N35, under construction

24-02-02 (Sunday):
The goal of this expedition was to explore two supposedly abandoned farms in South Enschede. Unfortunately one seemed still inhabited and the other was closely watched by neighbours. So instead I decided to have a look at the progress on the new N35 road. The Dutch part is already in use, but the German part is still under construction (and has been for years I believe). Now there's a few kilometres of nice smooth empty asphalt. The first kilometre or so there's a parallel road next to it with quite busy traffic. Fun to cycle with no hands on a wide empty road with, I imagine, envious looking cardrivers racing by on the road next to you.

Drag race, anyone? Oh, I forgot, don't have a car.

Looking east

Under the viaduct a German family was playing some kind of game unknown to me. It involved a rolling disk and a stick with something looking like a fishnet at the end.

Other side of viaduct, looking towards home (west).

Here the asphalt ends. What follows is a sand ridge and a bridge over the river Dinkel.

Right next to the new road was a small abandoned house, inhabitants chased away by the approaching road, though the house not being very luxurious and the inhabitants already having a high voltage line hanging right above there heads may have had something to do with it too.

Abandoned house

Because the walls were plastered it doesn't look as old as I think it is. From the inside I found remnants of older looking windows, the kind you find in old farmhouses around Twente. Also, the round roofbeams aren't the latest fashion.
A swastika was painted on the outside wall. Oh right, we're in Germany here. |-(
The inside was badly smashed.

Lots of destruction done by earlier 'visitors'

A sleeping bag. Someone has been camping here. Looked like it had been here for a while. The cellar was full of water.

Part of the roof is leaking. The result is the wallpaper coming from the walls and the ceiling falling down.

There was no staircase or ladder to the attic so I had to do some (easy) climbing. The attic was not very save, floorboards bending dangerously when I tried to put my weight on them.

Here you can see the cause of the leaking; many rooftiles missing.

Back to the road. I followed the sand ridge for a while longer, till this also stopped. But some of the viaducts had already been build, which looked kind of weird. Big objects in the landscape without any obvious reason for being there.

Viaduct, but no way of getting on top of it.

On my way back I found the game-playing family had been replaced by girls on ponies and a bunch of kids on inline-skates.