2012-11-04 50 -0

Location

Today's location is just outside a commercial building in Chichester.

Planning

I'm planning on taking a train down to Chichester, then walking to the hashpoint from the station. Uncertain of the exact time, as that depends on when I wake up, but tentatively saying 1 PM. Willing to adapt plans if other geohashers are interested in meeting up. -Haberdasher 15:47, 2 November 2012 (EDT)

Participants

Haberdasher

Expedition

I was rather afraid that I'd miss the train that I'd booked at 11 AM, not because I'd lose the tickets (I wouldn't, thanks to Off-Peak-ness) but because I'd fulfill my "hour later than expected" rule again. When I woke up just before 10 AM, I thought my fears would come true... but somehow, I managed to make it to Victoria Station, pick up my tickets (with a reference number starting with XKC...), get to the platform, and even get a bite to eat, with a few minutes to spare. The train ride was fairly pretty and uneventful, barring a bit of confusion surrounding the train coaches separating which I worked out fairly easily, and I got some school reading done again. The train ride took a bit longer than it'd said online, meaning I was still late in getting to the hashpoint (1:30 instead of 1), but at least it was by less than an hour, and I'm guessing there weren't any ninja hashers waiting for me anyhow.

Chichester (pronounced like it looks, which surprised me) is a cute little town. Quiet, metaphorically and literally- on some of the residential side streets which my GPS told me to use, I could only hear my footsteps, my breathing, birds chirping, and the wind in the trees. Quite different than the hustle and bustle of downtown London, and I quite appreciated it.

Chicester isn't entirely rural though, as shown by the hashpoint, which was next to a Chinese take-away place (which was either closed for good or just not open on Sundays, don't know which). What I'd thought was an overhang covering a sidewalk outside of a storefront was in fact an overhanging gutter (?) in an alley on the side of the store. I got as close as I could, and my GPS kept telling me that I was a few hundred-thousandths of a degree too far west, meaning that it'd be inside the closed store... until, on another increasingly-useless-seeming iteration of the GPS dance, it gave me (roughly) the right digits after all! Same mantra as I've employed before: It might have been off a bit, but it was within (my shoddy GPS') accuracy, so it counts.

After that, I walked around aimlessly until I stumbled into Chichester's shopping district, which was right next to Chichester Cathedral. I took some pictures of the cathedral, got some pizza, and bought some winter clothes at a charity shop. Then the real adventure started when I tried to get to the water.

The water was a few miles away, I knew, but I figured if I got going I could make it there by sunset... except the route the GPS told me to use took me to a multiple-lane roundabout with few sidewalks or clear pedestrian paths (and with prickly plants that caught on my skirt a few times, because no geohashing expedition is complete without an assault from pickly plants). After some brief consideration of the logistics of the situation, I attempted another route... which eventually also ran out of sidewalks, right about when the sun finally set, and I was still a couple miles from the ocean. So that was a no-go. I did see a pretty brook (in between a bunch of car dealerships, oddly enough) and get a good photo or two of the sunset from a pedestrian overpass so it wasn't a total loss on that front. All in all, it was a pretty good way to spend a lazy Sunday.