Getting a holiday resort like Norddeich on the East Frisian coast out of hibernation first requires a lot of muscle power: Sascha Frohloff uses a cart to lift a kilogram of white beach chair onto the fork of a wheel loader. His colleague Uwe von der Pütten maneuvers him outside at the wheel of the vehicle. On the North Sea coast and on the East Frisian Islands, tourism companies are preparing for the new holiday season.
In Norden-Norddeich, the beach team from the tourism service is currently bringing around 700 beach chairs from the winter storage to the water’s edge. The Easter holidays in Bremen and Lower Saxony begin this weekend, and the first vacationers are expected on the coast. “That’s why we’re stepping on the gas now,” said beach manager Harald Lübbers. “We want to offer our guests something.”
Playground equipment, benches and rubbish bins that have to be cleared from the beach during the winter are also being rebuilt. However, the storm surge season is still underway. “We therefore always keep an eye on the weather conditions,” said Lübbers – in case spring is still a long time coming.
The first work on the beaches is also underway on the islands such as on Borkum. There, the beach maintenance department has restored the Loopdeelenweg, a circular path made of wooden floorboards over the dunes. On some islands, such as Wangerooge, new sand has to be excavated after the storm surge season, for example for the bathing beaches.
