Yesterday, Ruth and I made the first ever attempt at a geohashing expedition in Trinidad & Tobago, successfully finding a hashpoint in Chase Village in the West of Trinidad!
Tag: geohashing
Geohashing expedition 2025-01-15 10 -61
This checkin to geohash 2025-01-15 10 -61 reflects a geohashing expedition. See more of Dan's hash logs.
Location
Empty lot off Bhagan Trace, Chandernagore, near Chase Village, Trinidad.
Participants
Plans
I’ve been on holiday on the islands of Trinidad & Tobago this week. These island nations span graticules that are dominated by the Caribbean and Atlantic Oceans, so it’s little wonder there’s never been an attempted geohashing expedition in them. So when a hashpoint popped-up in a possibly-accessible location, I had to go for it!
For additional context: Trinidad & Tobago is currently under a state of emergency as gang warfare and an escalating murder rate has reached a peak. It’s probably ill-advised to go far off the beaten track, especially as somebody who’s clearly a foreign tourist. The violence and danger is especially prevalent in and around parts of nearby Port of Spain.
As a result, my partner Ruth (wisely) agreed to drive with me to the GZ strictly under the understanding that we’d turn back at a moment’s notice if anything looked remotely sketchy, and we’d take every precaution on the way to, from, and at the hashpoint area (e.g. keeping car doors locked when travelling and not getting out unless necessary and safe to do so, keeping valuables hidden out of sight, knowing the location of the nearest police station at any time, etc.).
I don’t have my regular geohashing kit with me, but I’ve got a smartphone, uLogger sending 5-minute GPS location pings (and the ability to send a location when I press a button in the app, for proof later), and a little bravery, so here we go…
Expedition
Our plane from Tobago landed around 15:20 local time, following an ahead-of-schedule flight assisted by a tailwind from the Atlantic side. We disembarked, collected our bags, and proceeded to pick up a hire car.
Our original plan for our stay in Trinidad had been to drive up to an AirBnB near 10.743817, -61.514248 on Paramin, one of Tobago’s highest summits. However, our experience of driving up Mount Dillon on Tobago earlier in the week showed us that the rural mountain roads around here can be terrifyingly dangerous for non-locals1, and so we chickened out and investigated the possibility of arranging a last-minute stay at a lodge on the edge of the rainforest in Gran Couva, or else failing that a fallback plan of a conventional tourist-centric hotel in the North of Port of Spain.
By this point, we’d determined that the hashpoint was in the old sugar growing region of Caroni, in which our originally-intended accommodation at Gran Couva could be found, and so it seemed feasible that we might be able to safely deviate from our route only a little to get to the hashpoint before reaching our beds. We were particularly keen to be at a place of known safety before the sun set, here in an unusual part of an unfamiliar country! So when the owner of our proposed lodge in Gran Couva called to say that he couldn’t accept our last-minute booking on account of ongoing renovations to his property, we had to quickly arrange ourself a room at our backup hotel.
This put us in an awkward position: now the hashpoint really wasn’t anything-like on the way from the airport to where we’d be staying, and we’d doubtless be spending longer than we’d like to be on the road and increasing the risk that we’d be out after dark. I reassured Ruth, whose appetite for risk is somewhat lower than mine, that if we set out for the hashpoint and anything seemed “off” we could turn around at any time, and we began our journey.
Boosted by her experience of driving on Tobago, Ruth continued to show her rapidly-developing Trinbagonian road skills2.
Despite increasingly heavy traffic on our minor roads, possibly resulting from a crash that had occurred on the Southbound carriageway of the nearby Uriah Butler Highway which was causing drivers to seek a shortcut through the suburbs, we made reasonable time, and were soon in the vicinity of the hashpoint: a mixed-use residential/light commercial estate of the kind that apparently sprung up in places that were, until very late in the 20th century, lands used for sugar cane plantations.
At this point, the maps started to become less and less useful: Google Maps, OpenStreetMap, and Bing Maps completely disagreed as to whether we were driving on Bhagan Trace, Cemetery Street, or Roy Gobin Fifth Avenue, as well as disagreeing on whether we were driving into a cul-de-sac or whether it was possible to loop around at the end to return back to the main roads. It was now almost 17:00 and we were greeted by a large number of cars coming out of the narrow street in the opposite direction to us, going in, and squeezing past us: presumably workers from one of the businesses down here going home for the evening.
