Tour Report: The Theater of Nature

I had seen a few photos of this abandoned theater before, and when in March of 2019 the opportunity came up to visit this place during a short tour of the area, of course we took it! It is more or less a public place, and there is still hope among the people that it will be able to open it again at some point in the future.

There are parking places nearby, and there were many other people around, mostly to collect wild garlic which grows there in ample amounts. So we just had to unpack our cameras and take photos - there were no fences that we had to climb over, and no other things that might keep us from taking photos.

Solely the abandoned café right next to the theater was locked and equipped with video surveillance - a clear sign that someone still want to reopen the place. We could see through that the café was completely empty, so it wasn't interesting to photograph, and we focused on the theater - and on picking wild garlic :)

We took home an amount large enough to make a lot of delicious cream cheese - and we've been doing that every year since!

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

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.