2011-08-20 47 8

Sat 20 Aug 2011 in 47,8: 47.4892674, 8.7423110 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Location

A back alley in Winterthur

Participants

Calamus

Plans

1. Steal myself from work
2. Board train to Winterthur
3. ?
4. Profit!

Expedition

Now that was an easy one. After having climbed to the summit of a mountain the day before, Calamus wasn't exactly impressed by the thought of walking about two minutes from a bus station.

Luckily enough for him, none of his co-workers had even bothered to show up at work due to heat, so getting away unnoticed was a lot easier than he had originally thought.

As almost the whole journey took place in a train from Zurich to Winterthur, and train rides are sometimes rumoured not to be the most exciting thing on earth, here's an interesting fact instead of a detailed description: The soothing, monotone, yet friendly female voice announcing the route has repeatedly and prominently starred in a recurring nightmare of Calamus. Its dialogue is usually along these lines: "The SBB train crew welcomes you aboard the Intercity to Berne, Geneva, Geneva Airport and wishes you a pleasant journey. The train will be deployed in 3 … 2 … 1. For your and our entertainment, we are pleased to present a little deadly neurotoxin. Goodbye."

As the hashpoint was very easy to identify on a map, Calamus decided to try and get there without wasting any batteries. Thanks to a slightly enhanced Google Maps printout, he succeeded in doing so, but as he wanted to be sure that this was the right spot, he used his GPS, which was still in his rucksack, to check. Which probably spoiled the Achievement.

He waited there until some time past 4pm for somebody else to show up. Apparently, though, nobody else had wanted to go Geohashing in this heat, no matter how easy the spot. Tant pis, Calamus thought, and went Geotrashing.

When he was done, he visited his favorite pub of Winterthur - which he had just defined two days before - for a beer and a toast. End of story.

Photos

• 

  That almost qualifies as urban!

• 

  Calamus's highly professional map

• 

  The building Calamus used as a reference (N°2 on "map")

• 

  The hashpoint, photographed comfortably from a path

• 

  No-battery-compliant proof of date and means of transport (24h ticket, expiring 2011-08-21)

• 

  Non-no-battery-compliant proof of location

• 

  3 min sufficed…

• 

  …to make this brookside a little more appealing

Achievements

Calamus earned the Land geohash achievement by reaching the (47, 8) geohash on 2011-08-20.

Calamus earned the Public transport geohash achievement by reaching the (47, 8) geohash on 2011-08-20 using public transit.

Is it true that this user earned the No Batteries Geohash achievement? In principle, yes. But he checked whether he was actually at the right spot – using his GPS. (2011-08-20 47 8).

Calamus earned the GeoTrash Geohash Achievement by cleaning up the (47, 8) geohash on 2011-08-20.

Calamus earned the Consecutive geohash achievement by reaching 2 consecutive hash points starting on 2011-08-19.

Calamus earned the xkcd Nullaturion achievement by attending 1 Saturday meetup.