2013-05-19 53 8

Sun 19 May 2013 in 53,8: 53.1036379, 8.6840838 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Location

In the meadows near Seehausen/Bremen.

Participants

Oliver

Plans

Planning to do a bicycle tour there.

Expedition

With weather being nicer than yesterday (no rain at least), I started cycling towards Seehausen around at 15:00h. The geohash was near the Weserradweg, a national cycling route along Weser river; as result, the largest part of my tour went over excellent cycleways and through quite nice areas. Hence I easily reached the junction on the main road from where a country road led through the fields.

Google Maps had shown that the geohash was somewhere in the fields which were divided by ditches; so now I looked for the correct field to enter - hoping it wouldn't be one of those with cows on it. Finally picked one field which was cow-free and hopefully at the right location. Being lazy, I decided that cycling is better than walking, lifted the bike over the gate, and rode on through the grass. There was a high seat visible in the distance, probably quite close to the geohash; so I was pretty confident that the spot was reachable. However, whatever hunter used to go there probably wore knee-high rubber boots to get through the swamp that cut the field in half. For me, that meant some jumping, and a shoe full of water; and all the while the angry chirping of lots of birds - probably nesting in the vast swampy meadows.

Getting closer to the geohash, it turned out that I had indeed chosen the wrong field. Fortunately there was a ditch crossing at the high seat. So after climbing another fence and yet another gate and walking through the field for 10 minutes (trying to hit the coordinates without treading into one the many infernally hidden mini-ditches), I finally made it! As the spot was right on the grass, I decided not to leave any paper marker, and instead wrote a note on a fencepost at the high seat. Made my way back over the gate, through the swamp and over the other gate, and off. I guess the birds were happy to finally be rid of me.

Photos

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  Time for a "field" trip

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  Made it!

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  Wonder how long permanent marker will endure in these conditions? [Edit: just noticed I managed to write the wrong date... Maybe a reason to visit that geohash again?]

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  Crossing the swamp; in the background the furnaces of Mordor Bremen steel works

Achievements

Oliver earned the Land geohash achievement by reaching the (53, 8) geohash on 2013-05-19.

Oliver earned the Bicycle geohash achievement by cycling ~35km to and from the (53, 8) geohash on 2013-05-19.