2011-08-04 48 9

Location

A meadow orchard near the Bühl, Tübingen municipality.

Public transport available in the village centre, frequent connections by line 19 from Tübingen.

Participants

Ekorren lives close enough that skipping is not an option.

Expedition

Well, this was too close to skip, too easy to make it just a standard expedition.

I confirmed that the juggernaut achievement would force me to either change the official starting point (which is legal, but feels a bit like cheating) or cross the railway line where there is no crossing point (which is both illegal and dangerous). To go for a midnight expedition would have been a great idea because the day was kind of crammed time-wise already, but at the time I would have had to leave for that, it started to rain. Strong rain and rather cold weather in the night - no thanks.

In the end I decided to go for Tron and Hobbit.

The hard enemy of a Tron expedition is habit. Best to make sure you won't accidentally take a turn you shouldn't take, because you always take that turn at that point, is to choose a route for the way out which totally isn't what you would usually use to go into that direction, and never intersects with the standard routes. So I chose one along the side of the valley over worse ways, but always significantly south of the standard route.

The Hobbit achievement requires, among others, to walk at least one kilometre. Since leaving the bike along the way and picking it up later clashes with the Tron achievement, pushing the bike was the only option. So, additionally to pushing the bike uphill where it got too steep, I observed the distances and, about 1 km before the hash, got off the bike and changed to pushing. However, soon after that the way got so bad that riding the bike wasn't an option anyway - there wasn't really any way, just a line in the meadow which occasionally seems to be used by tractors.

The hash itself was, as expected, in a meadow orchard below an apple tree. The one ring was left at the location, and back I went along the usual bike route. Almost the usual - since a small part was closed for road maintenance. Luckily, at the moment when I saw that the road was closed and should have turned around to find another way, I still had a chance to escape to a parallel road through a small footpath.

Gallery

Who says that rings and food can't be the same? More efficient that way, isn't it?
View back on Tübingen
Hobbit feet
After the first stop
There is a better way, but I wanted to take that back
After the second stop, only The One Ring is left
Is that still a way?
The hash tree
Hash food
Coordinates reached
Leaving The One Ring at the hash
Ugh. Tron trouble ahead
Emergency exit!