2015-09-15 52 0

Location

A field just outside the North Norfolk Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty; more specifically, just south of Wells-next-the-Sea.

Participants

SpiritofMaurice

+1, dragged along Izzy for her first ever geohash

Plans

Explained geohashing to my girlfriend after my failed first ever expedition three days previously, and as luck would have it, today's hashpoint was conveniently(ish) located near(ish) her house!

Expedition

Although it was the middle of nowhere, this was only 200m off a public lane across empty farmland, so it was almost too simple.

Navigation consisted of simply opening the co-ordinates on Google Maps and asking for driving directions. It was a stormy afternoon when we set off, with brilliant blue skies clashing against towering thunderclouds; we decided to chance having the roof down on the convertible and watched leaden grey sheets of torrential rain sweeping along a few miles away as we drove along wet roads in beautiful sunshine. With few hills in Norfolk, the sky feels bigger here. The drive alone was worth getting out of the house for (thanks geohashing).

At the designated point, things felt even easier - there was an entrance right onto the field, and a large concrete hard-standing pad (kind of like a car park) to get off the road and leave the car on. Aside from a few bales of hay, no real signs of civilisation. No fences either!

We started following a bearing down a muddy lane with hedges either side, and at this point realised we had hilariously impractical shoes for an afternoon in very wet Norfolk mud. Live and learn. 200m down said lane, the hashpoint was showing as 8m directly North through the hedge - d'oh! Got it wrong, it was in the field itself, not on the adjacent track.

200m back to the end of the lane and 200m along the edge of the field, the crop recently harvested, leaving only soil. (More muddy feet.) The hashpoint was in the grass verge, where we grabbed a couple of pictures.

Afterwards, it seemed rude not to visit the nearby North Norfolk Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty near Wells-next-the-Sea - where the beach looked like this: