2010-12-26 47 8

Sun 26 Dec 2010 in Zürich, Switzerland: 47.7216583, 8.7087315 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Location

Today's location is in a small forest between Thayngen and Dörflingen, near Schaffhausen.

Country: Switzerland; canton: Schaffhausen (EU-CH-SH)

Weather: very cold (between -12°C and -8°C), but sunny

Expedition

Danatar

I had been celebrating christmas with my family in Konstanz and had to drive back to Würzburg on Sunday because I had to work the following day. The hashpoint was located in the northermost part of Switzerland, less than 1 km from the German border, so I decided to visit it. After starting at 1 pm, I changed the Autobahn at Singen and drove to Gottmadingen, then I crossed the border at Thayngen. The Swiss border guard asked me "Anything to declare?" and let me continue after I said "No." After a short drive along a country road I drove past the hashforest, looking for a good place to stop, then I drove back to where I had seen a small parking area. There were some other cars, probably belonging to people taking a walk in the nice countryside.

The shortest route to the hashpoint would be along the road to the hashforest, but I decided to take a longer, safer and nicer route along snow-covered field tracks. Zig-zagging between the fields I found many animal tracks and got snow into my boots before I reached the hashforest. I chose a forest track that was leading in the general direction of the hashpoint and it really lead me within 30 metres of the hashpoint. Just when I was thinking about where I would cross the underbrush I saw a man walking along the track towards me. I took some innocent pictures of the forest and said "Hello" when the man got near. He answered with the local version of "Good day" and continued. When he rounded the the next corner, I continued towards the hashpoint. I reached it easily and took the usual pictures, then I started back.

Because of the low temperatures I started to get cold, so I walked along the country road on the way back to my car. Instead of driving back to Germany and home, I had decided to visit the Rheinfall (Rhine Falls) at Schaffhausen, the largest waterfalls in Europe. I had never been there and with all the snow and the sunshine I expected a nice view. Following country roads (I didn't have the vignette needed for the Swiss motorway) I reached Schaffhausen, crossed the city and parked near the waterfalls. They were lit by the evening sun and I enjoyed the view, taking lots of pictures. When the shadows of the nearby hill reached the falls I went back to the car and retraced my route (thank you, GPS tracklog, for telling me which roads to take) to Germany. The German border guards just waved me through. Most of the Autobahn to Würzburg (I followed the whole A 81, from one end to the other) was more or less empty, only on the last 30-40 km the road conditions were impaired by heavy snowfall. I reached home shortly after 8 pm.

This was my first expedition in the Zürich graticule and also my first expedition in Switzerland. Also my first expedition in the last 2 months.

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  almost there...

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  GPS

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  Coordinates reached!

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  animal track

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  animal track

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  Rheinfall...

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  ...from the side

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  ...from above

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  ...with tourist

The tracklog of my GPS unit was in "overwrite oldest data when full" mode, so all the interesting parts of the route were replaced by the Autobahn :-(