2008-09-11 52 13

The amazing beaver speed-o-meter

Participants

Expedition

Another hash within the city limits of Berlin. From the satellite images, it looks like a planned park in some development area, with most of the area still being under construction. Now you never know how old the aerial pictures are.

Furthermore, another past hash lies close by. The hash for July 21 is located in a closed industrial/commercial complex on a small island in the river Spree. Since this was one of the first hashes relet planned to attend (but never did), he decided to pay it a visit.

Relet went by bike after work, leaving about quarter past six in the evening. It was a nice enough day and he soon reached the area of the retro hash. He entered the fenced area by the main road, and soon reached the first boom across the way. Waving at the guardsmen, he attempted to go around it. They were not so easily fooled, and yelled at him. Having failed at a polite introduction, he excused himself and asked for directions to the hash. They were not impressed that he was sent by the Internet and told him that he would not take photos on their site. Looking at his GPS, they discovered however that the location was not on their site at all and gave directions to another part of the complex.

Turning around, relet soon reached the next boom. This one featured a map, which allowed him to orient and grok that he was searching for building nr. 154. The guardian on duty just passed in his car, and asked if he could help. This one looking friendlier, Relet explained that he would like to take a photo from the building, and that he was playing a sort of game. The guardian apparently knew about geocaching and replied that he would probably not find anything there, but that he was welcome to try.

Relet therefore continued on his way across the site, eventually reaching the back side of the building. He passed a few late workers as he proceeded around the place. He took another photo from the front side. The building apparently belongs to the RUWE company, a building cleaning company. It seemed to be some storage space for larger machinery. The hash would have been almost exactly in the middle of the building, so this was as far as it was good to go. Relet mounted his bike again and left for today's hash.

En route, he admired an electronic beaver speed-o-meter. It says "Slow down!" whenever a beaver passes by with more than 30km/h. If the beaver is slower, it says "Thank you." Or maybe it's for traffic - meaning that it's not safe to run over beavers at more than 30km/h.

As you can see on the tracklog, he took a few detours to log some geocaches on his way. Eventually, he reached the place. Turns out, it was a planned park in some development area, with most of the area still being under construction. The walkways were not yet finished on this side of the area, so he pushed his bike across the open tundra. He climbed a small ditch, and found the hash. Next to the hash lay a recently finished playground - basically a large sandbox with two soccer goals. Yay for broken ankles.

Relet took a few photos, some screenshots of his GPS device, and took a walk down the banks of the river Havel. He placed a geocache himself, and watched the setting sun over the river.