2012-07-15 52 5

Location

In Apeldoorn on the bank of the Apeldoorn Kanaal

Participants

Plans

Shevek planned to go hitchhiking and be there at 3pm, Eupeodes decided to go by bike and arrive at the same moment. It worked out differently.

Expedition

Eupeodes

Intended to leave at around 1pm so I would be there at 3pm and be back home before dinner. In the end I left at around 3:45 by recumbent bike. The ride started nice, bit up and down. Of course my speed dropped around Hoenderloo, it always does. After this I had some longe stretches down, speeds exceeded 40 km/h, it was chilly. Arrived at the hashpoint at 5:36pm. Took some pictures and set of to get back home. Since I was aiming for tron and I don't like driving the same way back anyways I took a different route. After some time it started to rain so I took shelter under a tree. Waited until the worst part passed and just at that moment the tree started to leak so I continued my way. When I was in Arnhem it was already around 8pm and I hadn't had diner yet, so got some pasta at Julia's at the central station. Now I could continue my way home and I arrived home with a bit over 100 km driven (40 to the hash, 60 the way back).

It turned out to be some advantage that Eupeodes knew the way quite well. His parents live only about one kilometer from the hash, so he knew the way to the hash. Although Eupeodes cycled/walked almost every part of the Kanaal, the hash appeared to be on one of those rare sections where he had never been yet.

Shevek

My plans, including the change, are documented here, as is the first part of my expedition. It continues here. After that, my friend dropped my off at the highway to Utrecht. I planned to do Utrecht, Amersfoort, Apeldoorn. However, I got a ride to Utrecht, then to Nieuwegein. I mistakenly got out too late. I turned around there, to get back on the road, but had to wait a long time. Eventually I was picked up and driven to the place where I should have gotten out in the first place. I was standing just behind the "start of highway" sign, at the place where the emergency lane started. It seemed to be the safest place to stand. However, a police car stopped, and the officer instructed me to stand before the sign instead, in a much more dangerous place (not for me, but for the stopping cars). Whatever you say, officer... Luckily, it didn't take long before I got a ride to Utrecht again, a bit closer to the highway to Amersfoort this time. And there was no accident when I got into the car. But not many cars for Amersfoort passed in the new spot, so eventually I accepted a ride to Ede, and changed the plan to go from there to Arnhem, Apeldoorn. Not a large detour anyway.

Ede-Wageningen seems like a perfect place for hitch-hiking: traffic from two towns goes onto the highway there, and the highway only goes to Arnhem, so any car that stops is good. So far the theoretical part. It took more than two hours before a car stopped. That car contained a woman and a dog. The dog seemed uneasy. The woman said it was a "wild pittbull", and she wasn't sure if it was safe. She recommended me not to trust it (in other words, not to get into the car). Well, it was her dog, so I suppose she would know. Then why did she stop in the first place? Ah well.

It was getting dark, and I was beginning to worry that I might not make it back home. Luckily, I had had enough bad luck, it seemed, because then something good happened: a car stopped, with three people who lived very close to Emmeloord, where I grew up. And they were happy to take me there. I was happy to have a roof for the night, so I accepted the offer. When I told them about my expedition, and asked if they could make a detour in Apeldoorn, they liked the idea. So they joined me to the hash.

Getting there was not the problem. Getting my gps to work was. Maybe it was the trees, maybe my gps is just broken. Anyway, it was sometimes sort of steady at a few meters distance from the hash, and then it jumped to 70 or even 200 meters without us even moving. It was quite easy to be at the hash point within the accuracy of the gps device at that moment. The screenshot was taken at a sort of short distance.

My drivers wanted to be on the picture with me. I was told I had to stand next to the girl. She was a beautiful girl, so I happily agreed.

They brought me to my father's house, where I arrived after 23:00. It was dark by then, and I was happy I didn't have to hitch-hike all the way to Groningen. I'll do that tomorrow. I'll take a short detour and go over Hoogezand.