2017-01-01 52 0

Sun 1 Jan 2017 in Cambridge, UK: 52.4286439, 0.7963389 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Location

A wood in the grounds of Kilverstone Hall east of Thetford, Norfolk, UK.

Participants

Sourcerer

Plans

Two of two spanning the new year - 2016-12-31 52 0 - 2017-01-01 52 0 - ETA 23:59:60 - It's a leap second!

A 40 + 40 minute walk to reach the hashpoint and return using farm tracks.

The Wikipedia page on leap seconds is interesting. It's what you get when you mix software engineers, astronomers, atomic physicists, politicians and local interest groups together; a right Barney! And GPS time doesn't do leap seconds. Apparently GPS time is about 18 seconds fast, relative to UTC or UT1. I'd better wait at least 18 seconds or it'll be a retro-hash! That also explains why my phone clock always took longer to roll over at midnight. 18 seconds is a long time in a January biting, freezing wind!

Expedition

I uploaded accurate proof 11 minutes early and again just after midnight with lower accuracy. There was quite a lot of GPS scribble even though the receiver was not moving while I waited for the leap second. It was dry, overcast and the temperature was 7 or 8 C. There was a light breeze. Good walking weather for the time of year.

• It's midnight. HAPPY NEW YEAR! -- Sourcerer (talk) @52.4287,.7963 00:00, 1 January 2017 (GMT)

The walk was beautiful through stands of mature trees with clearings for crops. I'm hoping the walk was legal. The Ordnance Survey map labelled the farm access as "Track". I think this means anyone can use the road, even vehicles. There was a "Private Road" sign but no "No Entry". I used my no damage, no disturbance rule and walked in. Indeed there was such a ruckus from the partying in Thetford, I could have led in a herd of elephant and gone unnoticed.

At 11:58 the infrequent fireworks became much noisier and at midnight, it was more like a war zone. Most of the activity was 2km away with a six second delay between the big flashes and the bangs. I do wish Hollywood would get this right in their movies. In movie physics, the speed of sound and light are the same and sound travels though a vacuum in space battles.

There were several paper hot air balloons with little fiery lanterns. I prefer these to fireworks. Floating candles are nice too.

By 00:30, the cacophony had died down a bit. I was back at the car and I drove home with more than usual care. It was a bit like an alcohol fuelled school run with cars and pedestrians making non-standard manoeuvres.

Back at home, I'm having a celebratory pint of Black IPA, 6% abv. Nice.

Photos

• Photo Gallery
• 

  Arrived. Waiting for midnight. @52.4286,.7963

• 

  Still close. @52.4249,.7526

• 

  Google Earth Track

• 

  GPS Scribble - I was not moving about - There was sky wobble!

Achievements

Sourcerer earned the Leap second geohash achievement by leaping to the hash point in a leap second on 2017-01-01.

Sourcerer earned the Midnight Geohash achievement by reaching the (52, 0) geohash on 2017-01-01 in the middle of the night.

Expeditions and Plans

2017-01-01
Santa Rosa, California	coyotebush, blueberrynewt	On a residential road west of Santa Rosa.
Buffalo, New York	Pedalpusher, Simon the dog, Myka the dog	In the woods of the East Otto State Forest
Cambridge, United Kingdom	Sourcerer	A wood in the grounds of Kilverstone Hall east of Thetford, Norfolk, UK.
Manchester, United Kingdom	Angel	Prescot Trade Centre, Merseyside, UK.
Uppsala, Sweden	Per S, iA	In a memorial garden in western Jakobsberg.

Update this list.

Sourcerer's Expedition Links

2016-12-31 52 0 - 2017-01-01 52 0 - 2017-01-02 52 1 - KML file download of Sourcerer's expeditions for use with Google Earth.