2011-03-05 51 12

Location

At the edge of a mining area in the easternmost part of Thuringia.

Participants

Expedition

Initially, Manu and Reinhard planned to cycle to this hashpoint and back to Leipzig on this sunny early-March Saturday, making a trip of 70 to 80 km, but during the breakfast Reinhard had this glorious flash of genius to give his and Manu's first double geohash by bike (they had a successful double hash by car before) a try and also visit the 51 13 hashpoint of this day.

So they started shortly after breakfast at about 10:30 and rode directly southward to the first hashpoint without any remarkable stops. A paved path lead close to the spot and passed a lake in that mining area. Continuing on an unpaved path they got really close, but it was still about 100 m, when they had to dismount from their bikes after 37 km. Not knowing what they had to expect, Manu and Reinhard had to climb a short steep and now knew, that it wouldn't turn out comfortable! The ground was all muddy/clayey/loamy and a huge puddle of mostly frozen, dirty water seemed to cover the hashpoint. While enlarging their bike shoes and overshoes with tons of clay, they tried to walk closer on the left side of the puddle, but had to observe that it was now 40 m to their right, meaning in the puddle direction! To find out, whether it was in or behind it, Reinhard threw a stone in its direction using moderate power and knowing that it would land about 30 m from his position. It flew ... and flew ... and landed, of course, in the puddle. Or better on it, since this part was frozen. Well, it wasn't too far from the other side, so Manu and Reinhard gave it a try and walked around the puddle, and - hooray - found the exact coordinates to be about 5 m on ~~dry~~ muddy ground. The little Foxi was also relieved, that today's 1st geohash was a success and demanded his own photo in this surreal landscape. Then the hashers went back to their bikes, spent 10 minutes to clean their shoes at least good enough to make them fit into their pedals and continued their double mission ...