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| == Ribbons == | | == Ribbons == |
Revision as of 18:41, 7 October 2009
Location
Cabo Espichel, near Sesimbra, Portugal.
Participants
Plans
Since I've been at the RIPE meeting in Lisbon all week, I've been waiting for a good set of coordinates to deflower the graticule with. You couldn't really ask for a better location than today's, on a picturesque headland about 50km south of the city.
Expedition
I ducked out of the afternoon sessions and set off on my adventure. Not really sure how reliable Portugese public transportation would be, it was with some trepidation that I waited for the 13:45 207 bus to Sesimbra. Luckily it was on time, and I had a few minutes to buy some hashcards in Sesimbra before my 14:50 connection on the 201 to Cabo Espichel. The journey thus far quite uneventful, I took the bus to the last stop, at the convent.
The cliff face exposes billions of years of history due to tectonic movement. Jurassic era
dinosaur footprints are visible in the rock. Apparently the locals used to believe these were the footprints of the Virgin Mary. This explains why they built a convent at the top - though it doesn't explain why Christians aren't more terrified about the monumental size and clawed feet of their saviour's mother.
To ease me into hashing in a whole new country, the route to today's coordinates led me across a field. Of course, this being the rocky heathland of Portugal's coast, it was a field of seagulls instead of corn or horses. The hashpoint itself lay a little further in a lush strip of bushes.
A hash-beetle occupied the exact coordinates, but I wasn't afraid of him. His miniature proportions made him seem almost cute; even rabbitfox could had squashed him with her dainty little paw. Coordinates reached, but with the sun beating down heavily, we didn't tarry long. I wrote out the hashcards (will you be lucky enough to receive one?), scratched a sign into the packed mud, watered a parched hash-bush nearby, and set off toward the lighthouse.
Unusually far inland for such an important lighthouse, the adjoining buildings today appear to be converted to apartments. Round the back we found the geocache GC173T7 into which I finally managed to drop a geocoin I've been carrying from Berlin through England.
Getting back was somewhat more problematic. The next bus heading back didn't come as far as Cabo Espichel, but only to Azoia. Fortunately it was an hour away so I had time to walk. On the way I followed an inexplicable wall along the entire route, which turned out to be a little aqueduct going to the convent.
I arrived in Azoia just in time to tank a bottle of water and a Red Bull before boarding the 201 back toward Sesimbra. This time I got off early at Santana in order to be in time
for the next connection back to Lisboa. The mist rolls in and out quickly in this part of the world, and it overtook us as we reached Santana.
And that's where I am now, writing the report on the bus home. Portugal's sun-parched countryside isn't much to look at, and I have to shower and head out again as soon as I get back to the hotel.
I hereby claim the Virgin Graticule achievement for the first geohash in 38,-9. In fact, unless I'm very much mistaken, I just deflowered the whole country. Hooray!
Photos
Sat Jul 24 13:36:21 BST 2010
Hash field on left across ditch.
Clubhouse just visible through trees.
Fri Jun 25 12:04:50 CEST 2010
iPhone map proof, of sorts.
Newfangled heat has wilted our grins.
Potential hashpoint A from another angle.
A nice tree-lined street for the hash.
Rabbitfox finds the rose geocache.
A funny way to adhere to building code - Edeka's carpark, with the facade of the original building left intact (there was a geocache here).
Fri May 21 21:54:43 CEST 2010
Horsies by Baruth station.
Tree-lined avenue from station to the Baruth park.
A very cool but dilapidated building on stilts next to the rather marshy park.
A travel bug and a gigantic oak holding geocache GC27F0Q.
Walking down the road toward Klasdorf.
Turn-off into what turned out to be a tract of land for a pipeline.
Pipeline pumping or monitoring station?
Mystery Box mark 2 - no box, just a lifeguard's chair!
Geodesic survey marker on a tree.
Marker and stone together.
GPS coords of the marker.
Where in Berlin they number every single tree, out here in Brandenburg they only number each section of forest :-)
The pipeline tract opens up into a larger field, the hashpoint is beyond the far line of trees, but... an electric fence!
Fortunately the fence ends abruptly and shows it was there for no reason at all.
Looking down the hashfield. The hashpoint is beyond the mystery box.
And turning the corner to see the hashpoint in the dead centre of this photo.
That's a cake. With two candles.
A tractor crosses the top of the hash field.
No poster, left a card. The tree sap is coming out in the strong sun.
After a flat journey, heading downward back into civilisation.
Baruth has a few of these strange underground cellars dotted around in public places - not connected to any private property.
Roundabout joining the two major roads running through Baruth.
Fri May 21 20:17:24 CEST 2010
This place is giving us the willies.
Hashpoint and boarded up house hiding in the trees.
Looking across the Rummelsberger See.
View down the Rummelsburger See from safety.
View from the other side of the lake. Just because.