My GPS flickered as it tried to make sense of the patchwork of streets, and I asked Ruth to slow down and pull over a couple of times until I was sure that we’d gotten as close as we could, by road. Looking out of my window, I saw the empty lot that I’d scouted from satellite photography, but it was hopelessly overgrown. If the hashpoint was within it, it’d take hours of work and a machete to cut through. The circle of uncertainty jumped around as I tried to finalise the signal without daring to do the obvious thing of holding my phone outside the car window. A handful of locals watched us, the strange white folks sitting in a new car, as I poked at my devices in an effort to check if we were within the circle, or at least if we would be when, imminently, we were forced to park even closer to the side to let a larger vehicle force its way through next to us!
At the point at which I thought we’d made it, I hit the “save waypoint” at 17:06 button and instructed Ruth to drive on. We turned in the road and I started navigating us to our hotel, only thinking to look at the final location I’d tagged later, when we felt safer. We drove back into Port of Spain avoiding Laventille (another zone we’d been particularly recommended to stay away from) while I resisted the urge to double-check my tracklog, instead focussing on trying to provide solid directions through not-always-signposted streets: we had a wrong turning at one point when we came off the highway at Bamboo Settlement No. 1 (10.627952, -61.429083) but thankfully this was an easy mistake to course-correct from.
It was only when I looked at my tracklog, later, that I discovered that the point I’d tagged was exactly 8.59 metres from the hashpoint, plus or minus a circle of uncertainty of… 9 metres. Amazingly, we’d succeeded without even being certain we’d done so. Having failed to get a silly grin photo at the hashpoint, we sufficed to get one while we drank celebratory Prosecco and ate tapas on the rooftop bar of our hotel, looking down on the beautiful bay and imposing mountains of this beautiful if intimidating island.
Tracklog
I didn’t bring my primary GPSr, but my phone keeps a general-purpose tracklog at ~5min/50m intervals, and when I prompt it to. Apologies that this makes my route map look “jumpier” than usual, especially when I’m away from the GZ.
Achievements
Footnotes
1 Often, when speaking to locals, they’d ask if it was our first time in Trinidad & Tobago, and on learning that it was, they’d be shocked to hear that we’d opted to drive for ourselves rather than to hire drivers to take us places: it turns out that the roads are in very-variable condition, from wonderfully-maintained highways to rural trails barely-driveable without a 4×4, but locals in both drive with the same kind of assertive and sometimes reckless attitude.
2 tl;dr of driving in Trinidad & Tobago, as somebody who learned to drive in the UK: (1) if you need to get out of anywhere, don’t wait for anybody to yield because they won’t, even if you theoretically have the right of way: instead, force your way out by obstructing others, (2) drive in the middle of the road wherever possible to make it easier to dodge potholes and other hazards, which are clustered near the soft verges, and swing to your own side of the road only at the last second to avoid collisions, and (3) use your horn as often as you like and for any purpose: to indicate that you want to turn, to warn somebody that you’re there, to tell somebody to move, to say hello to a nearby pedestrian you recognise, or in lieu of turning on your headlights at night, for example. The car horn is a universal language, it seems.
Goodbye Ireland
I’m leaving Ireland a day late, from the wrong airport, and with one fewer functioning arm than I anticipated. It’s been quite the ride. I’ll be glad to get home.
(for those that are concerned: I’ve damaged my shoulder, possibly while slipping down a hill in search of a geocache or geohashpoint; so, y’know, the usual reason I get injured… but I’ve got some physio instructions I’m supposed to follow, and I’ll be okay)
Geohashing expedition 2024-11-27 53 -8
This checkin to geohash 2024-11-27 53 -8 reflects a geohashing expedition. See more of Dan's hash logs.
Location
Driveway outside a house in Garrafrauns, Co. Galway, Ireland.
Participants
- Dan Q
- his mum
Plans
A quick and easy find on our way to the airport at Knock to end our Irish adventure, this morning.
Expedition
Finding the hashpoint was easy. We drove to it, arriving at 10:31, overshooting very slightly and walking back 20 metres (we could’ve done it without even getting out of the car if we’d cared to). Then we were done.
