2018-03-11 49 18

Location

By the road 933 in Ćwiklice near Pszczyna.

Participants

Malgond
his family

Plans

I have been waiting very long for an easy hash in the Ostrava graticule. I really wanted to deflower it - and add it to Minesweeper challenge. However only a small part of it belongs to Poland, the rest is Czech Republic and Slovakia. This weekend the geohashing trolls were very favourable to me and created a hashpoint in the very corner of the graticule and only just off a road! I couldn't have missed it!

Sunday's destination
lies in a field
just 10 meters off the road
and a few paces from
a tilted telephone pole.

I have surveyed the point in the Google Maps - it lies in a field next to the 933 road in the village of Ćwiklice near the town of Pszczyna, not far from a restaurant, which would be a convenient parking spot. Looking for characteristic features in the street view I have noted a tilted telephone pole standing by the roadside and a billboard announcing a car dealership in Pszczyna. The pole's shadow could be barely seen in the aerial view, so it was possible to measure the distance from the pole along the road (8.5 metres) and from the edge of the road to the hashpoint (10 metres). Easy!

Expedition

We set out after dinner. The weather was wonderful - sunny, but not too hot, with scattered clouds. The trees and fields were still barren, but there was no doubt that the spring has come finally - the roads were full of raging motorcyclists. Driving carefully, we've arrived to the city of Oświęcim, turned onto route 933 and soon passed along the walls of the former concentration camp. My son tried to take some photos, but the light was unfavorable at the moment and the pictures came out bleak and blurred.

Fifteen minutes later I've parked our car in the parking lot of a nearby restaurant. It was quarter past four. The younger boy and me changed our sneakers to rubber boots in anticipation of a muddy field at the hashpoint. The other family members did not bring theirs. We walked happily along the road towards the setting sun. Approching our destination I tried to make a photo identical to the street view one, but the setting sun was shining right in my lens creating a really bad flare. In the end I just blocked its light with my finger.

Parking lot.
Ready for an adventure.
Walking towards hashpoint.
Almost there.
Reproducing Google's street view.
The tilted pole.

We got to the place were the tilted telephone pole was standing. I produced a measuring tape from my backpack and with the help of my sons we've pinpointed the hashpoint. It was marked by a small brown mushroom growing there. Hurray! Another successful expedition!

Measuring the distance along...
...and across.
It's over there!
Me at the hashpoint.
Happy young geohasher.
A hashroom.
View to the south...
and to the south-east...
to the east...
to the north...
and to the west.

With the help of my sons I have stapled the XKCD poster to the telephone pole and we walked back to the parking lot. On the way back, the light was a bit more favourable and my son managed to take a photo of the former KL Auschwitz.

Fixing the XKCD poster...
to the telephone pole.
Poster on the pole.
Walking back.
Back at the parking lot.
Camp wall.

We've proceeded to Oświęcim and payed a short visit to our family there. In the evening we rode home. That was a nice Sunday!

Achievements

I had started geohashing without a GPS device and kind of got addicted to this mode of operation. It requires more patience and preparation and is rather slow to score new hashpoints - no deep forest or far-into-the-field ones. But it fits me somehow, as I don't have much time for adventure anyway.

This expedition was really satisfying - I scored another virgin graticule and levelled up in Minesweeper! Now, I am officially shooting for No Batteries Minesweeper combo - only two graticules left.