2012-05-22 53 5

Location

On the lawn of a farm near Makkum

Participants

Plans

I hope to make it to this place. It's in a nice location (on land, and not even farmland). I probably have some time to go there in the afternoon. And it's a virgin graticule. :-)

Expedition

I had hoped to work until 13:00, but because of an absent collegue, I had to work until 17:00. I went hitch-hiking, which is nice, but I had expected a bit more time. Still, the virginity of the graticule convinced me that I could go anyway. So I went from my work to Hoogkerk, where I started hitch-hiking.

I soon got a ride to Marum. In hindsight, it may not have been a good idea to accept it, because there aren't many cars leaving from there. And for some reason they don't take me with them either. But the driver was nice; I gave her a link to this page, so she should be reading this. Hi! :-)

After waiting quite some time, I got a ride from a truck. The driver said he wasn't allowed to pick people up, but there's so much that isn't allowed. Sounds good to me... He went to Schiphol, so he dropped me in Joure, so it helped me a lot.

From Joure I got a ride from a guy who was testing a car. He had some measuring device to monitor what the engine was doing. And he was driving 160 km per hour. Which is way too much. He also said he would take me to Sneek, but instead drove all the way to Bolsward. Which didn't take long at that speed...

In Bolsward, I walked a bit to a better place. When I arrived there, I had a ride to Workum almost instantly. From Workum I started walking, but kept on hitch-hiking. I got a ride soon from a man who tried to drop me off at the exact location I wanted to be. He also told me a saying about the people in Ferwoude, where the hash was: "We're from Ferwoude, and we keep things as they are" (it rhymes in Dutch and Frisian), in other words "people from Ferwoude don't like new or strange things". So I had to hope that the farmer would let me walk on his terrain. Anyway, the GPS program I wrote wasn't working well (it only showed the distance to the target), so eventually he gave up at 150 m from the target. After walking around a bit, I found that I was on the wrong side of a ditch. So I walked around it and found the farm on whose land the hash was. The front door was 50 m from the hash location, so I tried to ring the bell, but that wasn't working, so I knocked on the door. The farmer who opened the door was of course surprised at my request, but he said I could go there as long as I didn't disturb his sheep. Sure thing, the hash wasn't in the grassland, so the sheep didn't need to be disturbed.

And so I arrived at the hash at around 21:00. Once there, three cats decided that a virgin graticule achievement wasn't enough, so they visited me and made me stroke them. So I did that, and I took a picture of them as well. And then I went back home. Which was easier said than done. I started walking to Workum, which was actually quite far. But at this hour, there wasn't much traffic here. Still, I got a ride for 200 m or so to a farm, and later until Workum. There I had to wait quite some time, until after the street lights went on. I was starting to worry if I would make it at all; there wasn't much traffic in Workum either. But after some time I got a ride. I expected destination Bolsward, but instead it was Drachten. Not bad at all! When we arrived there, it was really dark, and I was happy that there were several street lights on the spot. I made a sign saying Groningen, turned down a car to Marum (I had seen enough of that to expect no cars at all there at that hour), and got a ride back to Hoogkerk, where my scooter was. And so I arrived back home at 23:20.

And that concludes my expedition report. Thank you for reading. :-)

Photos

I'm hitch-hiking. And I'm alone. And I don't have anything to mount my camera on. So I make crappy pictures. But you can see my thumb!
The road leading to the highway in Marum. It's empty. It is empty most of the time...
The big roundabout in Joure.
Looking left in Bolsward.
Looking right in Bolsward.
The bridge at the edge of Workum.
The view from the bridge at the edge of Workum.
The hash is over there! Just 150 m from here! But there's a canal in between...
So let's have a look at the church here.
I made it!
Here's my program with an incorrect map. But it does show I'm 2 m from the hash. I was at 0 before, but couldn't reproduce that.
I pat the middle one of these cats after it came to me at the hash point.
The farmer had an old tractor. I don't think he was still using it.
A nice garden between Ferwoude and Workum, which I saw on the way back.
I've been here before, but it wasn't so dark then. The signs are so bright from my flash.
Drachten is dark when looking towards the highway.
And it's also dark when looking the other way.
Finally I made it. Now I can go home again!