2009-10-24 50 -1

Have you seen our geohashing marker? We'd love to hear from you! Click here to say "hi" and tell us what you've seen!

Curious about what geohashing is? Read more!

Location

Hythe, Southampton Water, just south of the ferry pier

Participants

Sermoa

Plans

Sermoa will take the ferry and be at the geohash by 4pm for the saturday meetup (if anyone else is thinking of coming?) For those not geohashing, look out for me at about 3:30pm on the webcam on hytheferry.co.uk. I'll stand just in front of those railings and wave an xkcd sign of some sort! Hopefully DavidMiller will be able to take a screenshot of me on camera! :D

By the way, the location appears to be in the Southampton Water, but i should be able to get fairly close!

The geohash in relation to Hyde Pier

Twitter stream

Sadly i haven't yet found a way to integrate this automatically live into the wiki, but here was my stream of tweets on #geohashingN50W1:

14:23 - about to take the train to southampton. aaaand relax! my journey to hythe will take as long as it takes.
14:47 - I'm on the free bus in southampton. might not make the 3pm ferry but I think there's one at 3:30pm.
15:17 - just having a bit of lunch as I wait for the 15:30 ferry. you should see me on the www.hytheferry.co.uk webcam at 15:45
15:51 - pls look for me now on www.hytheferry.co.uk webcam, screenshot and twitpic it thx!
16:27 - monica and I are at the geohash, or pretty near. should we cross the wall to get 2m closer?! http://twitpic.com/mqm38
16:31 - this is what you should have seen on the webcam. it didn't entirely work! http://twitpic.com/mqmrw
16:36 - RT @David_Miller http://twitpic.com/mqjzg - this is the best we got on the webcam! thank you David! :)
17:03 - this is as close as we're going to get! within 130ft I think. http://twitpic.com/mqrh6
17:54 - on the ferry back to Southampton now. it's been a great afternoon! :)
18:55 - back in Winchester, home soon! :)

Expedition

This trip started exactly the same as the one to Bierley, Isle of Wight: train to Southampton Central, and free bus to the Town Quay. This time i went to the other waiting area to get the Hythe ferry rather than the Cowes ferry.

me with Phillip - the famous Hythe ferry first mate!

I was so happy when the ferry pulled up and i recognised Phillip from Macronencer's trip to The New Forest near Hythe, when Mike took the same ferry! I introduced myself and explained that i was on a geohash today. Phillip gave me a big cuddle for a photo, which was so nice! :D

At the Hythe pier i spent a lot of geofaffing trying to get my xkcd poster to appear on the webcam! I was on the phone to DavidMiller who was telling me where to stand in order to get the best picture! It didn't really come out very well; i should have made it a lot bigger. I also annoyed someone in the Hythe ferry office who seemed to think i was trying to advertise something. Later on i found out that Mapaholic had also been watching the whole webcam fiasco, and put together a lovely animated gif of it! Thanks to both of you! :D

Due to the aforementioned geofaffing, i was about 10 minutes late to the geohash, but i don't think i missed anyone. I spent some time taking photos of the scenery, then i climbed over the wall and got about 5 metres closer. I always knew i wouldn't be able to get the exact coordinates without a boat, so i'm pretty happy that i managed to get 40 metres away.

It was odd to do a solo geohash again. I haven't been on my own since my very first geohash in Gosport. Not even any local residents asked me what i was doing. I left a marker but i felt a bit uneasy about it because it's quite a secluded, nicely landscaped residential area. So i added a message saying it's fine to take it down if they want to!

Galleries

Hythe Ferry webcam

DavidMiller managed to capture this image from the webcam - probably the best one there was of the marker

Sermoa trying to hold the xkcd geohash sign up in front of the Hythe FerryCam (filmstrip created by Mapaholic)

Main gallery

Entrance to the Hythe Ferry, Southampton side
My ticket for the ferry
Photo opportunity with the skipper
Having a cuddle with first mate Phillip!
First view of Hythe; the geohash is near the block of flats behind the pier
The long pier. The person with the brown jacket appears in Mapaholic's filmstrip! :)
This shows where i was in relation to the geohash
146 ft, about 45 metres away
Monica on the wall, with the hash point in the background
The housing area around today's geohash
A shot of Woolston bridge, where Southampton Water becomes the Itchen river
Those blocks of flats are between Woolston and Netley. Possibly Weston?
This is the sign that i hoped would show up on the Hythe Ferry webcam
I'm over the wall! I have to be very careful not to slip here
I saw lots of nice shells like these
Not going any further without a boat!
So i managed to get to 132 feet, about 40 metres from the geohash. Yay me!
The geohash is SOMEWHERE in this photo!
Monica, feeling a little bit cold and slightly wet from the spray
A geohashing marker
I left the marker on a nearby flower pot
Hythe high street. It's tiny!
Entrance to the Hythe Ferry, Hythe side
This is approximately what the ferry webcam sees.
The old pier train that takes lazy passengers down the almost 600 metres long pier
Looking down the pier
Looking back towards the geohash and where i was this afternoon
Hythe Pier
Another view of Woolston bridge, taken from the edge of the pier
The other Hythe Ferry. It's smaller than the one i took.
A pretty sunset over Hythe
Goodbye Hythe! See you again some day! :)