The best traffic-free bike rides around Kleiner Bornhorster Lake

For me, the path is like a highway through a forest.

View of the fountain

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Grand Duke Peter Friedrich Ludwig of Oldenburg had a park built here in Rastede next to his summer residence. His son and successor, Paul Friedrich August, expanded the complex in the style of an English landscape park. As part of this, the local lowland, covered with alder trees (known in Low German as "Ellern"), was transformed into a fishpond in 1842. The complexity of this undertaking is particularly evident in the fact that the pond was not completed until six years later, in 1848. Its completion created a new view from the palace over the Ellern and Mühlenteich ponds to the watermill. Over 100 years later, at the end of the 1950s, the Ellernteich was in such poor condition that it was decided to fish it out and drain it. Furthermore, new Ellern trees were planted to restore its original state.

The area east of the lake consists of permanent grassland typical of (old) marshland, extends over five kilometers to the east, and is largely protected as the Bornhorster Huntewiesen (Bornhorst Hunte Meadows). To the west, just 150 meters from the lakeshore and then further beyond the motorway, the land rises to the Oldenburg Geest, so that Groß Bornhorst and Klein Bornhorst are already 12 to 15 meters above sea level. Northwest of the lake, on either side of the motorway, lie two forest areas totaling 10 hectares. In contrast to the Großer Bornhorster See, the Kleiner Bornhorster See has two (albeit small) islands. The larger island, approximately 2,000 m² in size, is located on the northern shore in a corner of the lake, while the tiny island on the southern shore is only about 100 m² in size. Both islands have dense tree cover.

The Kleiner Bornhorster See is located in the low-lying marshland within the "Oldenburg-Rasteder Geestrand" nature reserve. Great crested grebes and other waterfowl breed at the Kleiner Bornhorster See. The area is particularly notable for its high density of breeding pairs of nightingales. The NABU (Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union) organizes ongoing monitoring of breeding and resting birds in the lake area.

The Kleiner Bornhorster See is a gravel pit lake in the eastern part of Oldenburg (Oldenburg), not far from the border with the Wesermarsch district, which runs only about 500 meters northeast. However, it is already outside of Oldenburg's dense urban development. The lake is located near the small village of Groß Bornhorst and the Oldenburg district of Etzhorn, both west of the lake. The Hunte River flows three kilometers south of it.

It's always beautiful to drive through this gate and leave the city behind: afterward, the endless meadows open up before you...