2010-11-18 59 17

Location

At the border between "Uppsala län" and "Stockholms län". Outside Knivsta.

Participants

Vswe

Plans

Not sure if I will try to reach it or not. It's about 30km there and about the same amount back. I will have to be back(at school) at noon and I plan to reach it by foot. Luckily my P.E. lesson later in the day is just about theory.

Expedition

Through the city

Left home at 00:36 after eating a "breakfast" and packing the last stuff. I followed my pre-planned route and the streets were totally empty. Well, I saw a bus when I crossed a bridge, but not so much more. When I reached the central parts of the city the activity increased a bit, people were either walking home after visiting the bar or were still at the bar drinking and doing "bar-stuff". "Bar-stuff" is mostly smoking. I continued my walk and left the city behind me after leaving an industry area behind me as the last outpost.

The last things to pack.
Me just outside my home.
Gps information at the start.
Empty street.
A small path...
...at the side of the road.
Leaving the city.

Darkness

With the city behind me I pretty quickly turned onto a road without street lights. I were already carrying a flashlight, but it wasn't enough anymore: I pulled out a headlight from my bag. The headlight and flashlight together lit my surroundings enough for me to see things and for me to be seen by cars. I followed the same road for hours, passing houses from time to time. I also passed under a highway. And four cars drove by. That's it.

Nothing more happened during this time, but I still enjoyed it.

After a left turn there won't be any more streetlights.
After putting on the headlight.
Gps information update.
Passing below the highway, it's very dark even though I used the headlight, the flashlight and the camera light.
Took a short stop at a bus stop.

Where's the road?

After about five hours from home I were supposed to reach a larger road than the one I walked on. My GPS said that it was very near, then all of a sudden I had passed it (according to the GPS.) I didn't pass any road though: this confused me, but I continued. After a while I suddenly reached it, but it was pretty far from where it were supposed to be. I'm pretty sure the road hadn't moved itself, so I guess the GPS was wrong. At the intersection I stopped to pee and have something to eat. It was still pitch dark as I continued on towards the hash.

I never saw a road...
The intersection.

Printed Google maps

After crossing the intersection I had to be more careful. All other places I had walked on during the night I had already visited at least once before in my life: Now I was in unknown territory.

I had my GPS and two printouts from Google maps, but due to the darkness it was still very difficult. My flashlight had run out of batteries, so I replaced it with my bicycle light. The headlight was still working but I still didn't see much. The only coordinate I had was the actual hashpoint, no other points in the area to navigate with, but with some minor problems I actually reached the small road I was looking for.

It was so small that cars and other motor vehicles weren't allowed to drive on it. I was now about 2km from the hash.

Vswe vs Mother nature

After walking over a kilometer it was time to head into the forest, it was completely dark and I didn't see much of it. It seems like a crazy decision to try to walk the last 700 meters to the hash, but it's also a kinda crazy decision to head out half an hour after midnight to try to reach a coordinate in the middle of a forest and then actually walk for six hours just to reach "nothing".

But, I had come this far so there wasn't actually an option to head back now so I went into the completely dark forest to reach my spot. The forest was a combination of big rocks, dense vegetation and water. It was completely wet in the forest, small lakes and swamps had been temporarily created by the melting snow but this time it wouldn't stop me. My shoes got wet after just a few minutes and turned wetter as I walked in deeper and deeper swamps. (I tried to avoid the small lakes.) No alligators were there to be seen, but it remained to be seen who would become whose bitch, Vswe or Mother Nature.

I finally reached the geohash and it felt great.

I took some pictures and then headed back the 700 meters to the small road.

Getting closer...
Proof.
Stupid Grin^tm

Time trial

When I reached the small road again it had become light: it was too cloudy to see the sun, but it was there. There actually wasn't a sunrise, but I was on the hashpoint during it. I now realized I had forgot to take the time it took to walk the 1.4km through the forest into the calculations.

I was more than an hour behind the time schedule. I told my GPS to show ETA at destination and it showed a bit after noon. This was too late for me though, I had to be at school at noon.

I increased my walking speed and ran a bit, the ETA decreased to about 11:30, how great! But as I continued onto a bigger road the ETA increased the more I walked. Since the road didn't go in quite the right direction (It had to go around a part of the forest) my speed to the target was much slower than my actual walking speed.

The ETA was now about 14:30. Terrible! This was really a time trial, when the road straightened up I were able to push the ETA down to about 12:30 and I felt I were able to do this. The ETA was sometimes down at 11:20 but it went up and down all the time and my legs and feet got more and more tired. Since my feet were wet and I had walked for about nine hours, they started to hurt more and more. The ETA became harder and harder to keep down, and in the end I had to give up.

Looking back at the hash (700 meters into the forest).
I can see things!
Date proof.
Heading back.
Wet shoes.
Leaving the small road.
Back on a bigger road.
The intersection again.
Heading back.
Heading back.

Resting

I called my mum and asked her if she could pick me up by car and drive me the last distance to school. She arrived half an hour later and at that time I had walked for about 10 hours a total distance of 45.79 kilometers. It was very nice to rest in the car. Back at school I changed my clothes and found that my feet didn't looked like before, (see photos) but I was happy and felt great.