2010-11-05 49 11

Graticule

Location

In a forest west of Schnaittach

Participants

Plans

Sp3pbn plans to take a ride on his bike in the night to get the midnight achievement.
Distance is about 10km so not too far, although the forest might be very dark and is unknown to me, so hopefully I won’t get lost.

Expedition

Okay, they say geohashing is adventure. And I had one last night. But I don’t think this was the adventure I was looking for.
Short story: Instead of returning home with my bike at about 0:45am I walked through the forest with an empty light until 1:30am and then had more than an hour left to walk home.

Long Story

The geohash seemed to be very easy, so I thought about getting the midnight achievement by going there in the night. At about 11:15pm I left home, thought I was well equiped with a print of the area from osm, a cheap satnav and a compass because the satnav is really shitty if you want to find out the direction you need to go.

First everything went well, I made about half of the distance successfully and then left the paved roads for some tracks that seemed to be the most direct way to the hash. Soon I entered the forest and made my way to the hash really well. At 11:40 there were only 1.5km left to go and this is where it all began. *dramatic music playing*

So there was a track in my osm-map that seemed to lead directly to the hash. And me having faith in this track, left the relatively well-surfaced track I was on until then for a more muddy and dirty one. Soon I began to wonder, because the track seemed to turn at no point to the left but all the time slowly to the right. The satnav was not really helpful, it just said 1.2km left but the direction he wanted to lead me seemed strange. So I took out the compass only to realize, that the track had turned about 180° and was now leading away from the hash. I thought, that there must be another track soon, that would lead into the right direction again and followed the track for another two minutes until the track seemed to disappear and left me in the middle of nowhere. This was not the right way, turning around, cursing because that might cost me the midnight achievement.

And it got much worse: My bike broke. I just heard a loud crack, stopped and saw a really large branch between my spokes, pulled it out and wanted to go on. And after my bike was not willing to go I found out that the chain tensioner somehow managed to get stuck in a spoke and my backwheel was not able to turn any longer. Fixing it was not possible because I had nothing at all with me and with my bare hands there was nothing to achieve. So I took my bike, half carrying, half wheeling it and returned to the place where I took the wrong way.

I decided to go to the hash anyways, left my bike there after saving the position with the satnav and took my bikes light with me. This light sadly refused to show me the surface I was walking on after five Minutes and of course I had no fresh batteries with me. So darkness was now surrounding me and I had only the satnav left to make some pale light but also needed to save energy there, because it also had only 30% left.

And finally, after me again leaving the main way for a smaller one to reach the hash and realizing that this track would not have been possible with my bike I got lost again. The track didn’t even look like a track anymore and on my way back I found out where I went wrong (pictures included) but it was not really my fault.
So result of my geohashing attempt: Broken bike, empty light and lost somewhere in the forest.

I than took out my compass again and together with the satnav went without any path in the direction of the hash. With 450m left to go I found a track again, which then guided me onto the track I had lost before. And there was a small remark that civilization was not too far, a "No-Horse-Riding" sign, so I felt a bit relieved. With 100m left to go I had to leave the track again to reach the hash and was happy to have finally reached it.

Not, because with 50m left to go there was a wire fence that stopped me. The hash turned out to be in the middle of a protection zone for young trees and frustration spread within me. So I made a photo with 50m left to go but forgot to take one of the fence, what I blame my state of mind for. My watch showed 0:50am so I already was an hour late.

And finally after asking he gods of geohashing what I was guilty of to deserve this and not returning an answer, there was nothing left to do but to leave this damn forest. So returning to my bike and this time not even getting lost on my way. Then looking for the next town to leave my bike, luckily there was one in about 1.5km distance. A quarter later I locked my bike at a tree in the small village of Simonshofen.

Then there were decisions to be made. It was now half past one o’clock in the morning and I could call someone to carry me home. Or I could walk about 8km back home what would take me more than another hour.
I took a short break on a bench near a nice pond and made the light of my bike to work again by switching the positions of the batteries, but it was of course not very bright and I needed to save the energy for the emergency case. I was as well filled with new energy and decided to walk home, but this time not through the forests but along the road, where then turned out to be a broad and paved biking road. At about 2am I reached the next town and took a photograph of its famous baking oven which I first thought was a chapel.

Then again through the forest, but this time on a real road and I made it eventually home by 2:45am, about two hours later than I wanted to return. My mouth was dry and I my stomach wanted to be filled after this long walk and I hope my next geohashing adventure will not end up like this.