2009-05-28 50 11

Location

Today's geo hash was located in a forest near the road between Waldeck and Bobeck.

Participants

Expedition: Manu

As I spent the evening before in Jena I thought the geohash would be easy to reach on my way to work in Leipzig in the morning. So I stood up half an hour earlier and until I parked my car on the side of the road only about 30 metres away from the hash point I even worried that it would be too easy! But this should not be the case. Immediately after entering the tight underbrush I stood at a very steep slope, which my GPS device told me to climb down. It was wet and muddy, but I tried to find a way down. When I finally made it within five metres to the hash point it began to drift away on the display due to the bad reception in the forest. I hurried to follow the signal climbing up the slope again, whereas I nearly lay down in the mud, until I reached the street again. Disappointed I reentered the forest, took some photos of me in the underbrush (unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera so I could only use my mobile phone and therefore photo quality is low), while the spot on the display was still wandering around me. Nevertheless I claim "coordinates reached". The note I brought with me to leave it for Reinhard like a few weeks ago I took back again, because I wasn't sure that he would find it in the evening. Furthermore I wanted to leave the shrubs quickly as I am always afraid of ticks - later I constantly thought something was crawling on my leg or neck, although I haven't found one yet. Did I mention that my shoes and trousers became very dirty - not really adequate for working in an office and cleanroom...

---Manu

Expedition: Reinhard

In the afternoon, while I was still at work, there were two heavy showers, which made me afraid that this one's going to become a Drowned Rat Geohash. But the weather got better and when I started from work at 6 pm even the sun was shining and many roads were dry, yet. After 19.4 km I arrived near the hashpoint at 6:42 pm, slipped plastic bags over my bike shoes and went into the copse. Quickly I got to the hashpoint, took some photos and got back to the bike.

I planned to take a small detour via Hermsdorf on my way back, but when I discovered that incredibly beautiful paved bike path through the Mühltal, which started in Bad Klosterlausnitz and lead to Kursdorf, I had to ride this one till the end, where I discovered another nice bike path going towards Gera, parallel to the major road B7. So this ended up in Gera, where I chose a road back to Hermsdorf that I hadn't tracked, yet, as well. After 102 km I was back at my working place at 10 pm to get my rucksack and ride the last 7 km home.

---Reinhard

Expedition: Jens & Uli (non-geohashers)

When you do strange things like chasing random points on maps in about 50km distance, people start to take notice. So I recently tried to explain the whole geohashing concept to two of my colleagues. One of them owns a little GPS gadget himself, so he seemed to be interested and found a nice point to go on Wednesday. I was still licking my wounds from last Sunday, it was windy and cloudy and everything, so I declined the invitation for a bike tour to the point and let them go themselves (last but not least, they both had half a day off and I went to work meanwhile). I hear they made it and maybe one of them will write something, give me a photo or tell me what to write about it ;) Might be a Puppet Master Geohash for me, but I think I don't like that concept too much, so I won't claim it :) ---Paintedhell

You are right Juja, we wrote something, not as quickly as you and the other professional Geohashers, because it takes a little longer, when you first have to find out, what to do. But now we proudly present our report on what happened that Thursday:

Ups, two new Geohashers (or should I say puppets of master Juja?), Uli and me - Jens -, appeared in graticule 50,11. And why? Well, it's all Jujas fault. From time to time she told us curious stories about her expeditions, sent us links to her expedition reports and told us, how to get the coordinates for the point to catch. So the vague idea of doing my own tour was born. When I checked the coordinates for Thursday, 28 May 2009, I knew: This will be my hashpoint. I told it to Uli - the woman sitting 2 meters away from me in the company we both work in, normally dealing with hashtables instead of hashpoints. A 50 km bicycle tour - no doubt Uli would join it. Ten minutes later the vague idea has changed to a (nearly) irrevocably plan of a two-persons-will-catch-one-point-trip.

So we met at 9 o'clock in Maua on Thursday morning. In normal times a simple working day, but in times of economic crisis this Thursday morning was allowed to become a hashpoint morning. The clouds were hanging deep and dark over our heads, and after a few minutes of cycling the first furry of rain came down. Fortunately, it was only a very short one, and so we reached Stadtroda quickly and dry on the nice bike path, starting there the climbing to Ruttersdorf and then Bobeck.

At 10.15 we arrived at the destination area. The point itself was situated 30 meters beside the street. Should be no problem to reach it. Ok, there was a slope with a gradient of 25 per cent, the wet ground was covered with prickly scrub and the air was full of mosquitoes (sensed 10 instances per cm^3). But only 30 meters to go, this should be possible. Did I already mention the clouds? There were lots of them, between the GPS device and the satellites. And trees, even more than clouds, also between the GPS device and the satellites. (Where else?) So the reception was not the very best and the marked waypoint started jumping. After performing some zigzag movement through the mosquito swarms we saw a tree that must have been the letter "X" in it's former live. Ok, only the upper part of the X was visible, but I'm sure the lower part was only hidden in the ground. And so we decided to declare this tree to be the hashpoint. You know, the X marks the place.

Back on the street, Uli had to free her cycling shoes from lots of mud and leaves - otherwise they hadn't fit into her pedals again. After a small and quick picnic - meanwhile it was freezing with 11°C - we started our way back, now first down the street to Thalbürgel, where the second shower reached us, and then the new paved bike path to Jena.

You can see our tracklog here. I hope it works. I've used EveryTrail for the first time. My IE didn’t show it, but Firefox did. So try yourself how lucky you are. --- Jens and Uli