2009-06-07 47 10

Sun 7 Jun 2009 in Kempten, Germany: 47.4552086, 10.9767424 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Location

The hash is located on the Eibsee, a rather large mountain lake within of the Zugspitz mountain range, just below the highest peak in Germany.

Links:

• Webcam (the one called "Zugspitzgipfel - Blickrichtung Norden zum Eibsee", which means "Zugspitze peak - Looking north to the Eibsee")
• Eibsee - English wikipedia (basically no information)
• German wikipedia (good information)
• Eibsee leisure centre - owner of the lake
• Boat rental

Plans

The planning phase for this great expedition gained a lot of momentum and deserves its on page: 2009-06-07 47 10/Plans

Do not fear, it's preserved in all of its greatness over at the other page. --Zb 18:40, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Expedition reports

... will follow here, along with tons of pictures. --Zb 18:49, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

from Würzburg to München (Danatar, Srs0, Thepiguy)

With difficulty Danatar got up at 4:30 after 2 hours of sleep, but he nonetheless managed to meet thepiguy who was already waiting at the train station at 5:15. On the train Danatar tried to get some sleep, but the train seats are very uncomfortable to lie on so he didn't succeed. After 2 hours they arrived at Treuchtlingen and changed into a double decker train. From the upper floor the sight is slightly better than in a normal train and they could watch the beautiful landscape. They even saw 2 deer. At 9:30 the train arrived at München main station where ekorren was waiting for them directly at their platform.

thepiguy says...

Possibly my favourite expedition yet! I hope the pictures from the underwater camera turn out...

The crew from Regensburg (dawidi, Hans, Tomcat)

... who also came from quite far away.

All the way from Tübingen: Ekorren

... who even came from another state (BaWü)

Two fellows from München (Baerenfell, zb)

... who almost appear to be couch potatoes, considering how far everyone else has traveled.

Baerenfell says...

Awesome Expedition with a lot of really nice and funny guys, nearly perfect weather and last, but not least a really cool spot. Also being one of the first to do an underwater geohash rules :) (proof to follow with full report).

And now I can put my hands on a huge lot of ribbons, YEEHAA!

Started the day with a final look at the planning page at about 9 am, packed my stuff and was on my way. The school I had to vote at, was just a few meters from home, so I stopped by and went did my civil duty (Claiming a "Democracy Geohash" for this). After that I cycled on to the Central Station to meet the others, which wasn't really complicated (everyone would recognize such a cool group | 2. Achievment today | Meet-up | all 8 ).

here ends the "being alone" part

more to come....

here begins the "being alone" part

Left the others at the station in Munich to take the bike home (about 15 minutes). It started raining after a few meters and pouring after a few more. I didn't see much anymore and got totally drenched, but finally finished this great day with another look at the geohashing page.

zb says...

First things first:

I know I sound like a hippie who has smoked his brains out when I say that this trip made me feel truly happy not only because the nature looked so nice, but -- even better -- because it was very fun to meet everyone else after having done a number of geohashes myself and even failed to meet dawidi once.

Koepfel, after today, your meetup graph will be in serious trouble if not completely FUBARed, but it's worth it because spending this great day with a group as nice and diverse was a big win. I mean it.

On to the report:

I left the house around 8:30am and took a small detour to a nearby school house because it was election day for the European Parliament and the school is where I go to vote. A ribbon has even been suggested for this. While the school house itself was just as ugly as any German school house built in the seventies, it featured a nice painting next to one of its doors that must have been an indication about what was bound to happen later this day:

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  Vote here.

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  An ode to the seventies.

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  Mountains! Sunshine! Water! When you see something like this in the morning, on a building like the one in the previous picture, the day ought to be good.

I stopped at a bakery in my neighborhood and rode my bike to the train station, where Srs0 had just arrived some minutes ago on his ICE train. We found another bakery and got him breakfast, including a Auszogne (meaning a one pulled apart) which is something like a Bavarian equivalent to a donut, except it doesn't have baking soda in it and therefore doesn't leave you with a strange taste hours after you ate it. Slightly later, everyone else showed up at the train station.

Some friends of mine were there, too, but they went on another train to another beautiful place in the mountains to celebrate a birthday. (Happy birthday, A.!)

I was introduced to the hobby of geocaching as well, I'm sure you find out about it in Ekorren's strories.

