2021-05-21 54 9

Location

on a newly planted field in Aukrug, Schleswig-Holstein

Participants

π π π (talk)
his mother

Expedition

It's Geohashing Day! I didn't manage it the last two years, so this time I had to celebrate by visiting a geohash (and get the achievement). This hash seemed doable because it lay near a train station, so I juggled around the train and cycle times and came up with a plan to take two trains there, then cycle around 25 km to another station and take the train home. Unfortunately, I could only do it in the late afternoon, and there was supposed to be a thunderstorm then. So I re-planned to also take the train back and walk to the hash, pushing the expedition over four hours, though I'd have to buy tickets to all four trains. I noticed this would all be way easier if I just drove there, and fortunately my mother was happy to let me drive her new electric car and accompany me, under the suggestion we also find some geocaches there.

So in the late afternoon, we drove the 43 km to Aukrug through the villages and the countryside in very heavy intermittent rain. We parked near the hash and only had to walk 400 m. The hash lay 60 m onto a field of newly planted maize. Fortunately, the seedlings were easy to avoid, so I was able to walk there while my mother stayed at the edge. For Geohashing Day celebrations, I brought my juggling balls and performed a few tricks at the hashpoint.

Luckily for us, the coordinates were only 400 m from a 10-geocache round trip around the Viertshoher Moor, which we started after the hash. Just as we set off, rains started to pour and and strong winds picked up, but they slowly subsided over the next hour. We were able to stay mostly dry under our umbrellas and found all 10 caches relatively easily in 1.5 hours, walking a little under 3 km. Thanks to the rain, the entire moor was empty (of people, we did see plenty of deer), though only a small part it was actually classical wetland – but the forests were beautiful too. After completing it, we drove home, this time taking the autobahn.