2009-01-04 48 8

Location

The hash is in the Oberes Gäu hills outside of the village of Ergenzingen, near the B28a road. Although more than ten kilometres away, with the nearest way crossing another community, it's on the area of the same town as the previous hash. In this densely but scatteredly populated area, towns usually aren't that large, so this is a very rare coincidence.

In the early 1970s there was a large reorganization of political structures, with the number of districts being cut down to about one half, and also the number of independent towns and villages. Most small villages got incorporated into nearby larger towns. Ergenzingen wasn't one of the small ones. Being part of the district of Horb which was to be eliminated, it should have gone into the Freudenstadt district. Which the people of Ergenzingen for some reasons seemed to dislike. In a quest for an idea how to get into another district, Ergenzingen vowed to get incorporated into an appropriate town. The town of Rottenburg, which was already building a large community including more than a dozen formerly independent villages, didn't object to also take Ergenzingen and the neighbouring smaller village of Baisingen. And by the time the Horb district disappeared from the maps, they were no longer part of it. The people of Ergenzingen never really thought of themselves being people of Rottenburg, though.

Expedition: Ekorren

By the maps and the aerial photo on google maps, it wasn't possible to judge whether the spot would be easily accessible or not. The photos are totally outdated and don't show the B28a primary road which has been built on the spot in 2005. They, however, show the interesting fact that in preparation for building the fields had been rearranged, so you can discover parts of the future construction site by field boundaries. However, the road is there now, and the hash is somehow on site.

So, if I was a car, the easiest way would probably have been to just take that new main road. Luckily I'm still a human, and I'd prefer to stay one, so another attempt was preferred. The agricultural way crossing the construction site on hash should still be there in spite of all destruction of landscape.

It was a sunny sunday, and there were light eastern winds. Which means, the air comes from sibiria where the climate generally isn't very hot, and when there are no clouds to catch it, thermal energy will easily escape into outer space during night. Police never has been very effective against it escaping either. In other terms: it was cold. Not cold enough to keep me away from the bike, though. So, I set off around a quarter to twelve, hoping to be back before sunset without much hurry.

There's usually a time at around fifteen minutes after leaving your home when you realize what you should have packed but didn't. This time it was, once again, a decent map. Going back is never an option, so instead I cancelled the plans to take minor ways to map them on OSM and instead took a route mostly already known to me (still, as turned out afterwards, it wasn't entirely known to OSM, which I hope to change soon).

Through Hirschau, Wurmlingen, then up into the hills to Wendelsheim and Seebronn on minor roads. Passing the Wurmlingen chapel and the Heuberger Warte tower, I am to be blamed not making any new photos to show. Roads being mostly empty during that time of sunday, there was an uncommon silence only occasionally broken by a motorized vehicle passing. Took a small detour for a mystery geocache which I didn't find (well, since my printout was from april and I hadn't verified it ever since, I didn't search much), another detour through Bondorf to gain a point for a bookcrossing challenge, and finally approached the hash location from the north. The maps were right about that the agricultural way was still there and they had even built a bridge so it was possible to cross the road without being run over.

After crossing the road, it turned out that it had been built neatly around the hashpoint, leaving the location accessible. Even better, the creek that had been there before, now had disappeared into an underground pipe, and a small corner of it's space turned into a conveniently deepfrozen field. I should try to find the one who planned that out, such kind of prophetic abilities will always be appreciated.

I pinpointed the spot, left a biodegradable marker at the way (about 8 m from the spot), took a few photos and left.

I chose another route back, this time through Ergenzingen, Wolfenhausen and Remmingsheim, then a nice way through the Weggental valley to Rottenburg. There's a famous baroque pilgrimage church down in that valley, and now I know where the people of Rottenburg take their children, dogs and new clothes for a walk on a sunday afternoon if they don't want to risk that the children could get used to a lack of crowds, the dogs couldn't find someone to scare off due to a lack of children, and the clothes aren't properly noticed due to a lack of strangers. In other terms: I had to take frequent use of the bell to open myself a way into town.

Well, and there is nothing more to tell about the last twelve kilometres as I just took the fastest way home - which even happened to be the same as from the previous hash.