2009-06-24 54 8

Wed 24 Jun 2009 in Westerland, Germany: 54.7281007, 8.9799548 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

In a graveyard in Enge-Sande, about 30km north of Husum. Reached at around 17:30 by dawidi from 49 12.

dawidi

Staying at a friends' place in Kiel that week, I got on the NOB (Nord-Ostsee-Bahn) train to Husum at noon, several hours later than I had intended to (because I slept in after the exhausting 80km ride to 2009-06-23 54 9 on the previous day). After crossing the Kiel Canal on the impressive Rendsburg bridge, the train went on into the really flat western half of Schleswig-Holstein.

Since I had missed a train with a good connection from Husum, I had an hour of time to kill there, which I spent by cycling out of the town to the nearby dike to look at the North Sea at least for a few minutes. The footpath next to the water was paved, but the tarmac turned out to be quite soft - my bike's stand kept sinking into it, and even my shoes made impressions. Very weird.

In time, I went back to the station and got onto the train heading north to Niebüll and Sylt, but got off at Langenhorn when I realized that that was the shortest way to the hash. From there, it was a rather quick 6km ride north on a wide road - with pretty strong wind from the east - until I reached "Hörn", apparently the name of the crossing where I turned right into the village of Enge.

The small road leading towards the hash was easy to locate, and indeed, the place was a graveyard. I parked my bike at the gate and entered. A woman was doing gardening work at the other end of the yard but didn't notice me. It was a very quiet, peaceful place - the trees muffled the wind and the occassional road noise, and the sun shone on the narrow gravel tracks, neatly trimmed patches of grass and the flowers decorating the graves. It took me only a few footsteps to locate the exact spot - the grave of the Carstensen family from Soholm, a nearby village. The two couples had died decades ago, apparently two generations.

I looked around a bit more, then left to have a look at the village's church, a hundred years old, but looking more like a thousand years old because of its entirely uncovered brickwork. (Which is a common building style in the region, but looks weird to a southerner like me.) I left the village after exploring a few more of the smaller roads, and cycled back south on the wide country road, again struggling with strong winds from the east. Since I had some time left and nothing interesting to do in Langenhörn, I cycled on south to Bredstedt, the next train station, where I arrived just in time (after small, hectic detours for a geocache I ended up not finding because a car full of people was parking exactly at the location).

On the train back from Husum to Kiel, I shared my ticket with a rather confused and stressed-out woman dragging a huge bag of clothes after her. She spent the entire ride fiddling with her cellphone, except for a short moment of panic when we passed over the Rendsburg bridge, which caught her by surprise ("Whoa... is that bridge new?") - apparently she was completely oblivious of its existence, despite living in the area and having used that train route before...

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  The North Sea coast west of Husum...

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  ... with very impressionable tarmac.

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  Langenhorn station.

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  It's a graveyard!

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  Internet-less coordinates receiver.

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  Coordinates reached!

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  The grave of Mr. and Mrs. Carstensen.

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  A happy hasher.

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  The graveyard in infrared.

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  The village's church.

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  Gate in the church's "backyard".

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  On the road back to Bredstedt.

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  Radio tower with visitor platform.

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  The entrance fee is pretty well enforced.

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  The small knobs on the horizon are holms ("Halligen") - tiny inhabited islands.

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  Reaching Bredstedt station just in time.

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  Going over the impressive Rendsburg bridge.

Now, here's the question - does the combination of a Virgin Graticule achievement with a Holy Hash and especially a Coffin Potato make me a necrophiliac?

dawidi earned the Holy hash achievement by reaching the sacred (54, 8) location, which is the village's graveyard, on 2009-06-24.

dawidi certifies that Emma and Christian Carstensen of nearby Soholm earned the Coffin Potato Achievement by occupying a coffin at the (54, 8) geohash from 1973-09-24 and 1984-02-19, respectively, to 2009-06-24.