Gun Lake
Could this possibly be the largest example of using a lake as art? Deliberately shaped like a handgun, the lake was excavated to use the land for building a nearby highway way back in the seventies.
Why on Earth they decided to shape the lake into a 2.5km long handgun is anybody’s guess. It looks to me like the sort of gun James Bond would use, but reader Jan suggested it was a ‘Colt‘ gun. Perhaps gun nuts out there could identify the exact model?
Today the lake has a bustling wildlife and is a popular destination for water sports and for the secret service to dispose of dead bodies (I made that last bit up).
Thanks: Jan Fabry
These belgians are mad, what an idea!
looks like the frame of a gun, sans the slide
Looks more like the silhouette of the Lugers used during WWII, or some of the current Ruger models (especially their .22 caliber pistols — nice little tackdrivers that they are!)
It looks almost exactly like a ruger mk. II. .22 caliber semi-auto pistol, popular with target shooters because of its accuracy and cost (under $200-250 or so depending on which of the mk II models you get, and the ammunition is dirt cheap).
Actually if you look at the other way you’ll see that it looks a bit like Tintin’s dog Snowy which seems much more likely for Belgium
Most likely it is man-made to accommodate crew races (rowing) which require a 2000m long stretch of flat water. It’s popular in Europe and would make sense based on the size.
I say it looks like the golden gun from the James Bond movie.
http://paul.durdin.net/tintin/graphics/chars/snowy.gif
This comines the best of both worlds.
I hate it when people come up with a perfectly logical and often right solution to these mysteries so it pains me to say that Dave is most probably correct.
Snowy is the greatest!
It looks more like a German Luger than a Colt!
I didn’t pay attention to the location when i first watched this post. I immediately thought this can only be made in the States (sorry guys…). What a surprise when i noticed that i only live about 40 kilometres from this place. I have never seen it though (or even heared about it).
if one has ever seen a colt woodsman .22, this would be an almost spitting image of it, but dave probably is correct in his estimation of a rowing lake.
It’s the “Schulensmeer” or Lake of Schulen, an artificial lake that was made in the seventies after digging out sand for the construction of the E314 motorway (see Dutch Wikipedia). Nowadays this big lake is a recreation center for water-related sports, mainly windsurfing and sailing. Rowing is in the first place a British sport…
See schulens-meer.be for details.
i’ve bin there, i uses to ride to it with my bike (about 20 kilometers from my home).
when i whas going to it i’ve printed the route out from googlemaps and my first thought whas that it looks like a gun to.