What happened next is where things went wrong. We stopped in Ballyhaunis, half-way between the hashpoint and the airport at Knock, for a comfort break and to find a local geocache. Then we hiked out to find a second nearby geocache, but the icy conditions on the way back slowed us down considerably (and my mother fell over at least once). We stepped into a cafe for a quick drink, and apparently my attitude to our imminently-departing flight was so laid-back (in actual fact, I thought we had about half an hour more in-hand than we did) that my mother decided to reflect it and play laid-back too. Sarcastically, she suggested we stay around Ballyhaunis for a round of cakes, too, and I – not recognising her tone as sarcastic – agreed. In fact, I thought that her relaxed attitude was because we had a long time until our flight, too. (tl;dr: when two people famed for their sarcasm communicate sarcastically with one another, they should be careful not to, y’know, completely fuck up their plans for the rest of the day by accident)
As we digested our scones and my mother prepared to pour a second mug of tea, I pulled out my phone and realised to my horror that our plane was scheduled to depart in a little over 40 minutes: I’d got the departure time wrong. She said, “I thought you knew it was close, but you knew something I didn’t, like that it was really late!?” Nope.
We ran as fast as the icy ground would permit us to back to the car and drove at great speed to the airport, just in time to miss the closure of the departure desk. We’d just missed the last and indeed only flight out of Knock airport that day. Fuck.
Anyway, all of which is to say that we extended the rental on our car, arranged to drop it off at Dublin airport, and drove coast-to-coast across Ireland to get to a more-favourable airport and a last-minute AirBnB, where we dropped out bags then went out for pizza in a dangerously underlit bar before listening to some Irish folks music in a different bar and going to bed.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow… we’ll leave the country. I promise.
Geohashing expedition 2024-11-26 53 -9
This checkin to geohash 2024-11-26 53 -9 reflects a geohashing expedition. See more of Dan's hash logs.
Location
Sea, 1.5km South of Clare Island, near Mweelaun Island.
Participants
- Dan Q
- his mother
Plans
This can’t be done. Right? Right?! Except maybe it can. I’ve found a few folks with boats and I’m going to phone-around in the morning and see about chartering one.
Expedition
I left lots of voicemails and messages lots of people, but nobody could offer me a lift to this random spot on the edge of Ireland. We later took a tour boat out into the bay but it didn’t go near it either (but was a delightful ride, and we just-about came within sight of the hashpoint).
Geohashing expedition 2024-11-25 53 -8
This checkin to geohash 2024-11-25 53 -8 reflects a geohashing expedition. See more of Dan's hash logs.
Location
Field East of Claremorris, Co. Mayo, Ireland
Participants
- Dan Q
- his mother
Plans
Today we need to drive North up the entire length of the M18 and M17 to get to our next accommodation. If we take only a minor diversion at Tuam we can see how accessible this hashpoint is, on the way!
Expedition
On today’s leg of my mother and I’s expedition to go hashing around the West coast of Ireland (hampered only by the floods of Storm Bert) we were scheduled to drive a few hours up the country to move from our old accommodation of the last few nights to our new accommodation of the next two. On our way we accidentally drove the wrong way down the M6 for a spell (as you can see on our tracklog) as we intended to visit Athenry for some geocaching, before pushing on to the hashpoint.
We drove past the field with the hashpoint in order to dodge an incoming tractor and to scout out safe parking spaces. Finding a suitable verge, we pulled up and took a look at the pasture with the hashpoint. The gate into it was seriously churned up with mud, so I switched to my wellies and my mother pulled on a pair of waterproof trousers, and we waded out.
Once past the gate, it got a lot easier and we were able to quickly find our way to the hashpoint at 13:10.
It was the middle of a muddy field. Not exciting, but a good view of rolling countryside and wind farms.
We swiftly made our way back to our car to avoid any questions from passing farmers about what we might be doing hanging our near a piece of mystery agricultural equipment we were near.
Then, after changing back into our regular footwear so we didn’t bring tonnes of mud into our rental car, made our way down into Claremorris. There, we enjoyed a celebratory carvery lunch, toured a handful of local geocaches, explored a path that Google Maps (only) claims exists – possibly a trap street? – and walked around a lake with lots of scultpures until we discovered that the route we’d planned to take was underwater. At that point, we figured it was time to go check-in to our new AirBnB and returned to our car to set off.
A highly-successful trip.
