2012-03-30 52 5

Fri 30 Mar 2012 in 52,5: 52.0555327, 5.1308179 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Location

In a park in the city of Utrecht. Probably not reachable because it is JUST beyond the highway fence. But we may try anyway.

Participants

• Antior
• Freeze_XJ
• Mennoowh
• Wouter
• Eva
• Tchakkazulu
• TheOtherGuy

Plans

Puppetmaster-wannabe Shevek tries to get a friend to go there.

Antior and Freeze_XJ may go that way at well. Shevek, can we plan a meet-up?

Expedition

Antior's report

I met up with Freeze_XJ and together we cycled towards the hashpoint. We planned to meet with the two other guys (Shevek's friends, forgot their nicknames) on the bridge over the highway close to the location. We arrived slightly early so Freeze and I took a footpath to survey the area in the park behind the highway wall. We found out that there was a sort of canal between the path and the actual wall, so the only way to get there was to climb down to the wall from the bridge. We decided to wait for the others at the bridge. They arrived a short time later.

Then we climbed and crawled and wrestled through the bushes and the steep sideways slope next to the wall until we got as close to the hash as we could. This was probably the most adventurous hash I attempted so far. We knew it's illegal to actually go to the other side of the wall and walk next to the highway, so we called it 'as close as we can get' and walked back to the bridge.

The four of us decided to stay there for a while, sit down on a bench, and talk. About half an hour later, to our great surprise, three strangers (called Mennoowh, Eva and Wouter, apparently; red.) appeared on bikes. They put down their bikes, walked to the bridge, got out a GPS, and pointed right at the hashpoint. Of course we went up to them to say hi. Apparently, they were geocachers who found out this hash was within their city and close to a cache as well, so they obviously had to reach it. They didn't seem to care much about the law and climbed down from the bridge to the highway side to the wall. They were joined by Freeze_XJ, while me and the others decided to 'stand guard' on the bridge. Freeze_XJ and the strangers probably reached the exact hashpoint while me and the others got within the uncertainty range but on the wrong side of the barrier.

Reached or not? Legally or not? Does it count for all of us? It all depends on your interpretation of the rules. I frankly don't care, it was a fun geohash and that's all that matters.

In any case, the three strangers left very quickly to go get their cache, and after a bit we went off as well. Freeze_XJ and me got something to eat in town, then Freeze_XJ went off to catch some geocaches in another part of the city, while I went home.

Freeze_XJ addition

Yep we reached the zero, both on a slightly different spot (inaccuracies FTW!), and made it back safely. It seems that geocachers are slowly making the step towards hashing, which might be logical. I mean, you're weird enough to go looking for a small piece of paper to put your name on, so why not virtualize it all? (EarthCaches spring to mind) As for me, it doesn't matter much what I'm hunting, as long as it keeps me active ;) Today certainly was active enough, the pictures may tell you something.

Photos

• 

  Boom, see that? #.

• 

  So much work... for what?

• 

  Nope, not there yet

• 

  Yep, that's a zero. And a highway

Achievements

Mennoowh, Eva, Wouter, Tchakkazulu, and TheOtherGuy earned the Land geohash achievement by reaching the (52, 5) geohash on 2012-03-30.

Mennoowh, Eva, Wouter earned the Bicycle geohash achievement by cycling to the (52, 5) geohash on 2012-03-30.

Tchakkazulu, TheOtherGuy earned the Public transport geohash achievement by reaching the (52, 5) geohash on 2012-03-30 using public transit.

Shevek earned the Puppet Master Geohash achievement by manipulating Tchakkazulu to reach the (52, 5) geohash on 2012-03-30.

All of us earned the Meet-up achievement by meeting Mennoowh, Wouter, Eva, Antior, Freeze_XJ, Tchakkazulu, TheOtherGuy at the (52, 5) geohash on 2012-03-30.

For city dwellers like us, this comes close to a MNIMB achievement, but meh. Perhaps the others that visited this hash feel they can claim other achievements. Well, go right ahead.