Location
In a field near the city of Marne in Kaiser-Wilhelm-Koog in Schleswig-Holstein.
Participants
Plans
Leidenfrost and π π π plan on attending the hash, travelling via car from Hamburg, as we are planning on completing the first successful expedition in 53,8-SH. We should arrive on site at ~18:30 local time.
Expedition
After planning the hash the day before, I was finally free to go on the expedition at 17:00, where I got in my car and drove to meet π π π close to the subway station of Niendorf-Markt, who had arrived here via Bus from the library. We spent almost no time dilly-dallying and got to driving, catching up on the way. Just a few kilometres in, I noticed that the fuel indicator had dropped to zero while I wasn't paying attention, but fortunately we were able to fuel up at a station nearby for 30€ at 1,84€/litre, which was not the worst price, considering. We then drove for about another hour until we reached our destination – no, not the hash – the lowest natural point in Germany, a staggering 3.54 metres below sea level, I had always wanted to visit this mystical, magical place.
We drove for another 30 minutes until we reached the field near the hash, where our fears had materialised. We scouted the location for a while until we came to the conclusion that there was neither a good point of entry, nor a good way to the hash. The tractor tracks were already overgrown and very hard to spot from away, and the seeding seemed to be very optimised, this was a continuous sow, the entire field was completely covered with young wheat crops and we still had another ~200 metres ahead of us. We debated if what we were about to do was really worth it, there was going to be no way we'd get through this field without damaging the crops, but knowing that we had already travelled so far pushed us into going for it, at least the economic damage wasn't going to be great. So we got to the edge of the field, where our car was parked and went in, following the tracks and trying our hardest to step on the least crops, π π π ahead, with me following in his footsteps. We turned when the tracks turned for the first time and made our way north-westwards to the hash, we got ever-closer, when finally it dawned on us – these were not the correct tracks, we had accidentally taken the wrong tracks, even though we scouted this out beforehand. Now the least damaging way was through the high field of wheat, so, stepping even more carefully, we got to it. Finally, after about 29 minutes for about 200 metres of field, we had reached the hash. We did not hashdance, we had arrived where we had set out to arrive. Our way back was through where we arrived, until we got to the tracks, where we decided that the best way would possibly be via the wind-turbines, as OSM suggested there might be paved roads there, so we walked along the tracks until we reached the turbine, and were finally free of the field. We admired the wind turbines, and made our way back via the paved roads that connected them, in hindsight, we should really have approached the hash from here.
After walking back a bit, we got into the car, drove for just a little while until we got to a dyke where we had a majestic view of the North Sea, if hundreds of metres of grasslands weren't in the way and weren't currently unflooded. π π π insisted on going into the "abandoned" barn near the dyke, which I ascertained was not abandoned but just in slightly rough shape. Afterwards we got into the car again, determined that I would drop π π π off at Schnelsen, where we chatted for a bit until he had to run. I drove home the rest of the way and arrived at 23:00.
π π π
Not much to add – this is the first time I don't have to write the report for my own expedition. A few more points:
- We'd had Marne-West on our radar for a while now, because 53,8 was Schleswig-Holstein's last regional virgin graticule. SH is now the sixth of Germany's 13 non-city states to achieve full coverage (still missing: 4 graticules of Saxony-Anhalt, 3 of Bavaria & Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, 2 of North Rhine-Westphalia (both achieved by Fippe five days after this expedition) and 1 of Baden-Württemberg, Hamburg, Hesse, and Thuringia).
- This was not only one of the densest fields I had to walk into (together with one two others where the hash was near the edge), but also among the farthest I had to walk into a field at 180 m. And it had to happen at this high-effort expedition.
- We were in full view of two occupied holiday houses, and people were definitely watching us from one of them for a while.
- I was surprised my the sheer amount of wind turbines in the area, until I learned that this is Germany's wind energy hotspot. The tiny village of Kaiser-Wilhelm-Koog was home to the world's largest wind turbine in the 80s, Germany's first wind park, and apparently the world's largest wind test area, whatever that means!
- I had wanted to visit Germany's lowest point in Wilster that day anyway, after my exam in the forenoon – quite a coincidence. It lay right on the way to the hash. Quote Leidenfrost: "Man, the air is thick down here!" I proposed the name Zugdelle in reference to Germany's highest point, which I have also visited. Who says the highest point is of more significance than the lowest?
- Another Leidenfrost quote: "Geohashing is way easier on the moon – you can't trespass!"
Photos
later
π π π: 26 pictures
Achievements
