other hand the rain began melting the snow.

But the next day the temperature dropped down again and it also started to snow again. Currently we have approximately 40 – 50 cm of snow laying on the ground.

Winter arrived

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Yes, it’s true: winter started yesterday. Snow is falling slowly but constantly and covering the landscape with a thin white blanket. After about 24 hours of snowing the coverage is approximately 1 -2 cm thick. Not much yet, but it’s enough to hinder the traffic enormously. Many traffic jams and accidents were reported in the evening news yesterday and even flights were canceled because of the slippy snow.

 

Breitach Klamm

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The Breitach is here a young, small river and a Klam is a narrow and deep valley, the river goes through, a flume. This flume is very deep and the water has formed the stone in an interesting and impressive way.

We visited the Breitach Klam during our trip to the Alpes. It lasts haf a day. Even it was a nice and sunny day, it was cold in the Klamm because of the moisture in the air and on all stones. Water falls from above the Klamm and the river goes very fast.

Don’t wonder about the fancy colors at the walls. All the colors are real. I guess they come from reflecting the sky.

remembrance to beautiful birds

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Have you ever seen paradise birds flying free in the sky? I have, and it was so wonderful to look at them. It seemed to me that they had so much fun in flying. It seemed to me that they were playing tag with each other and flying one loop after another just for fun.

This is the White-tailed Tropicbird (Phaethon lepturus ). I saw them several times and it was a pleasure to observe them. Their flights impressed me very much.

I also saw the black Seychelles Paradise Flycatcher, a very rare black paradise bird. I only saw one bird twice. When I it first I didn’t have a camera with me, because I came back from snorkeling. At the second time I saw one I was unable to place a good shot because the bird only flew short distances from one tree to another hiding itself in the leaves. According to Wikipedia  there are only about 200  black Seychelles Paradise Flycatcher couples living on La Digue. So I’m happy for have seen one.

There were also some other birds. But until now I’m unable to identify them all. I’ll post them later.

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Seychelles Paradise Flycatcher

I’m back … from the Alpes

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4 days ago I went with my wife to Oberjoch in the Allgäu, a part of the Germany Alpes, to get my daughter back home. She was there for a 6 weeks cure at a special health resort because of her neurodermatitis. We drove about 660 km each direction to get her home.
I certainly took my camera with me. Here you can see a few picture. I took them when we arrieved. The sunset let the mountains glow.

During the next days I’ll publish some other photos I’ve taken at the trips in Allgäu. When finished with that, I’ll publish some further pictures from the Seychelles.

I’m back … from the paradies

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Unfortunately I’m really back: out of the sun in to the cold.

Even my car didn’t want me to go to work this morning. Frozen windows and an empty battery greeted me when I came to my car.

I’m well, I’m healthy and I’ve hundreds of photographs to watch over, edit and publish. Much work and much to remember.

It was a nice trip with nice people to a beautiful island.

I got up at 5:30 a.m on Saturday (that’s 3:30 in Germany because the time is 2 hours ahead during daylight savings time in Germany). At 4 p.m. we drove to the harbor to get the shuttle boat back to Praslin island to get the last shuttle catamaran back to Mahé island where the airport is located. At Sunday morning 1:50 a.m. our plane stated to Dubai. It was completely booked out. We arrived at 6:20 a.m. in Dubai and started at 8:40 a.m. back to Duesseldorf where we arrived at 1:50 p.a.