2012-03-10 55 -3

Location

North of Lockerbie, in a field adjacent to the railway line.

Participants

Alexturgid and his girlfriend
Kerry.

Matingslinkys and his dragged along friend, Lazycrazyfool

Plans

Alexturgid and Kerry:

No chance of actually getting to the hash as it's too far from the train.

Matingslinkys and Lazycrazyfool:

Having, perhaps unwisely, tried to explain the concept of Geohashing to Lazycrazyfool, then giving up and directing her to the wiki, Matingslinkys managed to persuade her to come along and to bring her two and a half year old daughter too.

Expedition

Alexturgid and Kerry:

Team were heading to Edinburgh for a weekend away and noticed the hash would be spitting distance from the train. Unfortunately there were no windows to spit from, so the bodily fluid proxy wasn't possible. Shortly after Scrabble game was complete, the hash was near. GPS fix was wobbly inside the train so we even managed to get a photo of the hash inside the circle of uncertainty, but not close enough to claim this as a success. Saw the hash site from the train window, but not brave enough to jump out and get back in while the train was whizzing past.

Alexturgid did win the Scrabble game though.

Matingslinkys and Lazycrazyfool:

After the usual "I'll meet you at this point in time, or thereabouts, oh wait, stuff happened, now it's later" shenanigans that accompany any attempt at meeting up between Matingslinkys and Lazycrazyfool, we managed to get in the same car, get Lazycrazyfool Minor in her car seat and headed up off the motorway. This was not going to be a difficult hash, and a pleasant introduction to the concept for Lazycrazyfool, who had attempted to find a kite, but had not succeeded. After some minor cursing at Matingslinkys phone for turning itself off halfway through track recording, and a brief and uninteresting u-turn on the road into Lockerbie we arrived at the sheep dipping/shearing/holding pen that we intended to park at.

We then discovered that, although there were no livestock actually in the field, there certainly had been and that getting to the hash involved crossing 500 hundred yards of foul smelling s*** I can't even imagine, or maybe I just don't want to. Ok, it wasn't that bad, I just like reading things in Morgan Freeman's voice in my head. It was however, sufficiently muddy and boggy that Lazycrazyfool declined to cross the last 300 yards, citing unsuitable footwear, and a need to be within sight of the sleeping Lazycrazyfool Minor in the car. Matingslinkys did however continue on to find the hashpoint, eventually, and after slopping in muddy circles for some time. Heading back in as straight a line as the mud would allow, we got in the car and went to Lockerbie for chips.

Lazycrazyfool also pointed out that technically, as we started in Carlisle and crossed into Scotland on the motorway we get Border Geohash Ribbons as well! The photographic evidence from this is blurry because it turns out it is hard to take a photograph from a moving car, especially when you cannot remember when the sign is actually coming and round a corner and there it is!