2009-12-12 53 -1

Location

A car-park in the city of Leeds, Yorkshire.

Participants

Lannanos, apparently all on my lonesome.

Expedition

I cycled most of the route to the hashpoint, stopping off in the city to browse the gloriously naff selection of postcards on offer. I walked the rest of the distance so that I could mapread without careering into walls, pedestrians or any other such objects wrongly placed in my desired path of wobble.

After twisting and turning through various back-roads, I came across a stately home nestled between a council estate and the regular red-brick terraces of old Leeds. This seems to be one of the wonderful peculiarities of the city, that there are all these remnants of the Victorian 'new-money' crowd who threw up grand homes that would later stand empty or be converted into office space. I think Denison Hall is privately owned still though, but the aspect has greatly changed since its glory days.

The route continued to meander downhill, now consisting of tiers of busy main roads. I wandered up and down these roads, probably looking most bemused and miffed and in need of some serious help. Eventually I found the fire station, and the hashpoint was just within the next block.

I arrived in the early afternoon; having seen the area I was glad not to have scheduled my arrival for the orthodox four o' clock meetup time, since it would already have been darkening by then, and a deserted, tatty car-park is not the most glamourous of expedition targets, let alone after sunset when the ruffians and scallywags are said to emerge. I went over to the precise hashpoint and tried to enjoy all the entertainments it had to offer, but these were almost immediately exhausted (I say almost - I found a discarded Sainsbury's Supermarket banner discarded in the corner of the car-park, along with a pile of tyres. Rich treasures indeed). I scratched my mark into the brickwork and headed back the way I came. Hurrah for my first geohash. They can only get better.