The Gasometer and it's 616 stairs.

Saturday, 23rd July: Today we did successfully make the trip to the Gasometer, which is actually in Oberhausen, to see the exhibition “Magic Places - Natural and Cultural Monuments of the World” (http://www.gasometer.de/en_GB/index.php?pid=3_1).

The exhibition featured large panels of photographs of natural and geographic features, interspersed with mineral and fossil samples on the ground floow. On the next level, there were beautifully recreated cultural artifacts from the Gipsformerei der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin (Replica Workshop of the National Museums of Berlin). The low light was a challenge for photography, but I persevered in attempts to capture the bust of Nefertiti.

The centre of the hall was dominated by the giant sculpture of a rainforest tree that loomed up into the vast space and was illuminated by gradually changing lighting.

On the way in to the exhibition, I had noticed that the the outside stairs leading all the way from the bottom to the top of the 100m high gasometer were actually open to the public. After wandering around the exhibition, I moved outside to take up the challenge of making the ascent. An initial rush soon changed to a steady pace. I started counting steps but soon gave up as the stairwell had a varying number of steps around each quarter. I later established that there were 616 steps to a height of 115m (the total height of the Gasometer is 117.5m), making this one of the largest industrial stairs in the world.

At 30m, I was already looking down on a tree-top climbing activity. The view gradually expanded to take in the river, railway and related exhibition areas. The wind also picked up and my ears were beginning to freeze. It took me more than 20 minutes to make the ascent, breathless but with a feeling of achievement.