Day 13: Hello Bear Park, hello Lower Saxony!

On a beautifully sunny day, we left Lengefelder Warte. Unfortunately, breakfast didn't convince us to stay longer at the hotel. Compared to dinner, breakfast was much more modest. But maybe our expectations were just too high? So we started at 10am today, Saturday, heading to Fuhrbach near Duderstadt (in Lower Saxony). First, we went downhill to Zella and continued along the Unstrut Cycle Path towards Dingelstädt. To our surprise, we noticed that small rest areas along the way not only had one bench, but often three, and all three looked different. A holy trinity of benches :-) We passed Kallmerode and Leinefelde. Shortly before reaching our intermediate destination in Worbis, we met a friendly woman who was fascinated by our bike tour and gave us some tips about the town and the surroundings. She was over 70 and doing well with her e-bike. Finally (after a short stop at a Rewe supermarket), we arrived with great anticipation at the alternative Bear Park in Worbis. We locked our bikes next to the entrance area, behind an ice cream van. The ice cream vendor promised to keep an eye on our bikes, or rather, the luggage attached to them - in a positive way for us and our equipment :-)

In the Bear Park, we learned a lot of interesting information about the often inhumane treatment of bears - in circus families, in zoos, today and in the past. A small exemplary bear cage from the past of Worbis Animal Park had been preserved and could be visited. This impressively showed us how cramped and painful such a dwelling must be for a fully grown bear, which is the size of two circus wagons (hard to believe that there is still no ban on wild animals in circuses in Germany!). At the beginning of our path through the park, we not only saw this - sadly - typical bear cell. The park also housed some domestic and small animals, such as chickens, sheep, rabbits, turtles, goats, and various birds, which lived in appropriate enclosures. Typical housing mistakes are also explained for these species. There was also an enclosure with raccoons, but they did not show themselves. Unlike most of the usual ethically doubtful zoos or animal parks, the Bear Park does not receive (regular) public funds, but is financed almost exclusively through donations, animal sponsorships, and the foundation's own shop. The keeping of exotic wild animals in zoos should also be reconsidered - probably only a few people question their consumption of palm oil critically just because they have seen an orangutan in Dortmund Zoo, which is massively endangered due to the clearing of tropical rainforest for the cultivation of oil palms.

Further on, we learned a lot about the lives of bears on a bear nature trail. At an exposed spot, we saw the first of the currently eight brown bears. The bear was rubbing against a tree stump and didn't mind the many eyes watching him. The descriptions of the different bears were included in the park description, so we tried to decipher which bear was being admired. It was probably an older female bear named Katja, born in 1991 in the Russian state circus. We continued to a large enclosure with a small pond next to the path, which was visitor-friendly. Two younger bears were playing and splashing around there - probably Pedro and Pardo. We decided to take a break there and watch them. We also spotted another sleeping bear in the distance and the wolf couple Ronja and Raik. These are not real wolves, but wolf hybrids from illegal private keeping. As we continued, a keeper passed by with buckets of fruit. It was fortunately feeding time!! Several bears came by and ate the vegetarian treats that were thrown into the forest. The grapes seemed to be the most popular. It should be noted that there are no feeding shows, but rather feedings take place at different times and locations so that the bears cannot anticipate them and natural foraging behavior is encouraged. At the end of the circular path through the Bear Park, we passed by the enclosure of the oldest female bear: Conny, 32 years old, couldn't see very well anymore and was a bit wobbly on her legs. She relied more on her sense of smell to find the fruit that had been thrown over the fence. Time flew by and shortly before 4pm, we continued our journey with ice cream (vegan almond ice cream for Janina), which we bought at the souvenir shop; the ice cream vendor, who watched over our belongings, didn't make any money... Well, that's how it is when only soft ice cream is sold. However, he had other, better customers anyway.

Another highlight on our way to Duderstadt was the Eichsfeld Borderland Museum, which stands where the wall once divided the historical and strongly Catholic district of Eichsfeld. It was already closed (only open until 5pm), but the outdoor facilities were very impressive. Some signs along the way informed us about the construction and fall of the wall, and we were able to see a rapid vehicle barrier (can also stop trucks and closes in three seconds!), a helicopter, and an observation tower. A memorial consisting of three twisted pieces of border fence commemorated the victims of the wall. There was also a circular path, the Grenzlandweg, where former border installations could be visited, some of them in their original state. We took a closer look at the first section, the still preserved convoy road, by riding on a short section of it (it's very bumpy) until we reached the barrier at the river/stream Hahle. From there, we rode north and entered Lower Saxony, our third federal state on this bike tour.

Surprisingly, Duderstadt, which is part of the German Half-Timbered House Road, turned out to be a beautiful experience that we had underestimated. This was complemented by a passerby who willingly provided us with numerous information about the over 500 half-timbered houses from different eras and the structure of the town. He clearly enjoyed sharing his knowledge with us. His partner and he came from Göttingen; she tried to slow him down before he could give us a longer guided tour of the town ;-) After that, we cycled uphill and downhill again until we arrived in Fuhrbach, Lower Saxony. Our hotel 'Der Kronprinz' was fully booked: a wedding was taking place. Luckily, we got a room that spared us the noise, as it faced the other side. In the evening, we had dinner at the hotel's restaurant, which was also very good, and sent greetings to the owners from the owners of the previous hotel (they know each other). After that, we enjoyed the twilight with a beer on our balcony, including soft music from the wedding. So we drifted off to sleep very contently :-)

Data for Stage 12:

Distance: 46.3 km
Duration: 3:48h
Average Speed: 12.2 km/h
Max Speed: 40.5 km/h
Elevation: 477 m