Tracklog
Full journey
(includes drive from old accommodation, geocaching, hiking, drive to new accommodation, etc)
Download full journey tracklog.
Walking
(from where we parked to the hashpoint and back)
Guinness in the Bath
It’s been a long day of driving around Ireland, scrambling through forests, navigating to a hashpoint, exploring a medieval castle, dodging the rain, finding a series of geocaches, getting lost up a hill in the dark, and generally having a kickass time with one of my very favourite people on this earth: my mum.
And now it’s time for a long soak in a hot bath with a pint of the black stuff and my RSS reader for company. A perfect finish.
Note #25196
Gorgeous view of Slievenamon towering over Kilsheelan, Co. Tipperary, Ireland, as seen from Gurteen Wood, where my mother and I are just on our way back from our successful expedition to the 2024-11-24 52 -7 geohashpoint.
Geohashing expedition 2024-11-24 52 -7
This checkin to geohash 2024-11-24 52 -7 reflects a geohashing expedition. See more of Dan's hash logs.
Location
Forest in the Suir Valley, South of Kilsheelan, Ireland.
Participants
- Dan Q
- his mother
Plans
Day three of our geohashing-focussed holiday in Ireland, and the other hashpoints near us look likely to be inaccessible to owing to flooding, but this one’s in a hillside forest. Should be easy, right?
Expedition
It took us around an hour and a half to drive from our accomodation out to Kilsheelan, from which we’d planned to cross the bridge and ascend the hill into the forest where the hashpoint could be found.
We’d originally anticipated that we’d tackle the trail of geocaches alongside the River Suir afterwards, but looking down from the bridge made it clear that this was not going to be possible: the riverside path was completely underwater where the river had broken its banks.
We pressed on up and into the forest. It’s mostly a managed pine forest, surrounded by pockets of native deciduous trees. The trails are, for the most part, wide enough for the forestry vehicles to traverse, and – apart from the points at which streams has escaped their culverts and flooded the path – it was mostly dry and easy walking.
The maps indicated the the fastest route to where the hashpoint could be found would have been along a road, but we opted to climb to an altitude of about 150m to take a forest trail parallel to the road, instead, and it was certainly a more-welcome view.
Getting closer to the cache, we found a trail leading down and began to approach it. We seemed to be endlessly stuck at around 370 metres away as our track wound back and forth with the contours of the hill, but eventually we began to approach it. I was momentarily panicked when we disovered an area of new plantation, surrounded by a 3-metre tall wire fence, because it looked as though the hashpoint might turn out to be inside it and therefore inaccessible, but as we continued to walk we discovered to our delight that it would, instead, be in one of the mature parts of the managed forest instead.
We broke off the track with around 50 metres to go and began to hack our way through the slippery mud and tangled undergrowth.
Before long, we came across a stream, converted into a torrent by the floodwater and the mountaintop’s melting snow!
After scouting for the narrowest point (and giving up on attempting to construct a bridge) I leapt across, and then reached back to help my mother do the same.
Now we were able to pick our way around decaying wood and slippery leaves to finally get to the hashpoint. We arrived at 11:20.
Retracing our steps to the path and continuing our descent, we returned via the road to the bridge we’d crossed at. We enjoyed a spectacular view of Slievenamon to the North, a mountain that towers over the valley. Returning to Kilsheelan, we had a great lunch at Nagle’s Bar, then continued on our day’s adventures: taking in some history at Cahir Castle (and finding a nearby geocache), dodging the rain at coffee shop Keep Coffee, and then taking on a challenging series of caches on the Millennium Loop of Glengarra Woods, where we almost found ourselves stranded by the setting sun, short on batteries for either GPS, phone, or torch use, and having to carefully pick our way back to the car before a long dark drive over the winding Kilmallock road to get back to home, beer, and baths.
A wonderful adventure that’s left me heavy of foot and light of spirit.
Tracklog
Full journey
(includes the driving sections and our other expeditions, including some lunch, touring a castle, and geocaching a valley)
Download full journey tracklog.
Walking
(just the bit from where we parked up into the forest, to the hashpoint, and down again; minus a bit at the start where I forgot to turn my backup GPSr on)
Download walking segment tracklog.
Note #25194
With Storm Bert raining off our plans for geohashing in Co. Limerick, my mother and I are off into a forest in Co. Tipperary in search of a hashpoint over this way. It’s still pretty wet though.
