2018-11-25 51 2

Location

A small forest in Koekelare, West Flanders province, Belgium.

Participants

Expedition

Today there was a reachable geohash in 51,2, a graticule I hadn't visited yet but which is still relatively nearby. It's quite rare that there are reachable hashpoints in this graticule, since it's about 90% water. Yesterday's hash was, amazingly, also on dry land, but inside a residential building. Today's was in a small forest in the middle of a rural area south of Bruges. I researched several ways to get to the hash. I could drive there in about 2.5 hours, but I didn't really feel like driving today. Public transport wasn't really an option given the point's remoteness (relatively speaking), so in the end I settled for a train trip to Bruges, then getting a rental bike and cycling the remaining 20 km or so.

I left Delft on the 8:01 train to Breda, where I changed onto the international train to Antwerp. I then changed again to get to Ghent, and once more to get to Bruges. There I discovered that the bike rental place that I had planned on using was closed, even though they mentioned on their own website that they were open today! Luckily there was another one in the city centre that was open, and I got myself a rather simple bike that was really more suited to short trips around the city rather than the marathon that I had in mind. Nevertheless, I set off and rode about 28 km through nice rural Belgian landscapes. Once at the forest I parked the bike and walked the last 50 metres through thorny undergrowth to reach the hash.

Then I had to go back, and after a few kilometres I began to feel cold and tired. The bike's chain was dry and rusty, the frame was too small for me, and the lowest gear didn't work, so cycling uphill became a bit of a challenge. I had planned to do some sightseeing in Bruges or Ghent afterwards, but upon reaching the bike rental place I was feeling so cold, tired and hungry that I just wanted to get something to eat and give my feet a rest. Since it was already around 15:45 I decided to call it a day and went back to the train station. I rode the same four trains to get back to Delft. According to my GPS, the total round-trip distance for today was 506 km.

This is the first successful expedition in 51,2. What is perhaps even more interesting is that this finally makes a solid link between Britain and mainland Europe on the Geohashing World Map, on the day the EU and the UK agreed on the terms of the Brexit deal. We still love you Britain!