Sylt, Germany: Little-known island goes to extreme lengths not to disappear

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This was published 1 year ago

Sylt, Germany: Little-known island goes to extreme lengths not to disappear

By Jamie Lafferty
View from the top of the dunes at Bunker Hill, overlooking Rantum Beach's hooded beach chairs.

View from the top of the dunes at Bunker Hill, overlooking Rantum Beach's hooded beach chairs.Credit: iStock

Standing at the top of the Red Cliffs, I rub my eyes. By the shore, a pensioner wearing a flesh-coloured bathing suit is heading into the frigid waters of the North Sea. I look again, then realise they aren't, in fact, wearing a bathing suit – or anything at all. This is the first surprise on Sylt, but there are plenty more to come.

From the god's-eye view provided by Google Maps, Sylt looks like a blonde eyelash dropped off the west coast of Jutland, a long golden arc facing towards Britain. The outermost of Germany's North Frisian Islands, it's long been a popular domestic tourist destination, yet remains something of a mystery to foreigners – the fact Germany has islands at all is a surprise to most people first learning of Sylt and its nearby sisters.

While the other islands are variously sedate, agricultural, and unknown, Sylt is connected to the German mainland by a causeway, along which a train runs all the way back to Hamburg. That route bisects the Wadden Sea, which is on UNESCO's World Heritage List, a fascinating intertidal zone that attracts birds and birders in their thousands. Most visitors, however, come for the sand on the west coast, a remarkable 40-kilometre stretch that runs the length of the island.

Sylt: Cycling the length of the island is made simple thanks to dedicated paths.

Sylt: Cycling the length of the island is made simple thanks to dedicated paths.Credit: iStock

Cycling the length of the island is made simple thanks to dedicated paths, but on my first day I walk from my hotel in the village of Kampen, down to Sylt's largest town Westerland, along the white sand. Naked OAPs aside, it's a lovely stroll, the so-called "champagne air" seeming electrified by the tumult of the North Sea.

The sand appears as natural as it does golden, but it is something of a mirage. Climate change – especially rising seas – have changed the shape of these islands so much that old whalers' charts no longer match the reality of today. Unsurprisingly, the threats to the islands have not lessened and Sylt's position is perilous enough that each year local authorities have to pump sand from the ocean floor and onto the beach, then brush it along the long, beautiful shore. This fortification works well enough in the short term, but winter storms cause havoc every year.

If this seems like an extreme measure to protect a beach, then climbing to the top of the dunes in places like Bunker Hill, overlooking Rantum Beach, quickly reveals the entire island is at stake. A major breach could lead to inundations that will see Sylt divided into several smaller islands – if it survives at all.

The cost of protecting it all is high, but then Sylt is a massive tax-earner for the German state. With four golf courses, dozens of hotels, restaurants, and bars, it brings in colossal revenue, its particular high-end brand of windswept tourism proving irresistible to tens of thousands of people every year.

In the north, the town List has coastal walks out to the northernmost point of Germany, known as the Elbow, plus excellent views across to nearby Denmark, just over three kilometres away. A regular ferry connects the two countries in a few minutes, but I instead turn south, cycling along one of the narrowest parts of the island, eventually stopping for lunch in well-heeled Kampen, with its boutiques and its lack of supermarket and its expensive cafes.

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These are outstripped in Westerland, however, the only real town on Sylt, where Hamburgers come to be seen as they party in the alfresco bars and spend recklessly in the long days of summer. Hornum, the southernmost settlement of the island, and a one-time Nazi military base, is another popular a spot. In Budersand it has perhaps the finest hotel on the island, famous for its spa and golf course, which is in turn regarded as one of the best in northern Germany – and for a Michelin-starred restaurant, one of two on the island.

Some local Sylters say this massive influx of moneyed mainlanders is diluting their culture. This salty and often hard-nosed mix of whalers and farmers have their own dialect. But they also know what's at stake with their vulnerable shores – and that these days the island cannot afford to be without coastal protection.

THE DETAILS

TRAINS

Trains cross from Niebull to Sylt a dozen time a day during the peak summer season, while there are 19 services to there from Hamburg. Prices from €31/$45 one-way. bahe.de

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sylt.de

traveller.com.au/germany

The writer travelled as a guest of the German National Tourist Board.

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