2010-09-17 53 9

This expedition was affected by mtu's Grand GPS Clustermug of 2010.

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For his first five geohashes, mtu had the wrong map datum set on his GPS device—namely the Potsdam datum instead of the globally accepted standard, WGS 84—causing him to not visit the actual, canonical hashpoints, but places about 200 m away in SSW-erly direction.

In all cases, the actual hashpoints would have been easily accessible, but were missed by 20–200 m solely due to mtu's ineptitude.

In commemoration of this epic fail,

mtu earned the False Start Consolation Prize by finding that all of his first 5 geohashes are invalid because the map datum on his GPS was wrongly set to the Potsdam datum instead of the WGS 84 global standard, causing the loss of 13 achievements and approximately 31 hours of lifetime, up to and including the (54, 10) geohash on 2010-11-10.

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As a consequence, all achievements formerly claimed for this hash are null and void (except Drag-along achievements). Instead,

mtu earned the Blinded by Science Consolation Prize by failing to reach the (53, 9) geohash on 2010-09-17 because he had set the wrong map datum on his GPS.

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Please note that the expedition narrative was written before this became known!

Don't worry!

Fri 17 Sep 2010 in 53,9: 53.2096077, 9.8750724 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Location

Geohash located in a nature reserve area about 3 to 4 kilometers south of Handeloh, a one-horse town of about 2,400 inhabitants, luckily and inexplicably featuring a HVV area railroad stop. Apparently also right next to a place called Wehlen, about which there is no information to be found except for the name on the map and the curious fact that the entire place appears to consist of one street.

In short: Right smack bang in the middle of frickin' nowhere.

Participants

• mtu
• seamus_d
• Johannes

Expedition

The Handeloh train station is the outermost of the HVV area in the direction of Soltau, allowing us to get there for free. After almost missing our connection train, and then almost missing our stop, we set out from the empty place we were in for the even more empty place where the hash was.

Our trip was pretty uneventful (except for a scary sounding machine that was cutting trees – who's cutting trees in a natural preserve area, anyway?!), but relaxing and fun. When we got to the hash, we took some pictures, left a note, drank a beer and then headed back. An attempt to live edit the wiki failed due to non-existent network coverage in the area.

We took a different route back, but to our amazement, things looked pretty much the same as they had on the way in. After having passed about eight people on our 11 km trip, we got back to the train station and headed home as happy first-time geohashers.

Tracklog

Tracklog in GPX 1.1 format (XML Document) accessible in a pastebin.ca post.

Photos

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  Safety first!

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  “No horse carriage rides – The forestry office”

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  Photo finish

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  My, look what grows here!

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  Stupid Grin™ permutation 0

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  Stupid Grin™ permutation 1

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  Stupid Grin™ permutation 2

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  Please leave a message!

Achievements

Is it true that mtu earned the land geohash achievement? In principle, yes. But his GPS had a wrong map datum set, missing the hash by about 200 m (2010-09-17 53 9).

Is it true that mtu earned the Public transport geohash achievement by taking MEr 36654 and RB 14747? In principle, yes. But his GPS had a wrong map datum set, missing the hash by about 200 m (2010-09-17 53 9).

mtu earned the Drag-along achievement by dragging Seamus_d and Johannes to the (53, 9) geohash on 2010-09-17.