2008-05-24 48 2

Sat 24 May 2008 in 48,2: 48.1266480, 2.5475331 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Note: This expedition used an old version of the Geohashing algorithm before the 30W Time Zone Rule was enacted.

I (Ilia) did not realize that the algorithm took into account not only the Dow value, but also the date; so I set out to the Friday location, thinking it was still valid Saturday. And since the 30W rule was enacted after I last went online before the meetup, I actually went to the pre-30W Friday location, which is now not even reachable via the applet (because the new Friday location is calculated with Thursday's Dow value and Friday's date). No wonder I did not meet anyone... but did anyone reach the correct location, either?

The coordinates were about 48.4003N, 2.7226E. When I saw that it was in Fontainebleau, I told myself that I had never been there and that it was a perfect occasion, so the cost of the train fare did not deter me from going there. Actually it was a lucky mistake, because the correct location is at the opposite end of the graticule, in a field in the middle of nowhere, far from any major road, train station, or inhabited place, so I would probably not have gone there. (The 49 2 meetup, on the other hand, is in a rather intriguing place, not too far from Paris, and next to a major motorway, so maybe I might have hitchhiked there...)

Anyway it was fun :-) The weather was not very nice, rather grey and cloudy, but I enjoyed the trip nevertheless. First I saw the castle of Fontainebleau; there are a lot of flowers there, and a few peacocks just walking around on a lawn in the backyard. Then I have had a rather pleasant hike through the forest; I even found wild strawberries (not yet quite ripe though), that I thought were not very common in France. But I found myself an hour before the meetup quite far from the place, so I tried to cut through the wood (where I had quite some trouble finding my way, which added considerably to my pleasure from the excursion). Finally I arrived to the coordinates a mere 10 minutes before the meeting time, under intermittent rain (fortunately, I had thought of bringing a raincoat!). The spot turned out to be in the middle of a driveway that Google Maps did not show (the photos are upcoming); although it was not strictly private, I judged it better to wait at the nearest road junction, from where I could see people going to the true location anyway. I was standing at the corner, dressed in a Mathematica T-Shirt, and doing my Rubik's cube, so I think that any geohasher could have fairly easily guessed why I was there! I waited maybe for half an hour, but did not meet anyone - no one seems to have made the same mistake as myself...