2023-02-08 65 26

Wed 8 Feb 2023 in 65,26: 65.0801139, 26.2065698 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Location

On a gravel road in Niemiharju, Ylikiiminki, Oulu.

The point on a topographic map: [1]

Participants

• Kripakko

Plans

The first potentially doable geohash near my new home location! Some other ones have been accessible too, but I have been too occupied with something more important.

I should be able to take a bus from Oulu to Ylikiiminki and bring my bicycle in the bus. I would then only have to cycle about 15 km from Ylikiiminki to the hashpoint and back and a few kilometres in Oulu. The other option is cycling the whole distance of about 85 km, which is not going to happen after a full workday in the winter. Let's see if I can leave from work early enough to make this work.

It is possible that the bus driver will refuse to let me travel with the bicycle if the bus is full. If this happens, I will just abandon the expedition, but it hopefully will not.

Expedition

I was able to arrange my work so that I could leave at 14:50. I cycled to the bus station where bus 36 to Ylikiiminki departed at 15:10. I did not know where exactly it would depart, so I did a few loops looking for a sign or something. Finally I asked a bus driver having a break who told me it would leave from a station platform. All right. I guess I would have figured it out if I had just waited and watched. I had plenty of time to spare, so I was not in a hurry.

I got on the bus and out at Joloksentie stop at 16:07. I then had 68 minutes to cycle about 15 kilometres and to document the visit until the returning bus departed at 17:15. The next bus would leave two hours later, so I really needed to make it back on time. I was confident that I could do it though.

The roads were in pretty bad condition. The first larger road was covered in very tough and uneven ice and a thin layer of powder snow which obscured the hard surface. I had a few scares but kept my balance all the way, thanks to the studded tyres. The second smaller road was covered in hard snow with an extremely rough surface which caused strong vibrations to the bicycle and me. It caused my headlight to detach and drop down and a connection of the front mudguard to break off. Thankfully nothing b actually broke, and I was able to fix everything immediately.

(to be continued)