2016-03-12 52 -0

Location

A field adjacent to a narrow road near Great Eversden, Cambridgeshire.

Participants

The Tongs

Plans

This is the first of a two-part multihash.

This is the hashpoint where we are planning to have the traditional 4pm meetup. Sunset around this time of year is about 6pm, so we'll visit the nearby Eversden Woods, and head off to the Harlton hashpoint, around 2km away, for around 5pm.

Expedition

This was the first geohashing expedition of 2016 for us, and it was a pretty good one, rated four out of five. The location was not too far away from Great Eversden, on the kind of day that makes you think that we’re finally beginning to pull out of the British winter.

After parking up near a farm, we had a 800m walk to the hashpoint. We were full of energy. T was planning the perfect photograph, arms outstretched and in silhouette, but all we had was an iPhone, and it was bound to disappoint. The ground grew ever swampier underfoot as we crossed a field. The GPS said we had 90m to walk, which was decidedly further than the remaining number of metres in a field. We jumped ditches, crossed bogs, and avoided potential farmers to bag the hashpoint.

Over the way, there was a wood. We weren’t sure whether it was the woods we planned to visit, but it was only a field away. Bounding towards its edge, we again negotiated boggy ground to find a small clearing so that T could build a den, which M had correctly deemed unsuitable for the purpose. Being seasoned geohashers, we knew that sunset (which B called ‘sundown’ for dramatic effect) would be in about an hour, and we set a ten-minute deadline for the den. The resulting sticks lying against a branch would have to do. Stopping for pictures, and vowing to return to finish the job, we left the woods (having just clipped their edge) and headed back over the fields toward the car, enjoying the sunset. We saw a satellite dish on the horizon and T found a large walking stick.

Everyone had walked quite a way, and T’s legs were beginning to ache. Around the corner of a barn sat the car. One hashpoint down, another one to go.