2009-05-24 40 -2

Sun 24 May 2009 in 40,-2: 40.7976355, -2.3838622 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Participants

• relet

Plans

This time, the decision came easier.. today's hash point in 40,-2 would be right next to a Natural Reseve, the Alto Tajo. I love Natural Reserves about as much as I love mountains. And Alto means high, so this is going to be a Natural Reserve on a Mountain.

Expedition

Pre-expedition:

• A library in the metro station. Only in Madrid!

Again, I will still have to write this one up. But here are the pictures. I really enjoyed taking them - do have a look at all these flowers.

• A tower in a field - There was a town posted, called "Torremocha del Campo", meaning ugly tower of the field. I assumed that this had to be it, but I seem to have been wrong.
• I was on the Don Quijote route. No windmills here.
• A milestone, or just a spur post? - I started to take pictures roughly as soon as I left the highway.. there were still 30km to go on single lane, badly paved roads. It made me think these occasional stones might be milestones.
• It rained a bit
• I walked from here on - it's off the road to the north of the geohash, if you'd like to compare with the satellite pictures. Still a bit to go.
• A poppy
• I'm going to need help with naming all the others
• But they appealed to ḃoth my aesthetic and geometric senses - It's a fractal!
• Same flower, but earlier
• Trumpets in blue
• Common Mullein, probably
• I identified this branching on my hand-drawn map
• A very small troll - I later saw that the path I took was indicated on a hiking track map.. so it must be hikers who did this]
• Across the sea of rose - I left the track when Tomtom said I had reached the correct latitude.
• Suddenly, a field.
• I followed the tracks of a machine - so as to not trample anything. However, the ground was really dry and the plants wide apart.
• Patches of haulms were everywhere among the fields where the machines couldn't cultivate them.
• A dry thistle - another fractal!
• Bear tracks? - in a sandbed at the bottom of the valley. Could have been a dog just as well.
• Hash point reached! - I won't complain about the batteries of Tomtom again. Once it is fully charged, it's great.
• A happy hasher
• I marked the place with 'xkcd' for a change
• More flowers on the way back
• and in white
• and in large
• I spotted this little buddy drinking nectar - are they supposed to do that?
• more white and yellow
• A beeyard
• violet!
• blue! - more fractals
• violet again
• and another poppy
• and a live thistle - I created some 3d fractals in Mathematica[tm] once upon a time, but nothing as elaborate as this.

Post-expedition expedition:

• The Alto Tajo greeted me like this. This is actually the river Tajo
• Impressive rocks - and I know there are more people here who can enjoy nice climbing spots
• down by the river - Unfortunately, I could not find the hiking path I was looking for in either direction.
• These buddies were huge compared to the ones we had on our garden pond
• A solitary picnic site
• and one for the next migration hash
• more rocks
• returning to Madrid on another road
• Even highways can look good provided the right weather. (I was actually trying to zoom in on the city in the background, but forgot to do exactly that)