2011-06-13 47 8

Location

Büsingen am Hochrhein is a German exclave, a German village but completely surrounded by Switzerland.

Participants

Ekorren - in the morning, by train to Thayngen and from there by bike
TheOneRing - by public transport

Expedition

Ekorren

A hash at Büsingen would make the somehow unique chance to score a border hash for my own country, and the border crossings would not only be for convenience like at many other places in the Higher Rhine valley which are easier and faster to reach by going through Schaffhausen or Basel than over the Black Forest. In the evening the idea came up to make this a double hash and meet with Hijackal at 2011-06-13 47 7, which would fill one of the two missing parts for the regional hash for Baden-Württemberg. Also, I had been able to somehow temporarily fix the damage the thieves had been leaving to my bike before I got it back.

I took the earliest train on the direct route, which was not that early anyway. First time I crossed the border was on the train, so there's no photo of that. Since the train didn't stop at Herblingen, I got off already at Thayngen and went on by bike from there. Passed Herblingen station in short distance, and took the road up into the foresty hills. The border back to Germany was not more than just a sign at the road - which was not really surprising since it never had much meaning at that point. I few years ago at my first visit to Büsingen, I entered this part of Germany on a small forest track, and I don't remember there being a sign at all.

The hash itself was pretty regular, not far from a forest track. Documented success, didn't leave a marker because I was lazy and really hadn't expected that this hash would be visited again.

Now I had to get back to the station, and that would better be quick. Still, a few weirdnesses need to be mentioned, and documented, like:

Büsingen has two postcodes, a german and a swiss one.
In the village centre, there are two phone boxes just aside. Choose one depending on where you want to call.
Büsingen has its own car license plate code "BÜS", so that border patrols know it's a local (usually they are assigned on district level. Forgot to take a photo of such a car, sorry).

So I raced over to the village centre, made a few photos, then went on to Schaffhausen. A few minutes before 10, I called Hijackal that I would almost certainly catch the 10:15 train at Schaffhausen, so that we could meet at Schliengen station at 12:20. I reached the station at 10:05, took a german train from Schaffhausen to Basel (which both is in Switzerland, btw), and from there to the meeting point. The tale might continue at 2011-06-13 47 7 some time.

TheOneRing

I decided at quite short notice, but I didn't want to miss the opportunity to visit this point. Unfortunately I didn't check this site before, otherwise I could have coordinated with Ekorren.

I left Berne around 11 o'clock and arrived at Herblingen near the geohash at 1 o'clock. Then there were only 1.5 km to walk, which was good, because the weather didn't look very promising. After a while I reached the Swiss-German border, which didn't look like a border at all. There was only a sign which marked the border line.

The geohash itself was quite easy to reach, it was in a forest but near the trail. I took the usual photographs and walked then back to the train station. Sometimes it rained a little bit, sometimes the Sun was shining. Confusing, I didn't know what to wear: a jacket or even take my pullover off.

There was a little bit of time while changing trains, so I walk through Schaffhausen and then got back to Berne. All in all it was very nice.

Gallery

Ekorren

Crossing the border - second time (of ten border crossings that day)
This way to the hash
90 degree time
Coordinates reached
The hash tree was curvy
Entering Büsingen
Swiss phonebox left, german phonebox right
Post office with two postcodes (see inscription above door)
To Switzerland: left. Or any other direction, actually. Also cycle trail signs in both swiss and german style.
Reaching Schaffhausen