In front of the barrack my Fisher showed me a great signal and I began digging around it. It lay quite deep and for the longest time I was sure I had found a British helmet, but the promising looking rim was just part of some kind of bowl. Underneath the bowl was a few bottles. One small ether bottle with the liquid still inside, and a bigger bottle with some nasty looking yellow stuff inside.
Next to one of the barracks I spent half an hour digging up a large metal plate and under it was a small metal tin with the paper label still intact, and a few M24 screw corks and ignitor cord pull balls. Baard was busy digging up some other metal fittings for the stickgrenades but we didn`t find any of the heads, or any intact wooden sticks. But I am sure they are somewhere in the area. Leaning against the barrack foundation stood several wooden wheels for carriages and some sleds rotting away in the undergrowth. We could see parts of ovens and rotting wooden crates. Also a large boiler from a kitchen was tipped over next to the ruin. It is such an interesting site to search! Next to the boiler I found half the instruction plate to the kitchen and a nice field made ashtray.
The hours flew by and the piles of scraps and finds grew steadily. I found some k98 ammo here and there, and a not so good signal turned out to be a great little find, a close combat knife where parts of its wooden grip had survived. Baard found a couple of sheet metal fittings that we saw had to be from mines. It looked like the construction used on wooden Schuminen, but it was larger. A little bit later while digging next to a ditch we found piles of these parts under the long grass growing there. I didn`t count how many but it had to be 30-40 pieces. After some research and posting them online we figured out they were German copies of Norwegian mines, named Befehls Schützen Mine M43 (n) ( Beh.Sch.m.M43 (n) ).
It was a day where we mostly found scrap and rubbish, but still a great day, and as our energy ran out the evening was upon us nearly 11 hours after we began. The weather had been perfect all day long. Nice temps and almost no bugs and just a few drops of rain.
We had planned to continue the search the next day but rain ruined that plan so hopefully we ll get another chance around the weekend if the stars align perfectly.
Until then, keep enjoying the summer as best you can :)