2009-05-25 49 9

Location

A 2009 Towel Day Geohash!

Today's location is between some trees/bushes on a hill near the city limit of Würzburg, in the borough Versbach.

Country: Germany; state: Bayern (Bavaria, EU:DE:BY); administrative region: Unterfranken; district: Würzburg city district

Weather (18:00): Sunny, hot (between 28 and 30°C according to the official weather station, which is not near the hashpoint)

Participants

Expedition

Danatar

The hashpoint is about 3 km from Danatar's house as the bird flies, so he decided to do another walk geohash. He brought a towel with him (because of Towel Day) and a fruit salad for a picnic. On his way to the hashpoint he did some detours but neither McDonald's nor Burger King had Squishees. Most of the walk was easy (but hot) and Danatar soon reached the road that led nearest to the hashpoint, where he found Srs0 and thepiguy on the last intersection, about 100 m from the spot.

The direct direction to the hashpoint was blocked by a fence, and nobody wanted to crawl through the underbrush alongside it, instead they followed the track until the fence ended and they were in a meadow with very high grass, where Srs0 and thepiguy left their bikes. From the other end of the meadow, it was still 30 m to the hashpoint so the three geohashers entered the wilderness. They snaked their way between bushes and through a small ravine until they reached the hashpoint, where the bushes were less dense and there was even some grass growing.

After documenting the gps reading, the towels and Stupid Grins^TM, Danatar uncovered the fruit salad and they had a picnic. Then thepiguy and Danatar undressed (except for the towels, to spare Srs0's sanity) for the Geoflashing and Calendar girl achievements.

On his way back Danatar used the shortest route and, when a bus arrived just as he was passing the stop, even took it for a short distance.

Total distance walked by Danatar: 5.9 + 3.8 = 9.7 km

Srs0 and thepiguy

The hashpoint was around 7km from their place, so they left work a little bit early and got on their bikes. They quickly found they had biked in a circle due to confusing bike signs, turned back around, and then waited for a non-existent traffic light to change before realizing and continuing on. They ended up following the bike path signs down multiple one-way streets in the direction opposing traffic. After a while, thepiguy's GPS pointed them up a big hill, so they started climbing.

Upon reaching the top, they stopped to catch their breath. Their way seemed to be blocked by a fenced-off field. Danatar then arrived (from a completly different dirrection!), and the three individuals walked around the fence to a hidden meadow. There, Srs0 and thepiguy left their bikes in the tall grass, and wandered around, looking for a way through or around the ravine in front of them. Danatar managed to find a way through, and they all got to the geohash coordinates in a little opening in the forest.

They claimed victory and had some delicious fruit salad, provided by Danatar, before Danatar announced his intention to take some "stylish" photos (wearing only a towel). Not one to ignore potential achievements and ribbons, thepiguy joined in, and Srs0 was left to take the "stylish" pictures of the two towel-wearing geohashers.

After around a dozen photos, Danatar and thepiguy put their clothes back on and all three headed back to the meadow. Srs0 and thepiguy found their bikes (after a bit of looking in the tall grass), and then returned to the intersection where they had met Danatar earlier. At that point, Danatar went off one way, while Srs0 and thepiguy returned home by the bike paths. The trip back went much smoother, now that they knew the tricks of the bike path.

On a side note, Srs0 unfortunately forgot about Towel Day until thepiguy and Danatar reminded him. He discussed it with thepiguy the day beforehand, but then forgot on the day of, and therefore didn't bring his towel. Hopefully he'll remember next year! (He did, however, know exactly where his towel was while at the Geohash. It just wasn't with him.)