2009-01-12 48 12

In a frozen, snowy field south of Neutraubling, about 10km southeast of Regensburg. Just 400m northeast of 2008-12-18 48 12. Dawidi and Tomcat were there independently and did not meet.

Morning visit (dawidi)

Keeping my tradition of failed Sunrise Geohash attempts, I hit the road nearly an hour later than planned, at around 7:30 in the morning, even though this time, I did not oversleep. It had begun to snow a little, and for the first time in years I cycled a segment of my old way to school among schoolchildren - even while at the university I had only rarely been on the road that early.

As expected, while riding through the snowy, dull morning with a little headwind from the east, I reached and maintained a comfortable operating temperature despite measuring -8°C with a thermometer in a front pocket of my ski jacket. Apart from the last 500m, the way was the same as to the previous nearby hash, and generally a well-known route for me.

At the southern end of Neutraubling, which is essentially a business park, the destination field appeared as a featureless gray void that would require GPS navigation. The last time I was here a month ago at night, it was a black void and similarly featureless.

Except this time, the ground was frozen, so instead of making a mess of my bike on the muddy track, and then making a mess of my boots wading through the sticky field, I could just push my bike across the field easily and stop at the coordinates with essentially clean boots! I took this chance to revenge for last time and stuck my tongue out at the field.

I spent about 45 minutes at the spot, waiting for the thermometer to drop below Tomcat's recent Cold Geohash record of -10.5°C, but it remained at -9.9°C. Once again, the stupid field wasn't cold enough ;-)

While waiting, I walked funny to write "xkcd" into the snow and took pictures.

At around 9:30, my fingers got a bit cold, so I decided to leave and cycle to the office, where I caused a big cheer among my teammates for arriving unusually early, or "less catastrophically late" as I tend to put it.

Into the white void! The hash is a few hundred meters behind the signpost.
Dawidi at the coordinates.
Icy GPS.
A hashpoint in the middle of the white void.
Thbbthbt! No sticky mud this time!
Snowffiti: "xkcd".
It's too warm!
View north to Neutraubling.
End of the expedition, arriving at my office.

Evening visit (Tomcat)

Originally i had not intended to visit today's 48 12 hashpoint. But as things happen - finally i had to left office already in the afternoon to settle things in the city. On a closer look at Google Earth, i realized that the hashpoint was only about 500m away from the shop for animal need, where i usually buy stuff for my cat. So it was a clear decision, that this shop had to be visited today ;-)

Due to the actual weather conditions it was a fast, simple and clean expedition. I parked my car beside the road an walked along the way between the snowcovered and frozen fields to a point where suddenly some tread marks lead into the field to my right. I just had to follow this trace until i reached the signs "xkcd". Then i took the usual photos and walked back to the road.

Evening visit: Tomcat at the hashpoint.
The way to the hashpoint.
Signs of my predecessor at the hashpoint.
Exactly at the right spot.
The lights of Neutraubling seen from the hashpoint.


Mon 12 Jan 2009 in Landshut, Germany: 48.9716227, 12.1939858 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox