2023-05-21 52 1

Sun 21 May 2023 in 52,1: 52.5922794, 1.6138417 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Location

Near Berney Arms in the Norfolk Broads.

Participants

PeterRoder

Plans

Take the train to Berney Arms station, arriving at 14:01, giving me 23 minutes to get to the hash and back for the return train.

Expedition

I took the 11:50 train from Cambridge, arriving in Norwich at 13:13 giving me time to stop at a local sandwich shop to purchase a chicken and bacon footlong, then caught the 13:36 to Barley Arms.

As the train approached the platform, I stood by the door, preparing for a speedy walk to the hash and back. Unfortunately, the platform was so small that only one door opened, and it wasn't the one I was at. This cost me about 20 seconds, walking through the train to the next carriage.

At the hash!

You can tell I was in a rush

I headed off, along the route that I thought I could follow easily. (I'm used to geohashing around crop fields, where public footpaths are where crops aren't. Cow fields are more difficult.) I did manage to stay on track, although I paused at a few points to get my bearings.

As I approached the hash, I checked the time and realised that over half of it was gone. So I reached the hash, hurriedly took a few pictures, and then set of on a run, taking a slight shortcut for the first part of the return journey.

This cow followed me for quite some distance

Running back was hindered by two things: my endurance, and the cows. These cows probably aren't very familiar with humans, so were watching me closely even when I walked past them, and some of them got up and looked intimidating at me when I tried to run through their field. So I slowed to a walk until I was away from that herd.

Soon after that, I saw my train pull into the station...

My train, leaving the station

...and then watched it leave.

There were two hours until the next train. I briefly considered walking to another station that would have an earlier train back to Norwich, but (a) I didn't have wifi, so couldn't check whether that would work, and (b) I don't think that would be covered by my ticket, so I'd have to spend extra on a new one.

Instead, I stuck around to explore what little there is in Berney Arms.

Here's some stuff I learned, mostly from Wikipedia:

• Berney Arms station was sold to the rail company by Thomas Berney on the condition that they build a station there.
  • After some legal proceedings, it was decided that they also had to serve the station.
• In the year from Apr 2019 to 2020, it was the least used station, but only because it was closed for a large portion of that time.
• Berney Arms is named after the pub, Berney Arms
  • I was unable to determine whether Thomas Berney had a connection to the name of the pub, or whether it's a coincidence.
• The pub is closed.
• The windmill is currently closed, because of a 2018 storm.

Definitely the most rural train station I've ever seen

It's a windmill

This is the river Yare. I saw 4 boats.

Some stats from the expedition

After the 16:24 train arrived, the return journey was uneventful. I reached home shortly before 7pm.

Achievements

Peter achieved level 3 of the Minesweeper Geohash achievement by visiting coordinates in 52,0 and 3 of the surrounding graticules.

Peter earned the 2023 Geohashing Day achievement by celebrating in the (52, 1) graticule on May 21st 2023.