Category Archives: Travel

Durch die Welt in einem großen Wagen

Christine und Peter unternehmen mit ihrem Großen Wagen, einem Allrad-MAN mit speziell gefertigtem Aufbau und Innenausstattung Marke Eigenbau, Reisen in Europa und Nordamerika.

Ihre Reisen sind auf zwei Seiten dokumentiert: auf dergrossewagen.de bis 2012 und seitdem auf dergrossewagen.eu.

Man findet dort alte Reiseberichte, 2009/10 in den USA und Kanada, einige kürzere Reisen, Nordamerika 2012 bis 2013, weitere kürzere Touren und ganz aktuell ein weiteres Jahr in Nordamerika 2015 bis 2016.

Around the world in a car

BBC: Gunther, Christine and Otto. “How a man met a woman and they set off on an epic journey across six continents in one amazing unbreakable car.” Article with photos, short video sequences and an overview of the 215 countries visited and 898 280 km (558 165 mi) traveled in 26 years.

Otto’s Journey:

“An incredible journey all around the world: Gunther Holtorf has visited 215 countries, regions and territories, covered 900,000 kilometres in the same car and been on the road for 26 years. A story of freedom, happiness, adventure and a great love.”

Ottos Reise:

“Eine unglaubliche Tour durch die gesamte Welt: Gunther Holtorf hat 215 Länder, Regionen und Territorien besucht, ist 900.000 Kilometer im selben Auto gefahren und war 26 Jahre lang unterwegs. Eine Geschichte von Freiheit, Glück, Abenteuer – und einer großen Liebe.”

Schildkröte

Since the weather was still unusually balmy and sunny for November André and I went for another long walk yesterday, Sunday. We went to the Wagbachniederung, which is a protected area not far from us. It is known for attracting birds, especially migratory birds, as the area is very boggy and has large areas of water and reeds.

Auf der Seite von Norbert Kühnberger kann man nachschauen, welche Vögel in den letzten Wochen (bis Jahren) dort gesichtet wurden.

We took our binoculars and saw a lot of the species that we expected, for example around twenty Great egrets (Silberreiher), which are not usually found in Germany. Of course we also saw the much more common Grey heron (Graureiher) and hundreds of cormorants (Kormorane).

I was most surprised though when we saw this animal:

See it right in the middle of my horrible cellphone photo? It’s a turtle!

Unfortunately it was too far away to make out any details, so identification is difficult. It might be a European pond turtle (europäische Sumpfschildkröte), but it’s quite large in that case. Another possibility is that it is a Blanding’s turtle (Amerikanische Sumpfschildkröte) that has escaped from captivity. I guess we’ll have to take a proper camera with a good tele lens the next time we go there…

Fall Walk

Yesterday André and I went for a nice long walk around our village to enjoy the balmy 20°C (68°F) weather and stopped by two small lakes nearby. Besides the usual mallards (Stockenten) and coots (Blässhühner) we saw two Egyptian geese (Nilgänse) on the first lake, but they were too far away to photograph. I’ve seen them there before, though. The Egyptian goose is an invasive species that has established self-sustaining populations all over Germany.

This is the second lake:

On this one, there were four grown white swans and one adolescent one which looked quite young for the season and was following another swan, presumably its mother.

Adventure of a Lifetime – at 80

MetaFilter: Adventure of a Lifetime (at age 80)

Dale Sanders paddled the Mississippi from source to sea in 80 days, turning 80 years old during the trip and making him the oldest person to have accomplished this journey.

Dale Sanders has a weblog and YouTube channel.

You can watch eleven weekly updates on Vimeo: Adventureitus Productions’s Videos, or use these individual links: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6, Week 7, Week 8, Week 9, Week 10, Week 11. The one for week 12 is still missing.