2023-06-10 global

Location

This Globalhash is located in a forest in Selbeck.

Participants

Retro

Rsge
- Brokoli
- Framezz
- L.S.

Plans

Fippe: I'll take the train to Duisburg-Großenbaum and cycle the rest of the distance. Not sure how early I'll arrive, but I'll definitely be there at 14:30 to meet with rkschlotte and stay until 16:00, the Saturday meetup time. I'm not bringing the chairs this time since I can't transport them by bike, but I'll bring a blanket we can sit on.
FelixTheCat: I'll aim for around 15:00, traffic permitting.
π π π: The current fourth iteration of the plan is to leave in the morning, go to Mülheim via Hamburg, Bremen, and Osnabrück, and be at the hash around 3 pm. That's if none of the trains mess it up.
ΛΞ: Actually somewhat unplanned, I decided this morning to launch my first geohash expedition ever. ETA 15:00 local time.
GeorgDerReisende: I wanted first to walk around Düsseldorf, later to walk to the hash.

Expedition

Fippe

In the morning, I cycled to Osnabrück Central and took the train via Duisburg to Duisburg-Großenbaum. From there, I cycled east towards the coordinates.

The coordinates were in a forest, so I walked the last meters on foot. It is one of those easy mode forests, no dense bushes. At 12:40, I located the coordinates and recorded proof. Nobody else was there, and I didn't find any signs of someone who had been there earlier.

After spreading the blanket to sit on, I started waiting for the others to arrive. At about 14:35, the next person to arrive was rkschlotte, followed by FelixTheCat soon afterwards. ΛΞ and Sov went on their first expedition today and arrived almost at the same time as GeorgDerReisende. Last but not least, π π π joined us.

And introductory round was in order, since all of us met someone new today. Other activities included: Swapping stories, candy and business cards, taking pictures, and writing a letter to rkschlotte's friend. We noticed that we achieved a Migration Geohash - the seven of us represented not just five, but seven graticules by place of birth, setting a new record:

Geohasher	Graticule of birth
ΛΞ	51,6	Düsseldorf
π π π	53,10	Hamburg-East
FelixTheCat	52,4	Amsterdam
Fippe	42,-87	Kenosha
GeorgDerReisende	52,9	Hannover
rkschlotte	53,9	Hamburg-West
Sov	-35,149	Canberra

The official meetup time of 16:00 came and went. Afterwards, GeorgDerReisende left to catch his train, and ΛΞ and Sov left too. The rest of us departed at about 16:55. It was really nice meeting with you all today!

After saying goodbye, I cycled to the train station at Mülheim, crossing the river Ruhr on the way. From there, I took the train via Münster back to Osnabrück Central and cycled home from there.

ΛΞ

At about one o’clock in the afternoon my daughter and I made the final go/no-go decision: Let’s GO (-;

Despite forecasted 30+°C we were determined to cover the mere 7 km a crow’s flight from home somehow. Public transportation brought us around the forests between the cities of Duisburg and Mülheim in an hour, and the remaining 2 km we hiked through the countryside. (Yes, the Ruhrgebiet is not all coal mines and steel mills anymore.)

At around 15:10 we reached the plot of forest the coordinates were and met five fellow geohashers (I’ll add name tags, links, and pictures once I figured out how to later (-;)

Shortly after 4 p.m. we had to leave, unfortunately. We enjoyed your company and are looking forward to meet again.

ΛΞ (talk) 19:48, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

FelixTheCat

I left the house around 10:00 and drove off towards Germany. The journey went smoothly, although there was a bit of traffic on the A3 motorway. I arrived in Mülheim in the early afternoon. There I walked around the city centre for a bit and had some lunch. After that I went back to the hashmobile and drove the remaining distance along Stockweg, a narrow country road serving mostly farms. I parked next to the hash forest and walked the last bit. At the globalhash I met Fippe and rkschlotte. We talked for a bit and waited for the others to arrive. Fippe had brought some extremely sour candy and I had brought some stroopwafels. Once everyone had arrived, we had an introduction round to get to know each other and shared stories about how we all got here. It was great meeting you all, and I hope we'll see each other again soon!

We left around 17:00, but when I tried to drive off I found my way partially blocked by a tractor-drawn carriage and a large group of drunk football fans relieving themselves by the side of the road. Not something I was expecting out here in the middle of nowhere. The friendly tractor driver moved his vehicle so I could pass, and the football fans cheered and waved as I drove past them.

GeorgDerReisende

I took the usually westbound train from Kassel at 7:03. It went well until Duisburg but there it stopped because of an accident on the rails to Düsseldorf. Then a train to Düsseldorf was announced, I took it, but without a stop it ran to Köln without any intermediate stop. Of course, the Köln railway station is a somewhat suburban station of Düsseldorf, only one hour away around the Ruhr area. From Köln I took a train to Düsseldorf again and I arrived at Düsseldorf. I ran to some points in Düsseldorf, but at least I took the bus to Ratingen-Lintorf and from there I walked to the hash.

Retro expedition 2023-08-27 (Rsge)

I was really sad to have just missed the third Globalhash in Germany due to only rediscovering Geohashing some 15 days later. I would have even had the time to go on that date would I have just known about it... So I decided to at least get there as a Retrohash when I'd be going to Gamescom in Cologne on Saturday, August 26th with a few friends and staying at a hotel in Düsseldorf, which isn't that far from the hash, for that reason.
On Friday we drove down to Düsseldorf from the home region of three of us in the Pinneberg municipality with a short stop in Hamburg to pick up the fourth person. We stayed the night at the hotel and went to the fair the next day. (For those interested, it sadly was rather disappointing, continuing the trend from last year after the COVID pause.) Afterwards, we got back to the hotel again. The next day, after checking out, getting breakfast from a nice bakery near the hotel and refueling, we went on our way to the Retro-Globalhash.
The last stretch of road to the hash, the "Stockweg", which FelixTheCat also took, was technically closed to anyone who wasn't a resident, a visitor of one or driving an agrarian vehicle. After a little discussion and seeing if we could avoid the road we decided to use it anyway and pretend to visit somebody or just say we got lost if we were caught. Driving through we saw a few other cars from people who were clearly not residents themselves and so got more confident as we went on, nobody seemed to care. [Even though this still is Germany, the land of lawful pettiness, so you never know ; )]
We parked next to another car just at the forest - if they could park there we can too, we figured - and went into the forest. We found an old, rotten radio (?) buried in the forest floor, but sadly didn't have any bags with us to take it to the trash. The GPS reception wasn't the greatest so we wandered around a bit at first, but after a short while we found a worn-down geohash note. We took our photo there and the others went back to the car, while I stayed and set up my drone to take a few more photos. There was even an opening in the leaves through which I could ascend above the forest.
Afterwards I went back to the car, too, and we made the three-hour-journey back home.

Photos

Fippe

On the way to the Globalhash
Proof
The Globalhash
Surroundings
The site of the Globalhash
The blanket is ready
The coordinates viewed from the street
The golf course behind the forest
All of us at the coordinates
At the Mülheim station

FelixTheCat

Crossing one of the many bridges across the Ruhr into the centre of Mülheim. There were lots of people taking wedding photos in the parks by the river.
The Schloßstraße, the main shopping street of Mülheim.
My lunch.
I returned to the car park using a different bridge, one that used to carry railway tracks but is now a bicycle superhighway.
The hash street. The point is about 1.5 km ahead.
I found Fippe's base camp here.
rkschlotte's bike is over there.
GPS proof.
Lloyd and Hermelien celebrating our first globalhash!
The mandatory group photo once everyone had arrived.