Wittmund

As we left Varel this morning the North Sea route took us out past the harbour on our way up the coast.Old crânes and railway lines give an idea of what a busy port this once was until the limited sized ship that could use it ,made it redundant .Following thé inside of the dyke again. When you see a digger cleaning the ditches out, it’s hard to imagine that all the miles of ditches and the 100s of miles of dykes were dug mostly by handPassing vast fields of wheat we came across a family of deer. Mum, Dad and baby. They took off and looked hilarious ! Not running but bounding. Each time the fawn landed it went completely out of sight. In the same field we spotted another 3 . All took off the same way as if they didn’t want to trample the farmers wheatThat’s not water they’re looking at. As far as the eye can see it’s mud. I bet the tide comes in fast ! Zoom in and you can see the chimneys of Wilhemshaven I never thought sheep could look so interesting These Dykes stretch from the west of Holland up to Denmark and I kept asking myself “where the hell did they get the dirt from . There’s no hills ?” I know that all the rocks had to be barged down the RhineSteam shovels and man power. Laying sods on the inside and bricks and rocks on the seaward side. Boggles the mind doesn’t it !Wilhemshaven. Like the cast iron bridge it was named after Kaiser Wilhelm. Once Germany’s most important seaport and sporting some pretty serious fortifications. After the war it became a base for allied troops as well. Zoom in on the old barracks to the right of the bridge and you can see where some larks have written ‘lands end gang’ on the roof. It’s also famous as the town where our friend ,and one time army brat, Sophie McInnes from Scotland went to boarding school.The old Kaiser himself. Quite ironical that the city that bears his name is where the seamen’s strike began that spread nation wide towards the end of WW1 and bought about the end of his reign . Jever. A really pretty town square and home to the Jever Brewery’s. No ugly chimneys blight the landscape in this town. It’s all hidden inside mirrored glassWittmund. After a late lunch,(or early dinner) we went the last 10kms to our hotel at Negenbargen