2020-08-05 51 13

Location

Today's location is in the Elbe river at Dresden-Blasewitz, a few steps in from the left/southern bank.

Country: Germany; state: Sachsen (Saxony, EU:DE:SN); district: Dresden; municipality: Ortsamt: Blasewitz; Stadtteil: Blasewitz

Weather: nice and sunny

Expedition

Etodo, his flatmate and another friend

When checking the geohash location, I noticed that it was at a very accessible (and beautiful) location, right near the river bed. It was a nice, sunny day, and one of my flatmates also had time. Additionally, we asked another friend (who had not heard about geohashing before) whether he would like to come "have a picnic near the river Elbe" (qualifying for the Drag-along achievement). We went to the location by bike together. Our friend was slightly confused when we started rolling up our trouser legs, wading into the water and I got out my phone to pin-point the hashpoint. I quote: "If you took me here to play Pokémon Go or something, I'm leaving". At that point we explained to him (roughly) what we were actually doing and we're very glad that he did not leave.

All the while, we ignored another person not far away loitering around the riverbed, who we took for a random guy enjoying the nice day (not an unreasonable assumption near the river Elbe on a sunny day like this). As it turns out, he was there for the same reason as we were! Not bad, given that this was only my third geohash ever, and my friends' very first one. Together the four of us agreed to an approximate location and took a photo together.

Afterwards, we stayed to have a little chat and a picnic (Well, we ate yesterday's leftovers, anyway). Since we don't have a photo proof, we won't try to claim the picnic achievement (for some reason, I couldn't find any photos of the day, so we're lucky to have met Danatar who took the proof photo. In any case, we're already more than happy to take the two achievements which we got.

Danatar

The hashpoint is so near that I decided to make a short trip there after work. I cycled to the Elberadweg cycling route, then along the Elbe until I reached the lone tree near the hashpoint. When I walked the last meters to the Elbe, which in this place has a small stony beach, I saw three people standing at the water's edge. Pretending to be just a random passerby, I stood a dozen meters downstream from them and waited for them to leave so I could continue my expedition. They didn't, but then I heard some snippets of their conversation: "accuracy is not good enough yet" and "maybe we have to go into the water". Could it be...? When I asked them whether they were there for geohashing they confirmed that. Hooray, surprise meetup!

While I was still taking of my shoes and rolling up my trouser legs, they were already wading into the Elbe. My own GPS dance followed and it ended up less than one meter off the shore. As we were still able to stand, this regretfully does not count as a water geohash, but we were happy nontheless. After documenting the success we left the river and sat down in the grass, talking a bit. After a while I left and the others stayed for a small picnic. I cycled along the Elberadweg up to the Waldschlösschenbrücke, then I followed the road home.