The island of Neuwerk is located about 15 km from Cuxhaven in front of the mouth of the Elbe and administratively belongs to the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, to which it is still 120 km away. But how many Hamburgers know their great suburb? Many of the people we asked didn't even know the name of the island. Very surprising, because we felt very comfortable on this beautiful North Sea island. You can spend the night in small guest houses or in the lighthouse (which was actually built as a defense tower). From this you have a fantastic view of the sea and of course over the whole island, which covers just 3 square kilometers. The nearby islands of Scharhörn and Nighörn, which also belong to Hamburg, form a bird sanctuary. Visitors are only allowed to enter Scharhörn via a seven-kilometer long mudflat path after permission from the ornithologist and I was allowed to jog the around 18 km from Neuwerk to the observation station on Schahörn and back through the mudflats (video) - a small race against time, because when the tide comes up doesn’t use swimming techniques, no matter how good, here with the currents and water temperatures.
The entire area and the surrounding Wadden Sea form the Hamburg Wadden Sea National Park.
In spring Neuwerk has a special event - thousands of gray geese, brent geese and barnacle geese meet here for a very special geese spectacle and Imme, the the island's kind biologist and Head of the Nationalpark-House of Neuwerk can hardly keep up with counting ... :-)
You land on the island at high tide by boat and at low tide by horse cart from Cuxhaven.