Wed May 12 02:41:49 CEST 2010
iPhone Map proof. Wide inaccuracy due to neighbouring tall buildings, but we positioned ourselves accurately by map. Time: 23:59.
iPhone GPS proof at 00:00.
The early birds catch the midnight geohash.
South: Alexa shopping mall.
Northwest: Alexanderplatz ecke Alexanderplatz.
The full night-time geohashing lineup.
And again for safety (and because rabbitfox was indigant).
Proof that you can see Alexoase from the hashpoint.
Sat Mar 20 21:27:45 CET 2010
Observation platform just before the hashpoint.
Carpark. Woman is on the hashpoint.
Part of the enormous graveyard complex.
The three adjacent graveyards mistrust each other so much they have fences in between.
Sun Mar 14 19:21:40 CET 2010
Wed Dec 30 19:04:59 GMT 2009
A choice of four public swamp-paths
Thu Dec 10 23:14:11 CET 2009
iPhone Cheaper GPS "There/Not There" mode proof
iPhone Cheaper GPS "Warmer/Colder" mode proof
The Sommergarten was not open
Fri Dec 04 21:05:14 CET 2009
The erotic massage parlour next door.
The church in front of the hashpoint
No GPS reception in the hof
Sun Nov 29 02:55:38 CET 2009
Entering the haunted forest
Wed Oct 07 20:45:45 BST 2009
First bus, Lisbon to Sesimbra.
Second bus, Sesimbra to Cabo Espichel.
My bus in front of the monastery.
Green hides the hashpoint.
A blockage before the hash ...
... and a way through ...
rabbitfox impersonating davidc.
Lighthouse. Actual Size!!!
The lighthouse should be over there, really.
Millions of years of rock.
The monastery perched on top.
The monastery and the rocks.
A fresh ditch by the road. No doubt to bring FTTH to the residents of the lighthouse.
... turned out to be an aqueduct for the monastery.
... along the whole route back ...
Typically half-arsed attempts at building houses.
That's not sunlight forcing my eyes shut, that's a river of sweat that even my big fat eyebrows can't divert.
A much more dignified photo of myself at this point.
The first town! Bus stop not far away.
rabbitfox double-checks the hashcards.
The fog quickly overtakes the bus.
... back to Lisbon. The docks.
And the aqueduct in the middle of the city.
Thu Oct 01 23:54:02 BST 2009
I was so hungry I almost ate rabbitfox...
... fortunately there were some hash-berries nearby.
If you park your hash-car at a cute angle...
... you get a free tank of magical hash-fuel!
Thu Oct 01 23:19:24 BST 2009
Figuring out the best way to proceed
Thu Oct 01 23:15:03 BST 2009
These are not hash-sheep, but that is the hash-field on the left.
The freshly ploughed hash-field.
Thu Oct 01 22:52:07 BST 2009
Me in front of the Torchwood 3 Hub!
The Torchwood "main entrance" has become a shrine to Ianto Jones.
Torchwood, a.k.a. the Welsh Millenium Centre in Cardiff
Thu Oct 01 22:44:00 BST 2009
GPS at the previous photo point, not the closest I got, but I couldn't take photos at their front door.
Thu Oct 01 13:47:52 BST 2009
Wed Sep 30 23:03:15 BST 2009
The hashpoint. Maybe I'm Moses.
Cake, hashscot and GPS at the hashpoint.
Former Bramley and Wonersh station.
Wed Sep 30 22:12:35 BST 2009
A river separated me and the hashpoint from the north.
A public footpath! Barely a track through the woods.
Keep going. We are not the hash-horses you are looking for.
The hash-light at the end of the tunnel.
Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. I am often tempted to wee on one of these.
I am the Guardian of the Hash.
Look at us galloping to the hashpoint. Nyer!
My selfish need for a grazing field may have denied you a hash, but I would still like to be your friend.
The hashpoint is approximately at the metal feeding bin in the distance.
Even blindfolded, hash-horses can smell your GPS,
Mon Sep 28 10:32:14 BST 2009
Rabbitfox is unimpressed with the use of a TomTom for hashing.
Geotrashing the right way.
Thu Sep 24 13:06:18 BST 2009
Tue Sep 15 20:14:41 CEST 2009
The first hurdle. "Please shut this gate behind you"... but a padlock.
A convenient stile grants access.
The sign reads something like "Please don't come in". Not forbidden, just asking nicely.
Up the bluff to the hashpoint?
Why exactly does a golf course needs such a huge satellite dish?
Back down the bluff to the hashpoint?
Two fresh silly grin recruits.
The reverse geotrash begins.
Contents: Book, coffee cup, first aid kit, and a calendar dated 1990.
An office portacabin by the entrance.
About the landfill and planting.
Reverse geotrash completed!
Wed Sep 09 00:00:49 CEST 2009
Wed Sep 02 18:51:09 CEST 2009
Tue Sep 01 21:28:40 CEST 2009
Tue Sep 01 21:23:11 CEST 2009
Ribbons
Template:Virgin graticule