2009-04-25 51 7

Plan

Arvid will go there. Options were either do 52 6 and 52 7(180km roundtrip), or 51 6 or 51 7(both around 200km). Since wind is from the south(east), I'll be heading southeast. It's somewhere halfway Dortmund and Bochum, in... a field!

Achievements

Cycled 205.8km
Crossed a border.
Geotrash Geohash

Expedition

Tracklog by bicycle

At 10:30 I left home. I expected the trip to take 5 hours, because of headwind, and an unknown amount of hills south of Reken. Just to be sure I gave myself an extra 30 minutes, for unforeseen things. There might be some unpaved roads in my plan, that i'd rather not take, for instance.

I had some fun when a male pheasant saw me and decided to run past in front of me. Of course I accelerated, and then it happened.... it took off! After running up to speed first. I saw a pheasant fly once before, and it looked a bit like a chicken trying to fly, but I have to say, I was impressed this time. I think it flew up to about 5m off the ground, and a total distance of about 50m before landing again. This is one of the birds that needs some speed first to lift off.

I was familiar with the road until Reken. From there on it would be unknown. I know there are hills there, but I had no idea how serious they were. Nor did I know the state of the "service roads". Quite often these are perfect asphalt in my area. But they can be any sort of mud or sand. I thought I might have maybe 1km of unpaved roads. I was wrong. It was 3km. Most of the time the road was rideable, and when it didn't there was a cycle/walkingpath next to it. It had bushes growing over the path now and then though. On the way back I found out it wasn't level either.

Just south of Haltern there is a path next to the road that says it's a pedestrian path, and cyclists are free to choose between that and the road. Since I generally prefer the road, I did that this time as well. And this time even legal! That didn't stop 2 cardrivers from honking and pointing me to the path. And to be honest, they might have a point. The path is very, very nice asphalt, and I was going uphill, so not very fast.

After that I missed a turn(between Haltern and Oer/Erkenschwick), but decided not to cycle back, since I didn't remember seeing a real road there. I continued and just took the main road, since going back and take the shortcut wouldn't be a lot shorter anymore anyway. On the way back I checked the missed turn (I took the main road on the way back too), and it was another service road with a gate. As cyclist I'm probably allowed in, but I didn't really regret not taking it.

Other shortcuts were fine. One had a very nice sign. And although it was paved I got deja vu's to the Tour of Flanders and the cobblestones there. I never been on asphalt this bad. I think the Belgians will sue the Germans when they find out about this.

The hills and wind and shortcuts weren't a lot worse than expected: at 15:25 I arrived at the road closest to the hashpoint. Since there was no tree to park my bike against, I went back a bit and took a small sidestreet. I had a lot of time until 4pm, so I wandered around a bit, and saw a female pheasant near the little stream.

I had announced this hash, hoping I wouldn't have to go into the field to claim this a saturday 4pm meetup. Sadly no one showed so I went into the field with (what I think was) young corn. The ground was very, very dry and hard. I kept to the tracks in the field, or the side, when I found out that went more towards the hash. There was some trash in the field that I decided to take home. Of course the hashpoint was in the middle between two tracks. I walked in both of them, muttering about this "not trampling fields" thing. And then I got a brilliant idea! Which worked out to be the stupidest thing I ever did while geohashing: I decided to throw my GPSr from the one track to the other, so it would go through the hashpoint.(Geohash By Proxy) I didn't throw my GPSr far enough to get to the other track. So I had to look between the corn to find it, and trample some anyway. I kind of paniced, since all this corn all of a sudden looked very much the same to me. And it wasn't possible to see the ground from above it. After about 4 minutes I found it (tnx logs! It went from N51.48099 E7.35271 to N51.48098 E7.35284 in the throw). I don't know whether I have been at the hash, but I have been within 5m so I'll call it a success anyway.

After I found my GPSr I tried to stay calm and walked back to my bike where I made a picture of me being relieved, and another of me staring into the light without my sunglasses on.

I made a picture of the surroundings in the direction of Bochum from the road next to the hash when I went home again at 16:10.

The way back was nicer. It was generally more downhill, and I should have backwind. I even overtook a car on the right in Castrop, going 50km/h. And then my cap flew off. I felt quite silly and got a laugh from the woman on the passenger seat of the car. I also made a picture of a sign that I noticed on the way to the hash. I don't know whether it's translatable though. As I said, I should have backwind, but the wind had turned a little more than the forecast said: it was now southwest, so I had headwind or annoying sidewind on some parts again.

On the unpaved road I stopped on the way back, and made some more pictures. I didn't have to pedal and got up to 25km/h. I really didn't notice the incline going the other way.

At about 20:30 I arrived home again.

It was either this path.
Or this road.
Hohe Mark, the area around Haltern generally looks like this.
Blooming field, nice smell too.
Blooming field, two sorts of energy production.
No access. Unless for no. 206. And bikes.
The road was the crappiest pavement I've ever felt though.
View towards the hash after crossing the railway.
Time&date.
View uphill from the sidestreet.
Stream and pheasant.
Track I walked on. Bike against the tree on this side of the street.
It's somewhere up there!
Or actually, up there!
Ritter litter. Or Voll-Nuss vuilnis.
It's straight ahead. There's a track on the right. I will walk on the other track first and then throw my GPSr from this one to the other.
Within the circle, but I'm not satisfied.
View back to where I came from.
Coordinates of that point.
And now my GPSr is somewhere there.
THERE!
The hash was in the same line as the edge of the field, so really in the middle between those pairs of tracks.
Relieved hasher.
Trying to look happy.
Bike.
View to Bochum.
Nature reserve signs.
Dear citizenins and citizens... Thank you for your cooperation.
This isn't a road I can cycle on.
So I'll take the track next to it.


Sat 25 Apr 2009 in 51,7: 51.4809778, 7.3527699 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox