2012-11-27 51 0

Location

Today's location is on a road in Hornchurch.

Planning

Finally a London East hash that isn't on the far reaches of the graticule, in a field, or in the water! I'll head by sometime tomorrow afternoon, unless something comes up. If any London East folks are still active, I'd be up for a meet-up. -Haberdasher 12:16, 26 November 2012 (EST)
Huinesoron has borrowed his wife's new account to say: I'm at work until 5, but only, oh, call it half an hour's drive from the hashpoint... if you can extend 'afternoon' to 6pm, we'll be along! (If you can't - we'll probably be along at that time anyway. It's not often it's so easy...) -Huinesoron, 20:55, 26 November 2012 (GMT)

I'm going to be up in London all day tomorrow if there's a meetup opportunity? --Jand 15:56, 26 November 2012 (EST)

I can be there around 5:30 PM, if that works for both of you? I can't stay much later than that, unfortunately. -Haberdasher 17:17, 26 November 2012 (EST)

Depending on train times, that should be fine here --Jand 17:19, 26 November 2012 (EST)

Well, we'll probably have to make a mad dash to get there for 5:30, but providing the traffic's not too bad in Upminster, I think we can make it. Hmm... it might be better for us to take the back roads than to try for Upminster... well, we'll see if we make it! - Huinesoron 18:08, 26 November 2012 (EST)

It doesn't have to be 5:30 on the dot, I'll probably stick around until 5:45 if not 6. I think I overestimated the travel times a bit. -Haberdasher 18:14, 26 November 2012 (EST)

Participants

Expedition

Huinesoron's Report

At precisely 5pm, I stepped through the gatehouse at my place of work and headed for my car. I had agreed to meet The Internet at the hashpoint, some ten miles away as the zeppelin flies - and I'd agreed to do it before half past five, six o'clock at the outside. Through rush hour traffic.

I should not be allowed to agree to things when The Internet asks.

After a brief stop-off to pick up my wife and children (just because you're in a Desperate Race Against Time is no reason to be rude) I was barreling along the road at dead on the speed limit - until I reached the aforementioned traffic.

Three roundabouts. Less than a mile of road. And about ten minutes of travel time.

After a quick shortcut through the picturesque village of North Stifford - or at least it would have been picturesque if it hadn't been pitch dark (did I mention that part? Bloomin' winter) - I ended up... sitting in a queue again. As we wound slowly up the hill, I made a snap decision: I would go left, not right!

... it made sense at the time. I promise.

Off to the left we went! Actually that worked pretty well, because there was no traffic for ages, and we charged through South Ockendon (which we couldn't see), down the Aveley bypass (past the field where they fly model planes when the sun's switched on), past what used to be a lovely pub by a lake but I think has closed, and out into the Green Belt proper!

And that was when I realised I couldn't see the road ahead of me.

No street lights. No cat's eye reflectors in the middle. No patches of convenient phosphorescent lichen to mark the way. Just the occasional oncoming car - and by "occasional" I mean "precisely often enough that I could never switch my lights to high-beam". I was driving down a country road virtually blind. Geohashing, ladies and gentlemen!

By the time we found a street light or two, I was thoroughly lost. Nothing around me looked familiar: just trees, scattered houses, bewildering turnoffs and early christmas lights. We were doomed to drive forever through the wilds of Essex, never to return home, and- oh, there's our turning.

Looking back, there's only one explanation for the events of that trip: a group of all-powerful conspirators were at work, ensuring for some (doubtless dastardly) reason of their own that I 'did' make it to the hashpoint on time. 'They' were the ones who moved the turning I'd missed back ahead of me - who deleted the traffic in notoriously busy Upminster and Hornchurch - who ensured that literally the only road sign I could read in Hornchurch was the road the hash was on. Oh yes, fiendish yet strangely helpful cabal - I'm onto you. I'm onto you.

Leaving my wife and 6-week-old daughter in the Hashmobile (or as I like to call it, "the car"), I took my son and strode forth towards the hashpoint, map in hand. Map in bare hand, which I soon regretted, since oh my stars I didn't know we had that much wind in Essex.

The map, it turned out, was a good idea - at least, I assume that's what led the two strangers waiting at the busstop to have a quick consultation, then venture out into the wind to call "Are you Geohashing?"

Yes, both Haberdasher and Jand were there, waiting for me still. It was 5:45 pm - I'd made it to my first hash involving (gasp) other people. (And one of them was from Chicago, so I know whose stereotype to blame for the wind). And they were terribly pleasant people.

Not that I hung around long. I had the world's shyest two-year-old clinging to my hand (note the lack of smile in the group photo - at least I got him to look at the camera!), a six-week-old no doubt screaming her head off in the car, and, er, two people from the Internet who had places to be. We just had time for a handful of photos, a quick jump up and down on the hashpoint itself (according to Jand's GPS), and then it was goodbyes all round (including a very quiet one from my son - it's the one thing he'll say to new strangers), and back to the car - and home.