Geohashing expedition 2024-11-23 52 -8
This checkin to geohash 2024-11-23 52 -8 reflects a geohashing expedition. See more of Dan's hash logs.
Location
Field East of Newcastle West
Participants
- Dan Q
- his mother
Plans
On the second full day of our geohashing tour of Western Ireland, we’ll try to drive to somewhere close to this hashpoint (maybe up towards Knockaderry?) and see if we can walk to it (and if it’s accessible when we get there).
Expedition
This part of Ireland’s been under moderate snow cover for several days, but overnight that turned to rain and as it warmed up early in the morning, the snow rapidly melted and poured down into the valleys. The River Arra burst its banks in several places, and our first, second, and third attempts to find places to cross it to get closer to the hashpoint were foiled by floods (too deep and fast-flowing to safely ford) and closed roads.
After seeing several fields of about the altitude of our target also deeply flooded, we opted to give up on this expedition for our own safety! Instead, we went geocaching in Newcastle West and then went up to Foyle where we visited the museum of maritime history and learned about the history of the flying boats that were stationed there in the inter-war years.
Loughrea Unlocked
I’m on the map! No matter what else my mother and I achieve this week, my name will forever be recorded as the unlocker of the Loughrea graticule in Ireland: https://geohashing.site/geohashing/Ireland
Geohashing expedition 2024-11-22 53 -8
This checkin to geohash 2024-11-22 53 -8 reflects a geohashing expedition. See more of Dan's hash logs.
Location
Field East of Abbey, Ireland.
Participants
- Dan Q
- his mum
Plans
When my mother proposed that we take a holiday together somewhere, and that I could choose the destination, I started by looking at the Geohashing Expeditions Map.
Where, I wondered, could I find a cluster of mostly-land graticules (“square” degree of latitude and longitude) in which nobody had ever logged a successful expedition? I’ve been geohashing for ten years now and I’ve never yet scored a “Graticule Unlocked” achievement for being the first to reach any hashpoint in a given graticule.
So this week, we’re holidaying on the West coast of Ireland, doing a variety of activities that take our fancy and, hopefully, finding a geohashpoint or two in previously-unexplored graticules!
Looking at the nearby hashpoints, we decided that this was our best bet. An hour and a half’s drive from our accomodation to a village near the hashpoint and we might be able to make the rest of the way on foot.
Expedition
My mother’s never been hashing before, but unlike most people I’ve told about the hobby she didn’t turn her nose up at the idea so she was happy to accompany me on this unusual adventure.
We drove to Abbey, which turns out to be a delightful village, and parked outside the community centre (where my mother was able to use the bathroom).
Then we switched to foot, walking along the banks of the stream and following the road to the East, towards the field where we’d hoped to find the hashpoint.
A quick survey around the outskirts of the area suggested that it was, indeed, in what had once been an active pasture but had been abandoned and disused for many years. The grass and brambles grew high and were caked in snow, but we hopped the gate and pressed on for the final hundred metres.
We made the right choice: the hashpoint was just barely inside the disused old field, and we were able to get to it with only slightly wet feet and without disturbance (except for some kind of nesting bird that was unhappy to see us, and some kind of medium-sized mammal – possibly a fox – that ran away as we approached).
We reached the hashpoint at 11:24.
Flushed with success at this relatively easy victory, we continued our walk to a nearby dairy to see if they’d sell us some cheese (their farm shop was shut), and then crossed the river and climbed the nearby hill to find the fantastic geocache at Pallas Castle.
Circling around from the hilltop to return to the car, we drove back home, completing our expedition (hashpoint, cache, and all) in a little under 7 hours.
Tracklog
Note #25113
Off to Ireland to hunt for geohashpoints. Wish us luck!
Geohashing Ireland
When my mother proposed that we take a holiday together somewhere, and that I could choose the destination, I started by looking at the Geohashing Expeditions Map.
Where, I wondered, could I find a cluster of mostly-land graticules (“square” degree of latitude and longitude) in which nobody had ever logged a successful expedition?
I’ve been geohashing for ten years now and I’ve never yet scored a “Graticule Unlocked” achievement for being the first to reach any hashpoint in a given graticule.
Over the next week, if the fluctuations of the Dow Jones and the variable Irish weather allow, I’ll be changing that.