Area of the Ruhr - Where Fox and Diver Greet Each Other

When I told my friends that I would be travelling to Bottrop for a cycling tour for the week-end, they looked at me uncomprehending. Who on earth would make a trip to Bottrop just for fun? In the heard of the ‘Kohlenpott' (coal pot was slang for the region of the Ruhr because this area was spiked with coal mines, coking plants and blast furnaces). But I have been invited and I'll take a look. The hotel is situated quite in the centre and can be reached quickly for people coming via the high-way as well as for travellers arriving by train. At the railway station there is a so called bicycle station. The Kommulaverband Ruhrgebiet and the Paritätische Initiative für Arbeit e.V. have build a network of service stations for bicycle tourists. We - five tourists from all over Germany - rent our bikes for the week-end here. Besides rental the bike service station offers transport for luggage, help with repair and information about special bike ways through the coal district. After our saddles have been adjusted to the right position we start with our bright orange roadsters.
After a short way through residential areas with tidy red brick houses on both sides of the street we reach the Emscherpark Radweg. But this comfortable cycling comes to a sudden end: We shall climb a 65 m high steep hill! I didn't expect that, I always thought the Region of the Ruhr was plain country! Kai - who's responsible for tour planning - admits: "This hill is artificial. It's a former slagheap, there are several in the coal district, the slag of the mines had to be put somewhere. On the manmade hill right opposite you can do downhill skiing, there is the longest skihall in the world.” Out of breath and sweating we reach the top of the hill, but that's not yet our destination. In the middle of a bold, moonlike landscape we see a monster made of steel sections: the 50 m high Tetraeder. Via an airy staircase made of steel we reach the platforms of this unusual viewpoint. The view is phantastic: the whole region is at our feet and it so unbelievable green! We can see Oberhausen and Duisburg - todays destination.
The Emscherpark Radweg leads us on peaceful side streets to castle Vondern. The age of Castle Vondern is unknown. Todays buildings date from different eras starting in 13th century. After Castle Vondern was almost in ruins, the historical parts were secured with joint forces of government, city and a fund to revive the castle with a new use.
Only a short way off we reach the Rhine-Herne-Canal. The cycle track is broad and well paved. From afar we see the gigantic ‘Gasometer' (gas storage tank) of the Gutehoffnungshütte Oberhausen. It was shut down in 1988 and converted into the biggest and most extraordinary exhibition hall in Europe in 1993/94. It's even possible to take a lift up to the roof, but as we have a lot more to see today so we carry on. Our tour passes through an unexpected green landscape with garden plots allotments and small pieces of woods we reach Duisburg. Suddenly a reddish animal with a thick fuzzy tail crosses our way. A fox! When was the last time I saw a fox in the wild? I don't remember.
Only few meters separate us from the Landschaftspark Duisburg Nord. Behind this idyllic name the shut down steel works of August Thyssen AG is hiding. A dedicated bicycle guide awaits us at the entrance. With his bike he accompanies us though this partly re-natured industrial landscape which covers an area of 200 hectare. We hear a lot about the history of the steel works but also some things about the South-African senecio inaequidens. This plant was carried to Europe in sheep wool by ships about 100 years ago. It feels quite at home on the slopes of the river Emscher, which isn't as foul-smelling any more as it's fame. Most of the buildings of the former steel works are used for new purposes now. Music and cinema performances take place in the casting hall . In the former coal bunkers the Deutsche Alpenverein (Club for Mountain Climbing) has established a training area for mountain climbing, at the ‘Via Ferrata Monte Thysso' you can climb a wall with the help of installed ladders, ropes and hooks. But once again we don't trust our eyes! We see two persons fully dressed in diving-suit with scuba on their back and fins in their hands. Maybe they are just making a movie here! “No, no” our guide amuses himself about so much ignorance “a diving school has established their practicing grounds in the former gas tank. The tank was filled with water up to a height of 13 m. The ground has been covered with gravel and an artificial reef, a sunken motor yacht and two car wracks will make diving adventurous.
After this exhausting 2-hour-tour we put our bikes aside and climb the old furnace No 5 right up to the top. I'm deeply impressed. It's a high monster where they cooked steel only some 20 years ago and now we use it as view point. We learn a lot how steel was cooked and this information is toped only by the very important information that for every furnace a furnace-jab-whole-drilling machine as well as a furnace-jab-whole-stuffing-machine is needed (direct translation, I couldn't find the correct English words).
After so much information we really have deserved some refreshments. We take a seat in the garden of the newly opened restaurant and enjoy the view on coal dumper, cowper and blast furnace together with coffee and homemade cake. Those of us who are too tired to cycle home about 15 kilometers, have the possibility to return their bike at the service station in the Landschaftspark and go back to Bottrop by bus and train.

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