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OWL Tour 2010 – Day 2: In the evening we went to the camper park at the Freizeitzentrum Schiedersee in Schieder-Schwalenberg. The camper park has space for up to 300 motorhomes and was quiet full when we arrived. Trying to find a free spot we got stuck in a dead end alley without the possibility to turn around. Unfortunately when I was backing up, I hit a tree and damaged our bike rack. I learned my lesson and will be more careful in the future but I don’t understand how they can design a camper park in such way. Luckily Jill’s dog wheelchair on the bike rack did not get damaged.

Soon we found out why the camper park was so busy. It was the weekend of ‘SchiederSee in Flammen’ (Schieder lake in flames), a 3-day event with party, live music, flea market and fireworks above the lake. So it was noisy with loud music, busy and as we don’t like fireworks we were only going to stay for one night. At another time it might be a nice place but this wasn’t something we enjoy.

OWL Tour 2010 – Day 2: In the morning we got up early and were back on the road while most other people were still sleeping in their motorhomes. We wanted to visit two gardens in Bielefeld and one in Bad Salzuflen to get some ideas for our own public garden which we are planning.

When you drive through Bielefeld you don’t really think of gardens, but Bielefeld is not only situated beautifully in the Teutoburg Forest nature park, it also has some gardens which are worth a visit. To start with we went to the botanical garden. The botanical garden of Bielefeld is a municipal botanical garden of 4 hectares located on the hillside of the Kahler Berg near the town center and is open to the public for free.

The garden offers an extensive plant collections and a wide variety of landscaped gardens. Highlights are the traditional Westphalian farmhouse from the year 1823, the rhododendron and azalea displays, and the presentation of different natural settings such as rock gardens, alpine beds, medicinal and herb plantings, heather gardens and beech wood flora.

Next we went to the Japanese Garden, which was opened 2003. The Japanese garden in Bielefeld-Bethel is a traditional Japanese rock garden according to ‘Kare san sui’ principles.

Visitors experience the garden with their eyes only, they do not walk through this idealized representation of the natural world. Next to a series of photos we also created a short video of this special garden.

Japanese Garden Bielefeld from Harald Walker on Vimeo.

Winter Tour 2008 – Day 1: After having coffee and pie in Bocholt, we wanted to make some kilometers but stopped in Duisburg at the Duisburg-North Landscape Park for dinner. The landscape park Duisburg-North is a former metallurgical plant in Duisburg-Meiderich, which was shut down in 1985. Most of the plant was saved from demolition, and each weekend at night the light installation of the British artist Jonathan Park transforms it into a surrealistic post-industrial landscape. Access is free and there is also a camper park for those who want to stay longer.