Tour Report: HAWK-Missile Launch Site G.

After we had checked out the old Jaguar, we only had to drive a few minutes to get to the next location - an abandoned site of the German "HAWK-Belt".

At the height of the Cold War, 36 systems of the MIM-23 HAWK - an American medium-range surface-to-air missile -  were deployed in nine anti-aircraft missile battalions (later squadrons and groups) of the German Air Force. In the NATO alliance, together with Dutch, Belgian and US units, these HAWK formations formed the so-called HAWK belt, which stretched from the Danish border across Germany to the border with Austria.

Eight of the HAWK-systems had been set up in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Most of them have been taken over by local farmers or other businesses. One has been been turned into a small amusement park with a summer toboggan.

I had explored this place once a few years earlier, and it wasn't really spectacular. We only went there, because it was close by, and it is always interesting to see how a location develops over the course of a few years.

Since there isn't really a regular place to park, we had no choice but to drive right up to the front gate and park there. The access was still the same. I don't think that it was the same hole we went through four years earlier, but that doesn't matter anyway :)

The place still looked the same, but less of it. A few buildings had been removed. I think that the buildings containing tanks had to be removed due to risk of contamination. There are quite a few farmers around, and I think they wouldn't be too happy if the groundwater was laced with gasoline or worse.

A HAWK-base isn't a huge installation, so it didn't take us too long to walk around once and go back to the car and head towards the next location.

To find out about the history of this place and to check out all the photos, click the button below.

Tour Report: The Lonely Jaguar

This was more or less a one-shot location. It was the first of four spots on a tour through Northern Germany in March of 2019. We had heard of this place, but never found the time to check it out, but when we were planning the tour, we thought that it was a good opportunity to put it on the list.

The house is located right at the edge of a small town with neighbors on one side and a field on the other, so to avoid being spotted right away, we had to approach from the field. We managed to find a parking place that wasn't too far away, but still low profile enough, and walked along the fence. When we had almost reached the end of the property, we found a hole in the fence and went in.

There was a lot of undergrowth, so it was hard to move around, but we made our way to the carport. And there it was - a beautiful old Jaguar Mark 2.

Of course, it wasn't in the best condition - there was plenty of rust on the outside, and parts of the interior had been stripped, but I was sure that the car could (and should) be restored. Someone else sure thought the same, because only a few months later, the car was towed away.

Also on the premises was a garage and a barn - both inaccessible - and a gazebo which supposedly was open, but we couldn't reach it because of the undergrowth surrounding it. The house itself was beautiful, but there wasn't any way in as well, so we had to be content with a few outside photos and the photos of the Jaguar.

It was a great start for our day trip!

To find out about the history of this place and to check out all the photos, click the button below.

Tour Report: Cycling Track "Victory Wreath"

We had planned one last stop on the way home from our short tour in March of 2019 - an abandoned cycling track. It was located conveniently on the way and presumably easy to reach, so it wouldn't take up too much time, because after all, it was a pretty long drive home.

I had checked for a parking place before we arrived and had found a public parking lot within walking distance of the location. It was Wednesday, so there was a lot of traffic, but since the place was pretty close to the Autobahn, we managed just fine and didn't have to drive a long way through the city. We parked the car, got our gear and walked to the old track.

The place was right at the street and there was a large scrap trading company right next door, and since it was a weekday, there were a lot of workers. We still started walking around to check for access. There was none that we could find. The only option was to climb over the fence, which we did.

I'd never visited a cycling track - neither active nor abandoned - and so this was a pretty exciting location. The excitement was heightened by the fact that there was a worker on a crane in the scrapyard next door who could clearly see me walking around. We didn't want to stress our luck and only took a few photos before climbing out and getting back on the way home.

To find out about the history of this place and to check out all the photos, click the button below.

Tour Report: Rest Home "Fernview"

After visiting our friend Jens and revisiting "his" sanatorium in the Harz mountains, we still had two more days to go on our short tour in March of 2019, so we took the opportunity to visit my mother-in-law and check out a few more locations.

On top of a hill in a small town lies an abandoned rest home. I had seen lots of photos from there, but the most "famous" scene is one room with an old armchair and ferns growing up the wall behind it. So of course, when we were in the area, we had to stop to check it out.

As we drove up to the huge building and saw the broken windows and piles of trash on the outside, we didn't have high hopes to see anything interesting. The place was wide open, so we didn't really go through the trouble of looking for a parking place far away and found one pretty close to the building. Now we only had to find a way in.

There was no fence, and almost every window was broken, so this was an obvious way in - but lazy as we are, we looked for an open door, and we found one right away!

As we entered, we were once again shocked and amazed what vandals can do to a building. There was no single room in its original condition, all remaining furniture had been moved around - either to create the better photo, or to create the better party room, or simply to create chaos. There had even been a fire in some of the rooms, and local kids apparently also used the place as "canvas" for their "graffiti"...

We still took the time and walked through the entire place, and we even managed to get some pretty decent shots - although the vandalism was omnipresent. And then we found the room with the ferns on the wall.

Well, that was a bit disappointing. Firstly because the armchair had lost one of its "arms", but mostly because the ferns weren't nearly as green as we had expected. Yes, it was March, and spring hadn't really started yet, but I suspected that the reason was the immensely hot and dry summer of 2018 that had dried up a lot of the plants.

So after about two and a half hours, we went back to the car and drove off to the next location.

To find out about the history of this place and to check out all the photos, click the button below.