2008-11-19 48 9

About

The hashpoint is at the area of a gardener at Wannweil, above the village near the road to Degerschlacht.

It's remarkable that the location is only about 2.5 km from past saturday's, and 4 km from yesterday's (direct line - about twice that distance using paved ways).

Expedition: Ekorren

With approximately 8182 km² as the size of a graticule of this latitude, the probability to get coordinates within of a 10 km (direct line) radius around ones home is pretty low: 3.84%. Substract water, steep terrain and restricted areas, one may expect such a near hashpoint roughly once per month. So, what are the odds to get them twice in a row and three times within of five days? Let's just say: Yay for Consecutive Geohash!

Added note later: Make that four times in eight days, including 2008-11-22.

I left home around a quarter past twelve and headed for the Neckar valley. There is a good cycle trail in that valley which I travelled countless times before and would be able to go blindfolded (actually I did that once last winter - trying to get home in the dark during heavy snowfall is effectively the same). Left the Neckar valley at Kirchentellinsfurt to follow the Echaz up, stopped twice to shop some food, and reached Wannweil with nothing remarkable having happened up to now. After a ten minutes fight with a 13% slope (no fear, first gear, and I won) I got to the peak where the hashpoint was.

I was not entirely sure whether I should go for coordinates reached, No Trespassing or even MNB. The exact coordinates may be within of the bushes that border the private backyard of the gardener who owns that place. It wouldn't be possible to reach that exact point from the other side either, and still, the distance is far below the accuracy of both GPS and Google Maps, so the point could just as well be on the public agricultural way along the bushes. So I'll count them as reached for now. I put the marker into the bushes, made another one from sticks on the way, took photos and left.

Then I continued to some villages nearby to search for remains of the Reutlingen suburban tramway which was closed in the 1970s, but didn't find anything I didn't already know. Finally I went for one geocache at least, which turned out to be too small to hold the things I wanted to put in there, and I shouldn't have taken the way described in the listing...

When back on paved ways, I noticed that my back tyre had lost significant amounts of air (and it actually is one of those kevlar-reinforced thorn repellant tyres...) but luckily I had a pump with me, so I made it home with several pumping stops but without shunting or taking a train.

Total distance cycled: 36.72 km, whereof approximately 1 km cross country and 12 km with a half-flat tyre.