Tag: travel
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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.
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Dan sits in an airport bar drinking a beer held in his right hand. His left arm is in a sling.
(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)
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Sooo... I'm in Dublin.
I missed me flight at Knock airport, which turns out to have been the only plane leaving that tiny airport today. So I arranged a flight from Dublin tomorrow, extended my car rental and arranged to drop it off in the capital's airport instead, and zipped over here.
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Two pints of Guinness on a candlelit table.
Now I'm in an underlit bar sipping a Guinness and waiting for a pizza.
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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.
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A pint of Guinness alongside a can, on a tiled bathroom shelf.
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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.
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Under a blue-white sky, a rounded hill towers over a fertile green valley dotted with little white houses, as seen from between the trees of an ancient forest.
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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.
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A woman wearing a grey bobble hat and a blue coat walks away down a forest track.
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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
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Abstract map of the Republic of Ireland, represented as coloured graticules (square degrees of latitude and longitude) and highlighted based on whether they have seen successful geohashing expeditions. The Dublin, Carlow and Waterford graticules were so-'unlocked' by 'JRK', and the Loughrea graticule was unlocked by Dan Q, which is further highlighted by a 'celebrating face' emoji.
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Off to Ireland to hunt for geohashpoints. Wish us luck!
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Dan and his mother standing in an Oxford street, carrying luggage.
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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?
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Somewhat recognisable map of Western Europe, broken up into square degrees of latitude Ave longitude and colour coded based on the number of geohashing expeditions recorded for each. Four contiguous squares on the West coast of Ireland are marked and annotated by hand with the word 'Target!'
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.
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Horse-Powered Locomotives
You probably know the story of George Stephenson's Rocket beating its competitors and going to to influence steam locomotive design for generations. But did you know that one of its competitors... was a horse in a carriage?
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Maybe it's just that my sabbatical is making me pay more attention then usual, but it feels like I'm getting very lucky with nearby geohashpoints lately. Tomorrow's hashpoint in my graticule might be achievable!
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Map showing my location on Witney and a pin 2.5km away in a field outside Ducklington. Geohashpoint for tomorrow.
This is a good omen, perhaps, for next week. Next week my mother and I are going to hop over to the West coast of Ireland where there are several contiguous mostly-land graticules that have never seen a successful expedition. We could be the first! 🤞
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Sabbatical Magic
Two weeks into my extended break from work and on my way home from Spain, I've discovered something magical about a sabbatical: it frees me from my compulsion to think about next week's work, at the weekend.
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Made it through a day and a half of theme park fun with the kids. Time for a much-needed beer, then as long a sleep as circumstance will allow.
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Three glasses of beer held by adult hands clink together against a glass of water and a bottle of Fanta held 6 by cold hands.
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For some reason, the breakfast chef assumed that when I asked for two eggs benedict that I might want them on two separate plates. As if I WEREN'T totally planning to scoff them both myself! 😂
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Two portions of eggs benedict, in front of a window showing a 25th-storey view of Barcelona.
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Me, hacking challenging Javascript at work: "Damn, I need a holiday."
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Dan sits at a laptop in a hotel bar, a view of Barcelona out of the window behind him, a beer bottle alongside him.
Me, hacking challenging Javascript on sabbatical: "Ah, so relaxing."
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Hour of Ambiguity
Waking during the "hour of uncertainty" at the end of European Summer Time, I find myself wondering why we no longer expect computers to tell us what they're doing about daylight savings, and when.