We leave Wanzleben early for Schonebeck. This is an old town on the Elbe where munitions have been made for over a hundred years. The SK company used to produce rimfires and shotshells for Sellier & Bellot in Czechslovakia, as well as their own brands such as Hubertus, and still owns a large building in the main business street that used to house part of their factory. Unemployment runs at 30% or more these days. Reunification has had some drawbacks. The feeling is things are improving slowly, but the area certainly looks run down.
We find the current factory site just out of town. It is a large industrial site that appears to have been bombed in the second world war and left that way. A solitary guard in the security hut knows we are coming and rings ahead to warn of our arrival. Four hundred metres down the delapidated track we see the tall figure of The Doctor waving us in. An Australian flag shares the stand out front with those of the EU, USA, Czech Republic, South Africa and Switzerland. Either they have had visitors from all of those countries after IWA or they don't want to make our flag look lonely. We are early, he has other business to attend to, so he introduces the chief engineer to us and arranges a tour of the .22 ammunition production line.
I ask if I may take photographs, but the Doctor regrets this is not possible. SK has recently been taken over by Lapua and I sense the Doctor's job is to make the operation profitable. I guess the last thing he wants is to have any possibility of industrial espionage. Fair enough, but it would have made this page a lot more interesting with more than a photo of their office block. For those interested in the tour itself I have set this on a seperate page SK Tour so as not to bore non-shooters.
We complete the tour and yippee shoot on the testing range. The Doctor is still busy so our guide takes us for a tour of the town. I remark on how common Trabants are. These are small two-stroke cars similar in appearance to the old Austin 1800, very square and squat. Also very noisy and smelly, they are a lingering reminder of the area's past. Not only were they crappy cars, but in Communist times you had to wait up to three years to buy one! Modern emission laws would never allow them on the road, but the German authorities turn a blind eye as in many areas people simply cannot afford to upgrade.
We return to the factory, the Doctor is ready for us and he takes us out for lunch. We cross the Elbe River and follow its stop banks for a few kilometres upstream to Grunewalde. An old castle on the bank of the river has been turned into a restaurant with its own brewery. We are plied with beer and food; I abstain from alcohol after a short time as I have been delegated driver. The local speciality is a pork dish piled high with sauerkraut. No way could the waitress bring more than one plate at a time, she needs both hands to take the weight of it. If the locals eat this they'll be as big as a bus.
Eventually we bid farewell to the Doctor and Schonebeck. Rather than head west for the border and make our way back to Frankfurt through France we opt to take a shorter route and see some more of the former East Germany. This proves educating but quite depressing. The afternoon is spent driving through gloomy towns with horrible high rise housing and derelict broken down industrial estates. We skirt Halle and Leipzig, passing what I assume to be a nuclear power plant. Just after nightfall we arrive in a small town, follow signs to a pension and book in for the night.
English is absolutely unknown here. Les has some concern that his room, and in fact all of the rooms, can be locked from the outside. He goes on about it at some length to the landlord, who really does not understand what the problem is. We discover later that Les has had pneumonia for some time, and at this stage it is playing tricks on his mind and making him a little paranoid. He eventually desists, as we have little choice anyway.
After our huge lunch all we can manage is a bowl of soup in the bar downstairs. It seems to be the local pub also. As each person enters the bar he or she walks around every table that's occupied and taps twice on the tabletop. Like a personal greeting. Just to make the scene entirely foreign this is where I see Hogans Heroes on television dubbed in German. The voices are all wrong, but the canned laughter is the same. And Private Schultz is something else. Eerie.
It must have been very cold last night. As we emerge from the pension the ground is white. It snowed lightly last night. I have the new experience of scraping the windscreen clear of icy snow. We hit the road, heading south through Jena. From there we join the Autobahn heading west (thankfully), keeping an eye out for anything of interest.
As we near Eisenach we see signs for a castle. We take the turn and head up a hill to the south of the town. The castle is called Wartburg, and it housed Martin Luther for several years while he was in hiding after being accused of heresy. Not huge by European standards but quite impressive to us. Dangerous things, these castles. A few kilometres before we reached Wartburg there was an accident on the Autobahn - the only one we saw in Germany - where some rubbernecking tourists had swiped another vehicle while passing the remains of a castle on a hill. Too busy looking off the road.
Further down the road we spy some cows in the distance. About half a dozen in a cluster. This causes great excitement in the car; we knew they had to be there somewhere. With late afternoon we bypass Frankfurt and head for Wiesbaden. We have heard of the Shooting School there which is also a hotel. It would be great to spend our last night in Germany there.
In Wiesbaden we find the railway station, where I reason there should be an information centre that will help us find the Shooting School. Yes, and no. They have never heard of it. In desperation I ask a Turkish taxi driver, who asks another driver, and bingo, we've found it. Called The Olympia, it houses not only a school for international shooters but the headquarters of the German Shooting Federation. We follow our cab driving friend's directions and find it easily.
On arrival our greeting is not exactly warm. The manager has little time for these foreigners who barge in demanding a room and even wanting to see it beforehand! His attitude changes remarkably when he learns we are shooters from Australia. He tells of the Australians who have come before us and makes us very welcome. However, it is obvious he does not want us to dine there. He suggests we drive back into Wiesbaden and find something there. We find out later that the hotel is extremely famous for its high class cuisine and is always booked out in advance. We witness the clientele as they arrive. They are without exception elderly upper class, impeccably dressed and driving expensive cars. I'd say the meal would be a little out of our price range anyway. Besides that, our manners and dress sense would lower the tone.
And our last evening meal in Germany? We walked for an hour looking for something, couldn't agree on anything and ended up back at Maccas.
In the morning we explore the hotel. Below the rooms and restaurant is a 25 metre indoor range set up for Rapid Fire. I help a young Japanese shooter through a training run by calling range commands and running the timer. The range can also be set up at right angles as an airgun range; the target holders and benches are fixtures that barely avoid encroaching on the 25 metre layout. Next door a young lady by the name of Astrid is coaching a group of learner smallbore rifle shooters. She is the live-in instructor. The firing point is indoors with windows that swivel out and up to allow shooting at the targets 50 metres away. These are electronic targets, unlike the conventional turners in the 25 metre. The German Shooting Federation admin building is next door. It is only manned during normal office hours so we can only press our noses to the glass and peer inside.
Very little to report from the last few hours. We drive into Frankfurt to wander the streets aimlessly for a few hours. With nothing better to do we drive to the airport to book in our baggage. At check in is an x-ray machine where all bags are screened before check in. The lady is intrigued at some of the shapes in my bag. I assure her they are just parts for my business. Sure, there's about ten kilos of target pistol parts, but I have an honest face so she lets it through. I have no licensable or major parts, but explaining such differences to a non-gun literate foreigner is not something I wish to try. Tougher is trying to nonchalently swing a shoulder bag as if it weighs nothing while twenty something kilos of paperwork from IWA threatens to cause permanent back damage. At least a dozen Filipinos are collared and sent back to check in hefty hand luggage. Being 6'4" does have its advantages sometimes, even a big bag can look small if you've got the bulk to disguise it.
Nothing notable in the return journey, we are tired from the two solid weeks of travel and suffer the tedious hours in flight and transit in Bankok airport with the stoicism of the over exhausted. I eat some spicy chicken pieces at a KFC that makes our Hot & Spicy taste like anaemic duck droppings. Two large root beers (and the ice) later and I no longer feel as if something's burning inside. Eventually our flights arrive at and leave Sydney to deposit us safely in Brisbane to a new day.