2010-05-08 49 9

Location

Between two fields not far from Gemmingen

Participants

Koepfel

Plans

There were a lot of hashpoints in the western end of this graticule recently, like this one. It's in a field east of Gemmingen, east of Eppingen. Reachable from Karlsruhe, train to Eppingen and ~8km by bike. Gemmingen itself has a train station, too, but it's no longer inside the KVV, so my student ticket would no longer be valid there. Considering it. Koepfel _talk 14:41, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I might have gone in order to meet you, but I don't have enough time. Have fun - Danatar 17:59, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Expedition Report

Koepfel

The S4 to Eppingen left at Durlacher Tor (inner city) at 13:34, so I started at 13:15 and biked to the Durlacher Tor (Durlach Gate, fromer city gate towards the now-suburb Durlach). While waiting for the Stadtbahn, tons of Police cars drove by, probably to guard the Badische Meile, a running event later this afternoon. Or they went to guard a protest march announced for today.

I entered the express-S4 which, arrived in Eppingen about 50 minutes later. It was only 14:30, so I had a comfortable 1.5 hours until 16:00, they next train one hour later might be a little too late for the 16:00 meetup. I left Eppingen eastwards, pretty much riding along the rail line continuing towards Heilbronn. My S4 would even have continued to Gemmingen, but my student ticket would no longer be valid after Eppingen, so I would have to buy another ticket. Also running next to me was the S-Bahn line from Eppingen to Heidelberg, which I used on my expedition to Mauer in January, which turns north after a few kilometers.

Shortly before Gemmingen, a quarry was located at the small field road. It had some pretty cool warning signs (beware of detonations), though it seemed closed on Saturdays. Also, there was a bike path leading past the quarry, so I took that.

Then, I entered Gemmingen, took a short detour and stopped at a supermarket to buy some food for a picnic at the hashpoint, since I still had plenty of time. After that and some photos in Gemmingen, I left it again and continued towards the hashpoint. Not far from the village, I turned into some field road, cycled up a little incline and past a few farm buildings. The hashpoint was close. I took out my GPS and kept cycling until it pointed 90° to the right. Interestingly there was a smaller field path right there, somewhat in direction of the hashpoint. A few hundred meters later, 90! again, exactly where this path ended. I parked my bike and walked between two fields and found the hashpoint by 15:25, located on some grass between two fields.

After writing the marker, taking photos and a video (note that the weather was better than it seems in the video, a cloud was covering the sun when I took it), I laid down my pullover as a makeshift tablecloth and ate a pear and some cookies.

I waited until 16:00 for the achievement and just in case that somebody would show up, took one last photo and then went back to my bike. Express S4s in Eppingen left at *:30 every hour and even if it took me almost an hour to get here, I was confident that I could make it in 30 minutes, if I left out stops for food and photos, also I know where I was going and it was going mostly downhill now.

I drove back to and through Gemmingen when I came to the quarry again. Somehow, I missed the exit to the bike path around it and ended up inside the quarry (which was indeed closed today). Even though I wanted to leave out the photo stops, I stppped to photograph a large dump truck and inside the pit (the actual quarry).

I barely arrived in Eppingen by 16:30 and entered the S4 back to Karlsruhe which brought me back to Durlacher Tor by 17:20, from where I biked home.