Dig A Hole, Find A Fossil --- A Diary (2)

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Three days ago I posted the first entry of the diary containing our English friends' holiday experiences in the south of Germany Father Brian, Mother Pam and their twins Nick and Debbie had each written about their most impressive adventures and experiences. Brian found his in a model train museum, whereas 13-year-old Nick was in heaven when he could hammer at the walls of a slate pit filled with fossilised creatures. NICK: HAMMERS AND FOSSILS. When Debbie and me heard about hiking up and down stupid German mountains we just thought, “Yuck! Not our idea of summer hols.” But then Dad told us to find out about bus routes, buy tickets and plan routes, and we changed our minds. We’ve only just started learning German, but Dad has forgotten so much and Mum’s German from school is so rusty that we are the ‘one-eyed among the blind’ (as the Germans say). One day we climbed up the mountain Hohenstaufen near the town of Göppingen, 682 m (2236.96 feet!). We had never been so high up before and were very proud, of course. A man who could talk English told us that about 190 millions of years ago the whole area was covered by a deep ocean. Crazy! He told us to go to the village of Holzmaden and visit the museum there and to take hammers with us. Funny idea. To smash the exhibits or what? The Museum Hauff is cool! Outside they have some terrible plastic dinosaurs for kiddies, bah. It's better inside: maps show that the area was covered by an ocean reaching south up to the Alps. There wasn’t much oxygen in it. Dying animals sank to the bottom and didn’t rot there. They were covered by mud and when the water had gone and millions of years later people began to dig out the fossils, they found alligators and fish nearly completely intact, teeth, scales and all. There is a tree trunk on the wall, 8 metres long with sea anemones clinging to it. They look like dainty flowers, but are animals really. Boy, were we impressed! But the highpoint was a hole in the ground opposite the museum, heehee! You buy a ticket and rent a hammer, if you haven’t brought one yourself, and then hammer away. You can take all the fossils you find with you. I found two plates of slate with the imprint of ammonites. I really did! I showed them off at school, you bet. When we go to Germany again, my parents can drop me there, do whatever they like and fetch me again at the end of the hols. I want to find a real ammonite! ----- If you are interested in the other installments, click on the green bar at the top of the site.