2016-09-12 50 6

Location

A small area of high moor in the Hohe Venn-region in the very east of Belgium (that did belong to Germany until WW I).

Participants

Plans

From the four nearest hashes to Hildesheim, where I ended up yesterday, were two in a country I've never hashed before. To be honest, the south-western one in Luxemburg was more than 80 kilometers away, what would have lead to a ride of at least 130 kilometers. In the very hilly landscape of the Eifel much to much for me. Of course, it would have been wiser, to go to the east to shorten my way home, but who cares for wisdom if he can gain a new achievement? And the hashpoint in the northeast (the southeast was at least as far away as the luxemburgian one) lies on the way I took yesterday to get here - how boring!

Well, let's go to Belgium!

Expedition

I started at half past nine, much earlier than in the last days. In Hildesheim, bps-reception was bad, almost 100 m off, and so I get a little bit lost, but then everything went fine. I crossed a hill and soon reached the valley of the river Kyll. After an hour I reached the small town Jünkerath. Here I found the"Vennquerbahn". This is a former railway-track that was turned into a cycle path. This is absolutely great, because it has a maximum rise of 2 %, and crosses valleys on bridges and hills in tunnels or slots. Another hour later I crossed the belgian border. I've left the cycle path twice because my navigation app told me to, but both times I returned on the cycle path again (after crossing some hills). At half past twelve, I've just passed Bütgenbach, it told me to leave for the third time. I had a look if it will lead me back on the track, but it won't this time.

I got hungry ow and in the next village clued Nidrum, I could have bought something but for some reasons I didn't stop. A short time later a sign showed the way to a friture, and I made 500m in the wrong direction, but it was closed for holidays. And then my way turned into the forest. Landscape was really great, in the forrest were several so called Venns, that are wide hill moore areas up there. And a lot of steep hills. At 14:15 I came close to the hash. I asked the bike and had just 60 meters to go. There was a small but long stripe of moor between two wooded areas. Around the moor were ditches and I wasn't sure on which side of the ditch I had to go. But I was sure that I didn't want to walk through the moor for 60 meters, and so I walked into the forest (to do so I had already to cross a small ditch. 60 meters further the arrow showed 10 m into the moor direction. I walked to the ditch and found a place where I could easily (well quit easy) cross it. Then I walked through the hipp heigh grass. It was dry weather for several weeks and so the ground wasn't wet, but very uneven and I couldn't see the ground because of the grass. Still 7,889 meters to go in northwestern direction. But then the screen froze, or at least, bps-reception did. I walked at least 10 m in the given direction, but I was still 7.889 meters southeast of the hp. I wanted for some minutes, but nothing changed. I turned hashdroid off and on again. Everything was fine, but - gps-reception showed 7.889 meters to the hash. So I decided that to be good enough. I've walked some 20 meters into the moor and obviously could have walked to the hash (and maybe did). I took the usual photos and walked back. Lucky enough I found the same place to cross the ditch again, and then bps-reception came back, but I didn't want to cross the ditch for a third time and returned to my bike (While crossing the last ditch again, I got a wet foot).

Now I just had to continue my way to Eupen to find a hotel. The first was an easy task, as Eupen was 400m lower than me. I made the remaining 18 kilometers in just 50 minutes. I still hadn't eaten anything and so I stopped at the first Cafe and got a delicious cheesecake and some tea. I still had to climb several mountains before I found a place for the night but that's another story. But I want to tell you that I had a delicious dinner with frog's legs and kidneys (a great part of belgium: you're in a foreign country, you can eat delicious strange food but still everyone speaks german).

I did reach my highest hashpoint so far yesterday, but broke this record today again. Th e hash lies on a hight of 603 meter. I broke a record that was more than two years old but it was only valid a single day.