2010-07-18 48 -123

Location

In a field just off Mount Newton Cross Road in Saanich.

Participants

Wenslayer and one of his daughters.

Plans

Pretty simple: it was close by (~ 20km), so I thought I'd simply bike to the location, ask permission to enter the field, record the fact and be done with it.

Expedition

After my big climb yesterday, I wasn't in need of that much more biking for the weekend. Despite this, I felt I couldn't pass up the opportunity of such a close Geohash. Now to avoid making things simple, I thought I'd bring one of my daughters along. She's 6, but hasn't progressed to the point of being to bike on her own, let alone biking for that many kilometres.

No, I had to put her on the third wheel behind me, because I wasn't tired enough. With about 60lbs of extra bike and kid behind me, it's like trying to sprint with a drag-chute behind you. :) So off we go... I make my way to Lochside Trail -- a nice flat biking path up and down the Saanich peninsula that I thought would work well for this purpose.

Against my better judgement, I was not content to leisurely bike along -- I poured it on, passing all the Sunday-cyclists. The tail-wind made it fun to get that much faster heading up the peninsula. We passed Mattick's Farm and then biked along farms until we hit Mt. Newton Cross Road. After a brief break, we crossed the highway, and rode along a hillier Mt. Newton X-Road.

We made it to the location I had scouted out on Google Maps, and pulled into the driveway of the house on the property. Lucky for us, a kind grandmother-like woman was on the deck and stood to greet us as we rolled in: "Well what have we here?" I explained we were on an adventure, and that we were trying to reach a semi-random coordinate that happened to be in the field behind her house. I kindly asked permission if we could enter the field and record the fact that we made it. She looked a little puzzled and asked how come the coordinate was on her property. I then tried to explain, at a high level, how it was generated based on the current day and opening Dow Jones -- she simply waved me off and said "oh go ahead, you look like you know what you're doing". I thanked her, and off we went down a side road to get better access to the Geohash.

Some sort of tall grass was growing in the field and when I stopped to check my GPS, I was within 100m. I started into the field, encouraging my daughter to join me, but she protested at the "sharp grass" against her bare legs. I suppose she considered this "raptor-ish" territory and chose to stay by the bikes. I pressed on, trying not to trample the grasses as I homed in on the location.

I made it, took some pics, and made my way out. I took a couple more of us together, and then headed home. That tail wind on the way there was now a head wind on the way back, and boy did it ever sap my strength -- we limped along until we reached Mattick's Farm, where we stopped to enjoy some ice cream, the reward for a successful Geohash!

And as we rode home from Mattick's Farm, we saw a deer not more than 10m from the bike path -- what a nice surprise!