2018-11-29 54 7

Location

This Geohash is located in some bushes on Helgoland.

Participants

Fippe

Planning

There are only two virgin graticules left in Germany, and Helgoland is closer to me. On the other hand, the geohash lands there less than once a year, since 1950 it has hit Helgoland's main island eight times and the smaller island three times, and since the invention of the Algorithm, the archipelago was only hit once.

I was prepared for another hit to happen - sooner or later. A long time ago, I checked how to get to Helgoland, and at which company one has to book tickets for the ferry.

To be informed quickly of the next hit is one of the reasons I wrote the notification script. It happened on 2018-11-28. Shortly after the geohash was announced, I checked the train connections to Cuxhaven, which is the city where the ferries depart, and booked a ticket for the ferry. It was all going to work out.

Expedition

I woke up at 03:45 to have breakfast and catch a tram less than an hour later. From Hannover's main train station, I took the train to Bremen, from there to Bremerhaven-Lehe, and from there to Cuxhaven.

In Cuxhaven, I walked to the harbor. First, I was at the wrong place, Alte Liebe, but quickly realized I had to go to the Fährhafen. The other passengers and I waited for the ship. For some reason they decided to not use the designated ferry MS Helgoland, and instead use the MS Funny Girl. The view from the ferry is what you'd expect in November in northern Germany: A white sky and water that is more greenish-grey than blue. I like it, it is calming.

Not so calming was the sea sickness I developed, which surprised me, since it never happened to me before. However, I remembered that I never was on a ship for a long time. I was on ships to Ameland, Norderney, Staten Island and possibly more, but none of those islands are as far away from the coast as Helgoland is. The sea sickness was not that bad though, I managed to keep everything inside of me.

The water turned more blue when the Funny Girl approached the island, and after around two hours and 20 minutes, the ship reached Helgoland's southern harbor.

There are colorful houses on Helgoland, which I saw leaving the harbor and heading north along the east coast. From the coast, I could also easily see Düne the smaller of the two islands in the Helgolandic archipelago.

In the north-east of Helgoland is a youth hostel, and next to the hostel, there are a bunch of thorny bushes. Of course, this is where the geohash's coordinates were located. I first approached the bushes from the south but was unable to continue, so I circled around them and tried it from the northern side. This also was not easy, and I got scratched, but I reached the coordinates.

After getting out of the bushes, I went to the northwest of the island, where the Tall Anna is located, a large red natural stone pillar. Between the north-east and the north-west there are some steep red cliffs, but also stairs that I could use to get up. The goats that grazed there did not require such help, which I found quite impressive.

Also impressive is the Tall Anna. Her color is red with a few white stripes, like the rest of the island she is made of a certain type of stone that is characteristic for Helgoland. From there I went south along the shore, which has curves that allowed me to see the red cliffs and the Tall Anna from a better perspective.

Walking south I approached a valley, except that it is not a natural valley but a crater British soldiers left when they destroyed Helgoland's fortifications in one of the largest intentional non-nuclear explosions ever. Next to the crater is a mountain, just as natural as the valley, the Pinneberg. It is the highest mountain on Helgoland and also the highest mountain in the entire Pinneberg district of which the archipelago is part of. It was very, very windy up there, probably the strongest winds I ever experienced, and I've been to The Windy City.

Afterwards, I went to the inhabited part of Helgoland, the settlement, looking for souvenirs. I did not eat on purpose, since I did not want the sea sickness anything to fight on the way back - I can eat when I am back on the continent.

Near the harbor, I noticed that some of the sea was red now. It was the Funny Girl who took us passengers back again. The waves were higher than on the way to Helgoland, but since I did not eat, everything was fine. From Cuxhaven, I took a train to Bremerhaven-Lehe, from there one to Bremen, from where I took a train back to Hannover. I arrived at home at 23:15.