| Sun 24 May 2009 in 40,-2: 40.7976355, -2.3838622 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox |
Participants
Plans
This time, the decision came easier.. today's hash point in 40,-2 would be right next to a Natural Reseve, the Alto Tajo. I love Natural Reserves about as much as I love mountains. And Alto means high, so this is going to be a Natural Reserve on a Mountain.
Expedition
Pre-expedition:
- A library in the metro station. Only in Madrid!
Again, I will still have to write this one up. But here are the pictures. I really enjoyed taking them - do have a look at all these flowers.
- A tower in a field - There was a town posted, called "Torremocha del Campo", meaning ugly tower of the field. I assumed that this had to be it, but I seem to have been wrong.
- I was on the Don Quijote route. No windmills here.
- A milestone, or just a spur post? - I started to take pictures roughly as soon as I left the highway.. there were still 30km to go on single lane, badly paved roads. It made me think these occasional stones might be milestones.
- It rained a bit
- I walked from here on - it's off the road to the north of the geohash, if you'd like to compare with the satellite pictures. Still a bit to go.
- A poppy
- I'm going to need help with naming all the others
- But they appealed to ḃoth my aesthetic and geometric senses - It's a fractal!
- Same flower, but earlier
- Trumpets in blue
- erm.. If you know these, please edit the page
- I identified this branching on my hand-drawn map
- A very small troll - I later saw that the path I took was indicated on a hiking track map.. so it must be hikers who did this]
- Across the sea of rose - I left the track when Tomtom said I had reached the correct latitude.
- Suddenly, a field.
- I followed the tracks of a machine - so as to not trample anything. However, the ground was really dry and the plants wide apart.
- Patches of haulms were everywhere among the fields where the machines couldn't cultivate them.
- A dry thistle - another fractal!
- Bear tracks? - in a sandbed at the bottom of the valley. Could have been a dog just as well.
- Hash point reached! - I won't complain about the batteries of Tomtom again. Once it is fully charged, it's great.
- A happy hasher
- I marked the place with 'xkcd' for a change
- More flowers on the way back
- and in white
- and in large
- I spotted this little buddy drinking nectar - are they supposed to do that?
- more white and yellow
- A beeyard
- violet!
- blue! - more fractals
- violet again
- and another poppy
- and a live thistle - I created some 3d fractals in Mathematica[tm] once upon a time, but nothing as elaborate as this.
Post-expedition expedition:
- The Alto Tajo greeted me like this. This is actually the river Tajo
- Impressive rocks - and I know there are more people here who can enjoy nice climbing spots
- down by the river - Unfortunately, I could not find the hiking path I was looking for in either direction.
- These buddies were huge compared to the ones we had on our garden pond
- A solitary picnic site
- and one for the next migration hash
- more rocks
- returning to Madrid on another road
- Even highways can look good provided the right weather. (I was actually trying to zoom in on the city in the background, but forgot to do exactly that)
