Anita Rao-Kashi is awestruck and overwhelmed with the Schwarzes Moor or Black Moor in the Rhon Mountains of Germany.
A narrow pathway made with wooden planks, much like a boardwalk, stretched and wound its way through a smattering of trees and shrubs amidst an uneven ground. There were mounds of various shapes with scraggy tufts of grass in light green, pale yellow and brown. It looked both mysterious and ominous and the boardwalk seemed like a safe option. In between, there were portions that were marshy and appeared ready to suck whatever fell in. Not surprising since it was part of the bog that makes up the Schwarzes Moor or Black Moor in the Rhon Mountains of Germany.
Located at the meeting point of the German states of Bavaria, Thuringia and Hesse, the moor is part of the UNESCO’s Rhon Biosphere Reserve and spread over nearly 67 hectares. Ecologically sensitive and delicate, the moor was one of the rare parts of land that was undisturbed. A few hundred metres from the entrance stood a narrow wooden watchtower, accessed through a safe pathway, rising almost four storeys high and provided a vantage point to view a part of the moor. Essentially peaty, there were parts where the peat was almost eight metres thick. The landscape was broken occasionally by a thin strip of a stream or rivulet, and patches of trees, but the rest of the landscape was beautifully bleak and wild. It was also wonderfully silent.
Though it was early afternoon in late April, a bitingly cold wind swept through, giving the whole area a surreal outlook. I was told the bog went back to the last ice age, and comprised two distinct vegetation zones as was evident from my perch on the watchtower. On the one side was a spruce forest while the other was much flatter but varied from fen to peaty bog. From that height, the moor brought to mind images from Wuthering Heights and the moors that form that an integral part of the Emily Bronte novel. In the deep silence, I even felt Heathcliff would come striding up over the horizon in the distance if I waited long enough!
Shaking off my fantasy, I got off the watchtower and took the winding boardwalk and went deeper into the moor. As I followed the path, I could head the occasional bird chirping and flitting about from one tree to another. The moor was also home to many other animals such as vipers, grouse, weasels and foxes but they stayed away.
Since nightfall was still some time away, I headed out of the protected area and to the adjacent part. The landscape was almost similar though the ground was not marshy. A narrow road, flanked by bare trees and tall grass with lovely white, yellow and deep purple flowers, disappeared into the distance. In the horizon, a set of grey hills rose into the sky. The peaks were masked by low hanging clouds amidst which a weak sun was sinking rapidly. A brisk wind blew through, slapping around everything.
As I walked further in, I saw a bare, cement watchtower standing like a sentinel amidst the desolately beautiful landscape. Unlike the earlier watchtower, this was unwelcoming and austere. A little board underneath explained it was one of the remaining watchtowers on erstwhile border between West and East Germany. Further along, I was told, stood the wall, but what was visible at present was a set of parallel tracks used by the security forces of Nazi Germany to patrol the border. It was a bit unsettling to stand in such close proximity to something so momentous in history and to imagine what stories they would tell if trees and walls and the earth could talk!
I must have walked for at least an hour, skirting dips and climbing hillocks before I turned back. The sun had long since disappeared and the twilight had a surreal quality to it, throwing long, blurry shadows. In the growing darkness, the bare trees seemed to take on a gloomy quality. I hurried along, lengthening my steps. In my imagination, I could hear the tread of ghosts and the noise of wheels. But there was nothing. By the time I reaching the car park, my vehicle was only one standing. I looked back and the shadows had grown darker, taking on more dense shapes. Or were they ghosts of the past? It might have been my imagination, but I didn’t wait to find out.
Fact file
Schwarzes Moor is in the Rhon Mountain region of Germany and is at the meeting point of three states.
Getting there: Fulda is the nearest railhead (40 km/45 mins), about an hour and a half from Frankfurt which has easy and convenient flight connections from India.
Stay: Fulda is has a range of hotels as do other tiny towns that surround it such as Dipperz. However, for an interesting experience, stay at Bio-Gastehaus Lindengut (http://www.linden-gut.eu/; from Euros 66 onwards) outside Dipperz, a converted barn in the midst of rolling meadows and farmlands.
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