The train left, we went along the very scenic tracks near Starnberger See, changed onto a bus in Tutzing because the electric wires above the train tracks were in the progress of being repaired further down the railroad line, and again got onto a train in Weilheim that took us to Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

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  Many clouds in the mountains that we were heading to, but the weather was constantly getting better.

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  Huge satellite dishes in Raisting, as seen from the SEV bus. In this type of scenery, they couldn't look more alien.

In Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Ekorren was quick to negotiate our possibilities and fares for going up to Eibsee on the really cool train, the Zugspitzbahn. The reasons why the Zugspitzbahn is really cool are: (a) It has tracks narrower than regular trains and (b) some parts of the tracks are so steep that it needs racks in addition to the rails. Thus, it has all the technology necessary to (c) take you up to the very top of Germany's highest mountain, the name of which is proudly featured on the display on the side of the train. Cool, eh?

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  The group is amazed by technology from the late 1920s. This is also where the Olympic Winter Games of 1936 took place and were put into a crazy political context.

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  The railway's rack on display.

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  POSTED: This train really goes all the way up.

The train also makes for a (d) really great backdrop for a group picture, but this is on thepiguy's camera. I only have this to offer:

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  The picture on pi's camera has it all.

While we went uphill to Eibsee, thepiguy got serious about his plans to swim in the Eibsee, as you can see by looking at his backpack. When we got there, we were offered a full choice of different vessels:

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  dawidi and Hans.

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  thepiguy's backpack. We are not supposed to panic. He is from the internet and he does not fear.

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  Pedal boats. Pedal boats with slides. Row boats (not in this picture).

This is the part where we left the solid ground and went to find the water geohash.

... More will still follow here. Must sleep now. May take some hours or even days until it's ready...

At/On the lake

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  Danatar rocks the first underwater geohash!

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  Baerenfell and thepiguy weren't farbehind!

from München to Würzburg

When the train arrived at München, thepiguy and srs0 got out first and ran to catch an ICE train which left three minutes later. (...)

From München, Danatar had two trains to choose from to get home: One at 20:25 which would arrive at Würzburg at 0:06 and one at 21:09 which would arrive at 0:56. He had already decided earlier to visit his displaced origin hashpoint in this graticule and that would take all the time until the second option, so he said goodbye to everyone and went to buy a Döner. Then he went on his displaced origin expedition (read here).

Danatar returned from his displaced origin and boarded the train towards home. At Nürnberg he had to wait almost one hour to change his train. The big rock festival Rock im Park had taken place this weekend and Danatar could pass the time watching drunk and tired people moving around zombie-like in the station. When his train finally left the seats next to him were filled with people in a good temper, so Danatar couldn't even get some sleep. His train arrived in Würzburg a few minutes late, shortly after 1 am.

Gallery

Note:

• As I would generally prefer a gallery combining the best pictures of everyone to a continuous picture story, mostly chronologically, I'm starting such a gallery here and invite everyone to mix in own pictures. but just do what you like, of course ;
• I uploaded only a few landscape impressions, others will probably bring us more of them and panorama pictures
• No pictures of the activities at the hashpoint yet, will wait for others and maybe add some later.

--Ekorren

From Tübingen to München (ekorren)

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  Early start at Tübingen

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  Changing train at Ulm

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  The right one to Augsburg

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  Arriving at München - now looking for the group.

From München to the lake

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  Some hashers on the replacement bus

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  Early glance on the Alps, ca. 11:18 near Oberhausen

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  Danatar struggles to explain where he is and what he's doing there

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  View from train, ca. 11:36 near Buchenried

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  Another view from the train

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  Garmisch-Partenkirchen, BZB station

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  Station of Grainau from a train drivers view

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  Rack railway line

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  Rack railway line

On and around the lake

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  Two of our boats as seen from the third

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  We are being watched!

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  Landscape impression from the boat

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  Clouds over the lake

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  Dark island

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  Light island

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  Small island

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  Dawidi and the DNF

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  Neighbouring Frillensee lake

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  View from the shore

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  Walking along the shore

Back

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  Bus back to Garmisch-Partenkirchen

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  Garmisch-Partenkirchen station - now the rain finally found us

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  Double rainbow as seen from the train

Gratuitous comments

... started coming in while the expedition was still in the planning phase and may now be found at the talk page.