2008-10-28 49 6

Tue 28 Oct 2008 in Luxembourg: 49.5604965, 6.1564331 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Expedition: Ekorren

This was not where I had expected my first visited geohash to be. Not at all.

When I routinely checked the coordinates for the next day in the evening I was delighted and disappointed at the same time. For the first time since I've been following geohashing, this a place was actually reachable by bike - but, this particular day, I wouldn't be able to go there as I had already a ticket for a trip elsewhere. So, more out of curiosity I clicked around the adjacent graticitules to my route and, to my surprise, found that the 49,6 geohash was on what looked like a field near the city of Luxembourg - my destination. Ok, this could only mean one thing: change of plans.

0:20. Ok. I have checked online maps, satellite photos and bus timetables, printed a marker and reprinted it after realizing I had the wrong date on it. I am prepared. Going to bed.

2:45. Alarm clock goes off. This was a short night.

3:00. Ticket - check. Passport - check. An object that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike a digital camera - check. Book a hostel - damn, too late, will find something at destination. GPS and spare batteries - check. Bag of books - check (hey, I'm a bookcrosser!). Map and timetable printouts - check. An idea what I forgot to pack (there's always something) - uncheck.

3:20. Seems I have some time left. Writing text up to here.

3:40. Sort of hungry. Cookies are accepted by luggage but will be deleted before arrival.

4:05. Leaving the building, walking to the station.

4:21. Local train to Plochingen, then regional train to Stuttgart. Wondering whether the ICE express trains will be going on time as they are currently experiencing technical problems and many of them are replaced by slower older trainsets or even cancelled.

5:51. Going as announced. ICE train to Mannheim, changing there to ICE train in the direction of Paris. Not going to France, though, but changing to local train in the direction of Trier until Karthaus. That's what I seem to remember at least.

9:10. The conductor checks my ticket and especially the stamps supposedly to be left by his colleagues earlier. Then he asks how it was possible that I started today from Germany but reached Mannheim yesterday and was at France in the morning. Can't remember anything of it. Anyone seen any aliens lately?

9:55. Getting off at Karthaus, still not remembering anything about time travel. The conductor bought the other story I told him, although I'm still not sure what's the truth or whether there is one at all. This station looks like an intermediate stage of the apocalypse, so maybe they brought me back too far into future, who knows. There are neither timetables nor platform numbers, so: Which one of those five tracks will be number 52, then?

10:05. Entering local train.

10:10. Crossing the border.

10:55. Trying to find the right stop for bus line 195. If you need to walk around two dozen distributed platforms to check every single bus stop sign until one shows the line you need - it is always one of the last three. You know. And don't you try to go in opposite direction, as this will move the place so that is still one of the last.

11:05. Found it.

11:20. Boarding local bus 195.

11:28. Leaving at a small village named Fentange. Walking out of the village on a very narrow road.

11:35. Seems everything is fenced left and right of the road. Walking on for now.

11:37. Noticing that there is one meadow spared out from fencing. Could it be the one with the hashpoint?

11:40. Seems so. Leaving the road. Getting really wet feet.

11:42. Reaching the hashpoint. Leaving a sign made of 100% biodegradable material.

12:02. Reaching Geocache GC11ZMH. The cache appears to be located at the foot of a tree on the northern slope of the railway dam, which towers about 7 metres over the otherwise totally flat area. No doubt that the tree is visible from the hashpoint, although several hundred metres away from it. Enough for a honorary mention.

12:35. After another walk into the next village, finding a bus to take me back into civilization.

Ekorren earned the Graticule Unlocked Achievement by being the first to reach any hashpoint in the (49, 6) graticule, here, on 2008-10-28.

Ekorren earned the Public transport geohash achievement by reaching the (49, 6) geohash on 2008-10-28 via rail, alien spaceship and bus.

Ekorren earned the Land geohash achievement by reaching the (49, 6) geohash on 2008-10-28.

Ekorren earned the Border geohash achievement by crossing the Germany-Luxembourg border on 2008-10-28 to reach the (49, 6) geohash.

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  Ticket with proof of time travel and alien abduction

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  Instruments showing date, time, coordinates and a temperature which would definitely have been nicer than the real one.

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  Signpost

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