2020-02-01 53 -2

Location

On Friday, KarMann was pleasantly surprised when he first checked the geohashes for the weekend, and saw that the Saturday point was just about half a mile from his home. Not quite a Couch Potato Geohash, but certainly closer than usual. And it's in a park, so easy access, right? Yes, in the water park… and right over the water.

Participants

KarMann

Plans

So, certainly an easy walk to get near the hashpoint, but what about those last 30 metres? KarMann isn't equipped to walk on water. But what's this? A little drone that he just got for Christmas? Isn't there some specific achievement for just that kind of thing? Let's pack up for the expedition!

Expedition

I set out on my journey from home at about 15:50, which did get me there by walking at 16:05, slightly after the ideal meetup time. I was hoping there might be some Manchester geohashers still active I might finally get to meet, but while a few people did pass by the area whilst I was there, none of them were wearing an XKCD T-shirt like mine (sysadmin), or hanging around the area like they were waiting to show up, or otherwise apparently geohashing.

Meanwhile, I set up my camera for video, and then the drone for the flight to the hash point. I'd gotten within 30 metres walking along the shoreline path, but we could do better than that! After setup & calibration, I lifted off, and flew the drone out to the hashpoint. It did not have a picnic there, nor did it strip down to its underwear, so those achievements remain elusive to me. So I flew it back, packed it up, waited a bit longer on the conveniently located bench for anyone else who might show up late. After a bit of that, I finished packing up drone & camera into my backpack, and headed home.

Unfortunately, due to the wiki being down during the Dark Ages, I didn't realise that I could have very easily gotten a Tron achievement along the way, just by coming out the other side of the park and not crossing my path at all. So that one also remains elusive. Someday, MCP. Someday.

I've also just now (2020-02-19) finally realised that the Couch Potato Geohash has an honourable mention for hash points within a kilometre of home, which this was for me, at 805 metres away, or 2640 feet.