Hi Mummy,
today we visited an arboretum in Wuppertal, the Staatsforst Burgholz. An arboretum is a collection of trees, sort of a botanical garden containing living collections of woody plants intended at least partly for scientific study. We went to "Staatsforst Burgholz", a woodland area which is situated in both urban area of Wuppertal and also the urban area of Solingen, but only a small part of it. When World War II was over, there were nearly all trees felled for rebuilding of destroyed city areas and also as firewood.
Searching for fast-growing forest species trees from foreign counties were planted than in this area to study their growth in local weather conditions. Plants from North America, South America, Asia and Europe were planted.
There are several walking paths through the arboretum, of course we chose the longest of them, about 6 km long, displaying a variety of trees from Europe, America and Asia.
We walked through this large forest with all the strange trees.
The soil is partly covered with soft moss.
These are withered hogweed...
... and thistles.
Here are trees which you can usually find in the USA.
In the background, along the slope different kinds of conifers were planted.
Our path is meandering through the landscape, sometimes with rocks on both sides.
We left the path when we met the "Sambatrasse", a former railway track, nowadays a walking and cycling lane, aobut 10 km long. Those large piles of wood were here for years, Katja told me.
This is a former station, dilapidated now.
While we followed the Sambatrasse to reach the bus station, we walked along an incinerator.
This was a great trip, although it was sort of exhausting 
Bye
Captain Commodore
