2024-10-31 55 -4

Location

In a field near Tarbolton.

Participants

KerrMcF

Plans

KerrMcF

My panic grew day-by-day as the coordinates for October fell in awkward or unreachable places on my free days, and were only hypothetically possible on busy days. The return to university completely messed with my geohashing activity, and I was hoping that I would be able to complete at least one geohash before the end of the month, for the sake of my (as yet, non-existent) Constant geohasher achievement progress. The same issue happened last year, but to an extent that my streak of monthly geohashing came to an end. It reached 2024-10-29, and the geohash point for the next day wasn't great. "Fingers crossed for Thursday", I said, but my hopes weren't high. I'd been in this situation before, and it seemed likely that I was going to be having a repeat. Then, the next day, after checking the coordinates for the 2024-10-31 geohashes: "Oh, thank goodness".

I have a haircut booked at 3pm on the day, but I should be able to reach the geohash well in advance of this. This is the furthest south I will have ever travelled for the sole purpose of geohashing, and I wouldn't usually attempt this far of a location, but desperate times call for desperate measures, as they say. I would attempt a Holiday achievement, since it's Halloween, but I don't want to risk getting my costume dirty in the field, so I'll have to pass for this time. The drive to Tarbolton should take roughly 50 minutes, and I'll park on Westport, the same road with the entrance to the field. The field itself should be accessible at this time, so I shouldn't have much difficulty getting there.

Expedition

KerrMcF

Well, the expedition was a success! Which was my only real goal with this one. I left at around 11:50am, and drove straight to Tarbolton. There was a minor issue at one point with another car refusing to let me merge onto the motorway, resulting in me being forced back off of the motorway and having to do a loop, but otherwise the drive went well. I parked on Gallowhill Avenue, which seemed to be an okay place to stop, and walked towards the entrance of the field. Tarbolton has a couple of connections with Robert Burns, including the Tarbolton Bachelors' Club, which he co-founded in 1780. I saw brown tourist signs pointing me towards the Bachelors' Club before I saw any for Tarbolton itself. The village seems to pride itself on these connections, evident in the display seen when entering and leaving the town, which I have added a photo of below.

The field was relatively easy to reach, and the gate was loose, so didn't need climbed. The walk to the point was simple, and it was quite quick to find. I reached the point just after 1pm, took my photographs, and began to walk back to the village. I realised that I had passed a "Welcome to..." sign on the approach to the geohash, so I took a photograph of this. "Free Burgh of Barony" doesn't seem to hold much meaning now, but it appears to have meant that the landowner of the village would have had the right to hold weekly markets.

I had decided that I wanted to attempt to recreate the photograph on the Wikipedia page for Tarbolton, which was of the Tarbolton Parish Church. I headed towards this church and counted gravestones to figure out where to stand. The church was quite nicely designed, seemingly built in 1821. I didn't head inside, nor did I visit the Bachelors' Club mentioned earlier, due to the fact that I had a haircut booked for 3pm and wanted to make sure I was home in time for that. I walked back to the car and drove home, which went pretty smoothly. I ended up getting home at around 2:20pm, with plenty of time before my haircut.