Nuclear Water Wonderland

Thirty years ago,most governments in Europe and elsewhere were worried about using up the world’s unrenewable energy resources. Germany, amongst others, decided that the answer was to build nuclear reactors. One of these reactors was planned just outside Kalkar, a quiet little town with a picturesque historical centre, close to the Dutch border. The project was to cost £2.5 billion and it became known as the 'Schneller Brüter (fast breeder) Kalkar.'

Many people, especially the younger generation, warned of the dangers of nuclear power, and they decided to voice their protest at a mass demonstration on the 25th of September, 1977. At least 40,000 people (in addition to approximately 8000 police) turned up in the green fields around the building site. The police had already started the day before, stopping and searching buses and trains from all over the country, and trying to close off the building land. To get round them, local knowledge of the area was extremely useful. I grew up not far from Kalkar and I cycled there, together with two of my younger siblings, who were then only just teenagers. We got right up to the muddy fields next to the building site, then found ourselves face to face with several hundred police, lined up and looking like men from Mars behind their plastic riot shields.

Surprisingly enough the demonstration went down in the annals of mass demonstration history as peaceful. More surprising still, even though the building was finished in 1985, the 'Schnelle Brüter' in Kalkar never went on stream, being finally killed off by the government in 1991. Most surprising of all is that instead of ‘breeding’ energy, the remains are now simply generating fun. New life has been breathed into the 'Schnelle Brüter' in a rather unexpected way. In 1995, Hennie van der Most, an adventurous and imaginative businessman, bought the large abandoned buildings, and subsequently turned them into 'Kernwasser Wunderland' (nuclear water wonderland). This quite unusual fun park offers hotels, bars and events, catering for action-packed weekends and holidays for grown-ups, and there is lots of fun in it for the kids, too. I recently went back to the site, for the first time since the big mass demonstrations, to celebrate my son’s sixth birthday in Kernie’s Familienpark (Kernie’s family park), the part of Kernwasser Wunderland which is designed to make childrens dreams come true. There are roundabouts of every kind, bumper cars and bumper boats (with their own water guns), roller coasters, trampolines, a Ferris wheel, a pirate ship (to make you sick), a water chute (to make you wet), adventure playgrounds – in short, almost every attraction a child can think of. Just imagine free-climbing up the outside of the never-to-be-used cooling tower. Inside, you can create the most amazing echoes and experience the astonishing space! Hungry or thirsty? No problem – the all-inclusive price offers chips, ice cream and soft drinks all day, and tea and coffee to parents’ hearts content. They might want to have a rest on the promenade overlooking the River Rhine – if they get tired trying out the rides with their children.

Kernwasser Wunderland (http://www.kernwasser-wunderland.de – in German and Dutch): a great way to recycle a nuclear reactor – and it also shows what protest can achieve!