2014-04-12 48 8

Location

In the forest near the B3 between Ettlingen and Rastatt.

Participants

Plans

To go there by bike or bull, depending on the time I can start from home. Try to be there around 4 and ride back by train from Karlsruhe. Riding on the left side of the rhine may allow a tron achievement.

Expedition

After beeing the most active graticule twice in a row, the Mannheim graticule is rather inactive in April. So I thought I could reactivate it this saturday, but not only is the hashpoint over 60 KM north of Speyer but it also seems to be inside of a house and so is probably unreachable. So I decided to head southwards to the 48,8-hashpoint. After visiting the local market in Speyer to buy some vegetables and having a small lunch at home it was already half past one again, and so I had no chance to reach the hashpoint in time by bike and my bull has to do again. Since I already was near Ettlingen two weeks ago, I chose another route on the left side of the rhine this time. Nevertheless I found some breeding storks again, and some bears garlic also, which lead to an aromatic soup in the evening. After nearly two hours of riding I reached the ferry, that should bring me to the other side of the river.

Unfortunately, it has just started and so I had to wait for 20 minutes until I could reach the rhines right bank. Now there were only 10 KM left to go, but it was close to 4 also. And the route lead over some forest pathes where the bull couldn't go to fast. Then I reached the B3 and had to go another 2 KM at short past 4. Five minutes later I staked the mount and had some 60 m to go into the forest. Unfortunatly the ground was coverd with blackberryplants with only some pathes between them. Irrespective of the danger of raptors I fought myself into the copse and after a while I had a 3 on my garmin (with an accuracy of 5 I decided this is good enough). I left a chalk mark at a nearby claering and went back in my own path to the bull. Here I not only found some raptors marks at my legs but also two ticks slowly crawling upwards my legs. You see, raptors were not the only and not even the most dangerous animals at todays hashpoint (I found two more of them later when I was in the train).

Short time later I reached Ettlingen again, where I knew already that I could get some good icecream to celebrate my success and continued to Karlsruhe main station to go back home by train. But the train I want to take home was using the right side of the rhine today because of construction work between Schifferstadt and Ludwigshafen and so I had to take another train and change in Wörth and Germersheim, not beeing in Speyer before 19:24. So I decided to ride back from Germersheim on my own, but that didn't change much as I reached home at 19:26 (as I need more than 2 minutes from the station to my home I was still earlier but not woth speaking).