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#1: [12-Apr-01]

08-Oct-2009 -- Travelling from Enschede (Netherlands) to Hamburg (Germany) I took the opportunity to add CP53N10E to my list. Discarding the advise of my navigation device I took the A30/ A2 to Hannover, turned North via the A352 / A27 direction Hamburg. And I was right: during the whole day the radio reported traffic jams (Stau in German) between Bremen and Hamburg due to that road being upgraded from 2 x 3 to 2 x 4 lanes. At exit 44 of the A27 direction Uelzen I followed the B209 for 5 km and turned right at Hermannseck. The bridge over the railway as mentioned by previous visitors is reached in about 2 km. As it is difficult to find “the last road to the left before the bridge” I found the first road to the left after the bridge. And there I was: in the middle of the forest because my road ended after 30 m, Carefully I turned my car, parked and prepared for walking through a rather wet forest.

According to the GPS it was only 300 m to the CP. But I had to pass through dense and wet trees and to climb over barbed wires. Then I walked on a cattle track leading from the Emhof farm on the other side of the high road, bridging a brook, to a meadow. I crossed the brook, climbed again over barbed wires and walked over a forest path. The CP is close to this path, but due to unfavourable satellite configuration (EPE = 11m), a high wall to the West and tall, dense spruce the reading was not very stable.

I pinpointed my position in the middle of the path. The chosen position is the dark spot on the path as seen from the North. The CP is some meters to the right. A lucky shot of the screen of the GPS shows a DTG of only 9 m. North, East, South and West looking photographs, taken from “chosen position” show not only the still very green forest but also the very nice weather. At the top of the West photograph the high road is at the bright spot.

Walking some 50 m more to the North brought me to a fork of three asphalt roads with a bicycle road sign. It seemed you could drive to this point, still within 100 m of the CP, by car. In the car again I left the wood, returned to the direction North and turned the first right. A sign denies admittance for heavy traffic, which I’m not, so I continued and turned right again at the first opportunity. Via a very small passage under the railway I reached indeed the three forked roads. All tracks are shown as overlay of a GoogleEarth screenshot.

As it is autumn and it was rather wet the past few days there are a lot of mushrooms. A collection of very tiny one’s, some of them are less than 1 cm ( 3/8 inch). A peculiar member of the mushroom society is the large stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus). At left you see the “egg of the devil” or “egg of the witch” (I forgot to photograph it before I used my knife). It is the beginning of the growth of the mushroom with the size of a golf ball. When you cut it you see the complete mushroom as it is packed in the egg (centre). Full-grown it smells, you can say it SMELLS. The dark-green stuff at the top contains the spores and gives out the smell to attract flies. Once you have enjoyed the smell of the large stinkhorn you will detect it immediately and you can normally find the mushroom by following your nose. Due to its phallic shape a lot of stories were told.