2009-07-03 49 8

Location

Today's coordinates are located in the western edge of the Hardtwald, a large forest north of Karlsruhe, more exactly in the town of Leopoldshafen, a (together with Eggenstein) 15.000 inhabitants town north of Karlsruhe. The Hashpoint is not too far away from the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, a large research center (official website). founded in 1956.

Planning

This was too close not to try. Since the Hashpoint and my home are seperated by the Hardtwald, I had two possibilities of going there. Using light rail lines S2 and S1, through the Karlsruhe inner city, south the forest, or use line S2 north to Blankenloch and take bus 195 to Leopoldshafen there. This might have been ideal conditions for a tron geohash, however bus 195 crosses its route on an overpass in Blankenloch, invalidating the achievement.

Expedition by Koepfel

Report

The expedition started with me catching the 18:55 S2 from Karlsruhe Sinsheiier Straße to Blankenloch Nord. After waiting couple of minutes, I took the 19:18 195 bus to Leopoldshafen, as the only passenger. Ths bus then passed the research center, where I took this picture of the gate out of the bus. Also, several other passengers entered at the research center.

At 19:30, we arrived in Leopoldshafen, where people can change to the S1/S11 to Karlsruhe oder Hochstetten. I, however walked east again for a few hundred meters, from where the bus came, thhen turned right into a residential area, still under construction. As these houses were not yet on Google Maps, I was getting more and more afraid, that the hashpoint would be located in a construction site.

Luckily, it wasn't, the Hashpoint turned out to be at the edge of a forest. A forest, which seemed to be a mountain bike track, since there were several mud hills and bike tracks on them, also continuing into the forest. The GPS zeroed in at the firist hill, so I scratched XKCD into the mud. Coordinates reached at about 19:50. I placed another marker into a tree and left the Hashpoint again, as I planned to catch the S1 from the Eggesheim Schweriner Straße stop at 20:23.

Crossing this creek seperating Eggenstein from Leopoldshafen, I entered another residential area, in which I saw several "No-dogs-allowed"-signs on people's yards. Also, I saw two people walking their dogs anyway.

At about 20:11, I arrived at the stop Schweriner Straße, from where I took the S1 back to Karlsruhe and from there the S2 back home, arriving at about 21:00.