2017-03-30 51 7

Location

In the middle of a field next to the village Lenningsen in Germany.

Participants

Plans

This day happend to be one of the fews days with nothing to do for me - No exams, no lectured to attend at university, and no other responsibilities. My actual plan was to go to the next train station and just to take any train without any plans - Either by choosing a destination that sounds interesting or rolling a dice. But this time, I remembered that I read something about Geohashing! So i refreshed my knowledge by finding this wiki and searched for the next hashpoint position: The destination for my first GeoHashing-Expedition was found!

I discovered that today's destination was about 25 kilometres away from my home. It seemed to be accessible by bus, train and some last metres by foot - Laying in the middle of some field.

The weather was great, my motivation was high and I started for my first adventure!

Expedition

I started by walking to the central train station of my hometown, taking the train RE16 to Hagen. After half an hour, I arrived in Hagen and took the Eurobahn RE13 directly to Bönen, the next train-station nearby. 25 minutes later, I finally arrived in Bönen, and for the first time during this adventure, I've actually been in a city I've never been before. My public-transportation-app told my that I could take a bus to get as close as possible to the right coordinates. The bus was quite old, there was no air conditioning - But fortunately the ride was only 20 minutes long. Until now, everything was going really well. The Geohash-Droid-App showed my that I was only about 2 km away from my destination - But all of the sudden, the street was blocked by some tractor! Oh my! Since nobody had a tractor-flute to clear the street, the bus had to take an alternative route. On my GPS, I could see that I was driving to the wrong direction by now. I started to shake (not really) and to sweat (probably due to the missing air conditioning), but in the end I was able to leave the bus at "Alter Bahnhof" in Lenningsen, only 2 km away from my coordinates. This was the closest I could get by public transportation. Next to the bus station, there was the "Alter Bahnhof", an old, listed building, which is now apparently a kindergarten! A plate next to the building told me, that in 1965, Queen Elizabeth II. actually spent the night in a train waiting at this exact train station! Cool! So I met the Queen herself (well, not in time, but at least we've been at the same location!).

The rail trail of the train station was removed so I could easily walk to the coordinates. I met some people driving by with their bikes or just walking by with their children. About 200 metres away from the coordinates, my GPS told me to go to the middle of a field. In preparation for this tour, I already saw that the exact spot would be in the middle of a field. Of course, I was unable to know in advance what I had to expect. Maybe some aggressive cows, maybe crops that are metres high... I was lucky that the field was easy to walk on. Still, I was paying attention not to destroy too many crops by walking unnecessarily long in the fields. There was neither an angry cow nor an angry farmer, so I was safe to cross the field and to take a selfie. Hooray! My very first Geohash was successful!

On my way back, I crossed a river so I could take a short break here. It was a really nice geohash-adventure. Maybe not that "adventurous" at all - But sometimes, you can appreciate more that you believe on a short, random tour :-)

If you want to, you can leave some feedback and give some tips, especially on my report, since it's my first (and hopefully not my last)

Photos

My first Geohash! @51.5780,7.8027
Train to Hagen.
Train to Bönen.
Bus to Lenningsen.
A sleeping tractor blocks the way!
Bus stop in Lenningsen.
Old train station in Lenningsen ("Alter Bahnhof") - And some part of my finger (Sorry!)
Plate on the train station in Lennigsen.
Old rail trails from Lenningsen to my destination.
The last metres to my first geohash.
Geohash selfie!
A river nearby.
GPS proof.