Abandoned Kansai

Urban exploration is dangerous, even more so if you are a hedgehog. For humans it can be frustrating in addition, especially in Germany, where vandalism is on the rise…

Three years ago, when I was visiting family and friends back home, I did my first solo exploration in Germany, the *Shipyard Germersheim*; you can read all about the location’s history and how much I enjoyed my first visit in the previous article. It was 9 years after the shipyard closed, two years after it was used as a location for a famous German TV show and about 4 months after a geocache was hidden. The back had been taken over by a car sales and repair company, the front was abandoned and in rather good condition – so much for the situation in 2011.
In the past three years since my first visit several contradictive rumors had popped up. Some said that the shipyard had been demolished to use the prime property for high-class apartment buildings, others claimed that the area had been taken over by a boat retailer and repair shop. Sadly none of it turned out to be true when I revisited the shipyard with my sister Sabine less than four weeks ago. Instead the area had been trashed by vandals…
I had a bad feeling when we approached the shipyard from the back, after I realized that the car shop was gone. During my first visit I was kind of disappointed that I wasn’t able to explore the whole area, but I guess in the end it was a blessing in disguise as the business kept the vandals away. We followed the road and turned left, to the main entrance of the shipyard. This time the big gate was open, but the access to the river in the back, where I spotted some anglers and geocachers last time, was blocked by a padlocked gate. The main building showed signs of massive amounts of vandalism. Pretty much every window was broken – and when we headed to the main entrance, we saw that not only the safety glass doors were smashed, but that somebody stole the huge metal SG emblem above the entrance. Last time I lay on the ground to take a picture of the entrance, but sadly it was impossible to recreate the photo as there were glass shards all over the place.

We decided to have a closer look at the manufacturing buildings first. Most of them were locked last time, but this time they were cracked wide open – three years ago broom-clean, this time covered by trash; bad graffiti everywhere. Not good stuff like at the *La Rainbow Hotel & Tower*, but really bad scribbling you can find all over the place in Germany at abandoned places, along train tracks, under bridges… and pretty much everywhere else where those cowards can do damage with low risk of being seen or heard. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge fan of high-class graffiti art, but why anybody would want to deface their own surrounding is beyond me!
On the way to the back, Sabine and I saw a hedgehog in some kind of uncovered manhole. It was a very hot and humid day, so we assumed that the little fella was probably dead already. Luckily we had a second look after we came back from the waterfront with its crane, empty halls and an empty circus trailer – the hedgehog was in a different corner, so he definitely was alive. Neither of us was eager to rescue the spiny guy with bare hands, so my Sabine climbed into the waist-deep hole and I found a former speed sign lying on the ground; we were able to shove the hedgehog on the sign with a slat. I named it Gianluigi and carried him to a place in the shadow far away from the manhole, but little Gian looked pretty much dead already on this hot and humid summer day. Luckily we brought some water with us, so Sabine created a little puddle right in front of Gian’s face and we continued to the main building.
During my first visit the building was empty, but almost untouched – only the big safe on the top floor had been toppled and natural decay started to set in with an unfortunate amount of mold. This time there was scratchwork all over the place, window were broken; some idiots even started to tear down a wall. If they would put all this crazy amount of energy into positive things, the world would be a much better place! Instead the Shipyard Germersheim went from an interesting exploration to a shithole (pardon my French!) in less than three years… To see how much damage was really done, I recommend watching both videos; the one from this article and the second one from my first visit. It’s a shame how vandalism can ruin the atmosphere of a location completely!
But to end on a positive note, let me give you a final update on Gianluigi – he was gone even before we left the office building. Sabine checked on him from the second floor and found the speed sign empty. I guess he found himself an even cooler spot and something to eat…

(*Like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* if you don’t want to miss the latest articles and exclusive content – or subscribe to the *video channel on Youtube* to receive a message right after a new video is online…)