Sandstein-Wienerwald natural park
Encyclopedia
Purkersdorf
Purkersdorf is a municipality in the district of Wien-Umgebung in Lower Austria, Austria. The Sandstein-Wienerwald natural park, a part of the Vienna Woods, is situated on its territory....
in the Vienna Woods (Wienerwald), Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
. Although a protected area under Austrian law, it is freely accessible.
The park's 77 hectare
Hectare
The hectare is a metric unit of area defined as 10,000 square metres , and primarily used in the measurement of land. In 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as being 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1/100 km2...
area is mostly covered by oak
Oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...
forest. Its highest point is the Rudolfshöhe (475 m), on whose top a lookout
Lookout
A lookout or look-out is a person on a ship in charge of the observation of the sea for hazards, other ships, land, etc. Lookouts report anything they see and or hear. When reporting contacts, lookouts give information such as, bearing of the object, which way the object is headed, target angles...
tower has been constructed. Another hill, the Schöffelstein (431 m) features a memorial to Josef Schöffel, who is remembered as the "saviour of the Vienna Woods" on account of his 1872 campaign to protect the woods from logging
Logging
Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...
.
Visitors' amentities in the park include a nature trail and a visitors' centre featuring expositions on topics of local interest. The park also includes an enclosure in which with deer and boar
Boar
Wild boar, also wild pig, is a species of the pig genus Sus, part of the biological family Suidae. The species includes many subspecies. It is the wild ancestor of the domestic pig, an animal with which it freely hybridises...
s are kept; as well as a petting zoo
Petting zoo
A petting zoo features a combination of domestic animals and some wild species that are docile enough to touch and feed. In addition to independent petting zoos, also called children's farms or petting farms, many general zoos contain a petting zoo...
.