2005-05-26 53 9

Location

On a pasture near Krempe, Schleswig-Holstein.

Participants

Rsge (talk)
π π π (talk)

Plans

Rsge

I looked up a few interesting retro hash ideas a while ago, including this pilgrimage hash. When the regular hash of 2023-08-01 placed only a few kilometers of this hash, I planned to get the regular and the retro hash in one trip. The weather was forecast to be showery, so I considered driving, but as the weather didn't look too bad (at first) and Krempe has it's own regional train station near the hashes, I decided to go by train and bike to save on emissions. I asked π π π if he wanted to come, too. He said yes; we'd take the same train and meet in the train or at Krempe station.

π π π

Retro Expedition

Rsge (2023-08-01)

After π π π and I were finished at the 2023-08-01 hash, we rode on to this retro hash. It was raining a bit, but not as bad as on my way to the train station and it stopped just before we reached a parking spot for our bikes.
There was an old mill missing it's blades with an addition to make it a house to live in. The hash was on a pasture behind this mill, so we started going in it's direction. In the house we saw a dog watching us (a Collie I think), which started barking as we went away. After a while we realized we couldn't reach the hash from our side, as a wide ditch with a high water level separated us from the hash position. So we went back, seeing if there was a bridge near the mill.
As we approached the mill again, a man came out and asked us what we were doing. We explained we were doing geohashing, something similar to geocaching but random. He was really nice, seemed to understand and allowed us to get on his property to get over the ditch. He also told us we could just go past his mill on the other side on the way back. (I won't count it as an Ambassador achievement because of this.) As we talked and walked over his property, the dog we saw first and another one, probably still a puppy, came to see who's there and be petted. Especially the pup wouldn't stop jumping at me to be petted, it was pretty sweet. (I won't count this for the Hashcat achievement as dogs aren't cats.^{[Citation needed]}) We thanked the owner, I said goodbye to the pup and we went on our way across the pasture towards the hash.
The hash was located right next to a corn field, we were lucky the hash didn't land inside it. We took a few photos from the ground and I started my drone as usual. It was pretty windy, so the straight down photo was a little harder to take, but in the end I got all the photos I wanted. We ate our celebratory cookies brought by π π π and went back, this time going past the property.
As we got back to our bikes' parking spot, I got the idea to take a stereo picture of the hash to get it in 3D. π π π had to catch a train, so he went on his way, while I stayed and got my drone ready again. I only had one barely charged battery left, but thought it should suffice for taking two pictures...
Well, I got to the hash, but it already took a large chunk of charge. The strong wind didn't help. I quickly took two pictures (which turned out to be too far apart for the height I was at to get a good illusion) and tried getting back to my position - but the wind was coming from my direction and the battery was almost empty, so the drone started the emergency landing protocol. I tried steering it towards myself as best I could, but it just wouldn't cover any distance towards me. I knew it would fly a while still even after reaching "0 % charge", I tested that - but it could end up trying to land on the country road and either be destroyed or spook a driver. I decided to just try and get it on my side of the road at least, which luckily worked without the drone getting too low. I tried getting it closer towards me now, as the wind is almost always weaker near the ground, but still couldn't get it to behave. In a last minute effort I decided to land it on the pedestrian way besides the street and just hoped that it wouldn't drift towards the street too much and that no one would go down that way until I got it back - because once it landed, it wouldn't lift off again until I changed the battery.
Luckily, everything worked out and I just had to walk a few meters to get the drone. I packed it again, relieved, and looked up which train I could take to get home. By coincidence, the next one would depart in just a few minutes more than I needed to get there.
Just as I wanted to go, I found a piece of trash on the ground and quickly threw it in the trash can right beside the bike parking spot. (As this is a retro hash, no achievements, but I at least gave myself a ribbon for it.) Then I went on my way.
I decided to go to Kremperheide instead of Krempe, as it was almost the same distance from my current position and the train would be there a few minutes earlier. Almost half of the way I drove straight against the wind, bringing my usual riding speed down to a perceived crawl and breaking me to a sweat, but the ETA according to my GPS still went down and I arrived a few minutes early, winded but happy. The train came and I boarded. Of course I also wasn't checked for tickets on the way back... Oh well, better save then sorry, Murphy's law and all.
Just as I got out of the train at my home station one of my current favorite songs started playing, so I got up to speed pretty quickly.
Totally exhausted I arrived home and needed a few minutes to cool down now, but was happy to have gotten two hashes I wanted in one day. Then, just a few minutes after I arrived home, it started raining very badly again and I was even gladder to be home again - such a good thing houses are hollow inside...

A quick calculation of prices for car vs. train, just for fun:

Distance to Krempe & back: Ca. 60 km
Average gas usage of the car I use: Ca. 9 L/100 km
Estimated gas usage for way: 5.4 L
Current gas prices for Super E10: Ca. 1.90 €/L
- Total for car: Ca. 10.30 €
Train ticket: 6.60 €
Bike train ticket: 3.26 €
- Total for train+bike: 9,86 €

Conclusion: TIL, even with the conservative assumptions for the car trip the train was probably the cheaper option, given the high gas prices and the car's high fuel usage. I didn't expect this given the rather high ticket prices. So it wasn't just better for the environment to take the train, it was also probably cheaper.