Discover 11 hidden attractions, cool sights, and unusual things to do in Lower Saxon Wadden Sea National Park (Germany). Don't miss out on these must-see attractions: Hohe Weg, Leuchtturm Arngast, and Messstation. Also, be sure to include Minsener Oog in your itinerary.
Below, you can find the list of the most amazing places you should visit in Lower Saxon Wadden Sea National Park (Lower Saxony).
Table of Contents
Hohe Weg
Lighthouse. Hohe Weg is an offshore lighthouse in the German Bight, located 25 km northwest of Bremerhaven, Germany. It is the oldest fixed offshore lighthouse of the Weser estuary in the Wadden Sea, having been in operation since 1856.[1]
Leuchtturm Arngast
Arngast Lighthouse is a 36.27-meter-high lighthouse in the Jade Bay, a large inlet in the southern part of the North Sea. Built in 1909 and 1910, the lighthouse is operated by the Weser-Jade-Nordsee Waterways and Shipping Authority.
Messstation
The Hydrographic Measuring Station Spiekeroog is a hydrographic measuring station of the Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Sea of the Carl-von-Ossietzky-University Oldenburg and is located in the Wadden Sea of the North Sea directly in front of the southwestern end of the island Spiekeroog. The monitoring station was established in 2002 in the Schillbalje at a water depth of 13 meters and is the first of a series of planned monitoring stations in the Lower Saxony Wadden Sea National Park. In 2012, the University of Oldenburg was awarded the North German Science Prize for the significant research carried out here. Since 2018, it has been part of the ICBM's Spiekeroog Coastal Observatory.
Minsener Oog
Island in Germany. Minsener Oog, also Minser Oog or Minsener Oldeoog, is an uninhabited East Frisian island that belongs to the parish of Wangerooge in the north German district of Friesland in the state of Lower Saxony. It has been artificially enlarged through the construction of groynes.[2]
National Park Information Center Wurster Nordseeküste
Address: Am Kutterhafen 3, Lower Saxon Wadden Sea National Park
Verona
The Verona was an English steamship that beached on Spiekeroog on December 13, 1883.
Blaue Balje
Run in Germany. The Blaue Balje is a gat in the southeastern North Sea in the outer estuary of the Jade.
It runs in a north-south direction between the East Frisian Islands of Wangerooge and Minsener Oog. Its main channel divides towards the south into the three channels of Telegraphenbalje, Mittelbalje and Minsener Balje. The location and depth of the actual shipping channel in the Blaue Balje is subject to constant changes.
At the eastern tip of Wangerooge are the stumps of posts that supported the old landing stage of the East Pier (Ostanleger). The landing stage was abandoned in 1958 and has since fallen increasingly into ruins. From 1905 to 1958 the East Pier was the main landing stage on Wangerooge and a terminus on the island railway. As on the other East Frisian Islands, a lot of sand was deposited on the eastern side of Wangerooge, the resulting silting up making it increasingly difficult to land at the East Pier. The dredging needed to keep the pier accessible was not cost-effective, and in 1958 the pier was closed and the eastern section of the island railway dismantled.[3]
Norderneyer Seegatt
The Norderneyer Seegatt or Norderneyer Seegat is a gat in the southern North Sea.
The gat runs in a north-south direction between the East Frisian Islands of Juist to the west and Norderney to the east. There are two marked shipping channels for craft navigating from the North Sea into the Norderneyer Seegatt. From the west the gat is approached along the Schluchter and from the east the Dovetief. The Norderneyer Seegatt is subject to marked morphological changes as a result of tidal action, so that the location and depth of the channels changes continuously.[4]
Hohe Weg
Lighthouse
Brauerplate
Brauerplate is a sandbank and partial high sand in the Lower Saxon Wadden Sea of the North Sea. The southern tip of the sandbank with the high sand is located about three kilometers north of the island of Borkum in the waters of the Osterems, between the Voorentief and the Hommegat.
Intensive investigations in the mid-1990s established large-scale morphological changes north of Borkum. These changes are related to complex displacement processes of the Osterems, the Hommegat and the Brauerplate. From Borkum, the Brauerplate has become increasingly perceptible as an island-like object, even to non-geologists, since about the year 2000.
As there is no human intervention in the development of the sandbank, it is to be expected that its size and structure will continue to change. Brauerplate is part of the protected zone of the Wadden Sea National Park and may not be entered.
Memmert
Island in Germany. Memmert is a small East Frisian island off the northern coast of Germany, with an area of 5.2 square kilometres. Memmert is uninhabited, with only one house on the island for wildlife-spotting purposes. Occasionally, some guests from the neighboring islands visit Memmert for recreation. Memmert is officially a wildlife protected area.
The island plays an important role in Erskine Childers's novel The Riddle of the Sands (1903).[5]