2024-02-02 49 8

Location

The westernmost of two parking lots that belong to a sports hall called Zahlwaldhalle. This place lies near Roßdorf, Landkreis Darmstadt-Dieburg, Hesse, Germany.

According to Bing Aerial, it’s the fourth parking space on the right when viewing from the entrance.

Participants

Green guy! (talk)
Green guy!’s mother (no consent to publish photos of her)
Green guy!’s father (no consent to publish photos of him)

Plans

As the hashpoint lies right on a public parking lot and because it’s the first one in near vicinity from our home since I discovered geohashing on January 23, I wanted to do a trip there with my parents by car (setting off between 4 pm and 5 pm local time, after my apprenticeship working hours). Even though we probably didn’t even need to leave the car for reaching the hashpoint (which is a not-so-frequent occasion), I wanted to go for a walk in the vicinity since I have a passion to discover and explore new places in the world. After that, we intended to go to a restaurant in the nearby village Roßdorf.

Expedition

(Side note: Is this trip actually worthy to be called an expedition?)

As planned, my parents and I drove to the geohash by car (with my father at the wheel): We took the B26 motorroad (trunk road) headed towards Dieburg, and drove off at the Roßdorf-Ost exit. Then, we turned right a few times to reach the parking lot just before 5 pm.

We were able to park our car exactly on the previously-mentioned fourth parking space on the right. We got out of the car and I snapped some photos and a screenshot of OruxMaps with the coordinates. The parking lot is abbutted by a construction site on the west and the Zahlwaldhalle on the east.

Next, we went for a counter-clockwise walk around the sports center and the Ruhewald Roßdorf graveyard: It wasn’t too cold, but really windy, especially on the open fields. My mother really liked walking on the forest track leading to the graveyard as it was abundantly covered with leaves from the last fall (autumn). When we reached the Ruhewald Roßdorf graveyard, we were somewhat surprised (and my mother accused me of hoodwinking her) of not finding an actual cemetery, but a Bestattungswald (“burial forest”) instead. After that, we walked south and saw a beautiful sunset on the open landscape. Finally, we walked back to our car to go to a restaurant in Roßdorf. At that point, the time was just before 5:30 pm, a time when many restaurants open for dinner.

First, we tried out the popular family-operated restaurant Zur Sonne in the center of Roßdorf – however, we were quickly driven away from this place due to severe stench from tobacco smoke in the corridor that leaked into the dining room. It was a tough moment for me since I am very sensitive to tobacco smoke stench and also was already really hungry.

So, instead, we opted for the nearby Ristorante Tiramisu where I had a delicious Pizza Margherita for dinner while mom ate a tuna salad and dad enjoyed a Calzone. After dinner (around 7 pm), it was dark outside – we all felt really tired and drove back home.

Tracklog

The tracklog (which I didn’t immediately start) shows my anti-clockwise walking route near the geohash (deviations from tracks and paths are GPS inaccuracies), including locations where I took photos. The waypoint in the south is a photo I took from our car while driving away from the hashpoint.

Pictures

Coordinates reached in OruxMaps
Looking east from the hashpoint (our car is on the left)
Looking west into sunset and construction site (had to crop the right half of the image with my parents)
Looking north from the hashpoint
Looking east from the hashpoint (our car is on the right)
Stupidly grinning because I’m joyful about visiting my first geohash
Fun fact: Usually, I never take selfies! But geohashing gives me enough reason to do so.
Zahlwaldhalle, east of the hashpoint
A bunch of timber lying around
A beautiful sunset
Sunset view from our car
Enjoying a Pizza Margherita at Ristorante Tiramisu; top right: a leaf of chicory