In connection with Geocoinfest 2014 in Ulm, 7 Norwegians flew to Amsterdam, rented a car and drove through 9 countries in 3 days to get there.
Since it was such a great success last year, we decided to do a longer trip this year, and since the 4IEEE Mega was the weekend before Geocoinfest, we knew exactly where we had to go! We did a few changes to the crew, and we all met in Amsterdam, where we filled a rental car and headed straight for the 4IEEE Mega.
This years crew consisted of driver Havardfoto and myself in the cockpit, snilja, olabirk and Heltinnen in the middle row and kassimaja and GorgonVaktmester in the back.
We were well prepared for this trip, and each and every one of us had a booklet with detailed lists of everything we had planned to do. We also had 6 events of our own planned along the route. To save space in the log books, and save time, we also made custom stickers with all our nicknames on, and the correct dates (one sheet of stickers per day).
We were also well prepared with technical equipment…
Day 1 – Friday – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Gosslar, Germany
Since we flew to Amsterdam after work Friday 18th, and we needed to be in Goslar the next morning, we had to drive all night. But that still didn’t stop us from finding some caches!
We had one virtual cache, one letterbox hybrid and 5 webcam caches planned. Since there’s so few webcam caches left, we prioritized them on this trip. We barely made it to the first cache (the virtual) before midnight, and got a find on the 18th with only three minutes to spare.
After doing some webcam caches, we arrived in Hannover, where we picked up olabirk. After a couple more stops, we arrived in Goslar in time for the event. We parked as close as we could, and shut off everything to try to get an hour sleep.
Day 2 – Saturday – Goslar – Nürnberg
After getting a few minutes of sleep, we headed towards the event. We hadn’t booked any of the tours, so we just walked around a bit, looked a the shop, got something to eat and took lots of photos.
After struggling with the earthcache, we continued towards our next stop – a detour to a webcam cache.
Just as yesterday, we prioritized webcam caches, but we also had several TB-hotels on our plan. When we got closer to Nürnberg, we had planned a stop in Coburg (yes, there’s a webcam there as well), and a short detour to Scheuerfeld. My great-great-grandfather came from Scheuerfeld, so I really wanted to visit this place.
We arrived in Nürnberg quite late, and went straight to bed.
Day 3 – Sunday – Nürnberg – Frankfurt (Oder)
We had fewer webcams planned this day, but we had a short visit to the Czech Republic planned. But first we had to attend our own event in Nürnberg. Apparently we had put the event right outside the redlight district… We did not know that! That location was chosen simply because it was really close to our hotel.
But the event went real well, and one of the locals joined us at a multi cache afterwards. After a few more stops, we made it to the Czech Republic, and found a few caches there as well.
We got stopped at the border when heading back into Germany, but were prepared and had our passports easily available. So that went smooth, and we could continue to the next cache.
When we parked next to an American (-style) diner while doing a cache, we decided to stop and have something to eat there. The food was good, and shortly after finishing we got a phone call from the hotel. Turns out they closed very soon! And we still had an hour to drive! Oooops!
But we made it! (not in time, but they kept the door open for us) And we got a nice bed to sleep in this night as well.
Day 4 – Monday – Frankfurt – Wismar
We had an event planned this day as well, in Poland! Słubice, Poland was just a bridge away. While planning this trip we joked about going to “Polen”, which is the Norwegian name for Poland, and the short name for the North Pole. So we joked about going on ski to Polen. Since we didn’t want to go on real skis, snilja printed out the shield of the municipality of Ski – so we actually did go to Polen on skis!
The event was a huge success, and when it was done, we found one more cache before heading back to Germany.
We had planned a visit to Berlin this day (with other stops along the way, of course), and an attempt to find the cache with the highest amount of favorite points in the world. We parked near Checkpoint Charlie, and walked around finding several caches in the area. Including the one with all the favorite points.
Just as yesterday, we had to be at the hotel before it closed, and we made it – barely.
Day 5 – Tuesday – Wismar, Germany – Zeegse, Netherlands
We started the day with an event today as well, and we had a great turnout!
We had a lot of caches planned today as well, and a stop to do a webcam in Hamburg. But we didn’t eat any hamburgers in Hamburg…
We tried finding an earthcache in a park, but barely got time to take some pictures, before the park closed and we had to leave. I though we had to DNF that cache, but luckily I discovered that we had managed to photograph everything we needed.
We made it to the hotel before closing time today as well, and spent some time looking at geocoins in the lobby. This was definitely one of the nicest hotels we had.
Day 6 – Wednesday – Zeegse – Amsterdam
Just as the previous days, we started with an event today as well, only a few meters from the hotel. It was impressive how many that turned up a Wednesday morning!
We didn’t have that long distance to drive today, but we still had a lot planned. We prioritized old caches, virtuals and caches with many favorite points.
We stopped at a cache hidden in someones front yard, and that turned out to be a real fun stop! I love places like this, where people have made their own little quirky hideaway.
The oldest cache in the Netherlands was another one on our list that day, and walking in the sand was just as hard as it always are when walking in sand! But it was awesome!
We did a quick stop at the hotel to check in, before heading to Amsterdam. We found several caches in Amsterdam, and we sat down to get something to eat. By the time we made it back to the hotel, which was floating in a small pond, it was quite late.
Day 7 – Thursday – Amsterdam – Rotterdam
We initially had planned a trip to Terschelling today, but we decided to skip it. So we continued with the rest of our plan, and did a major detour on our way to Rotterdam. After a lot of kilometers on the road, and a few caches, we arrived relatively early in Rotterdam. So we had time to walk around and find some extra caches after checking in at the hotel – which we of course then did!
We ended the day with a stop at a nice little restaurant.
Day 8 – Friday – Rotterdam – Eindhoven
The hotel we had in Rotterdam probably was the worst on the entire trip, but at least we got some rest there. Okay, it was much worse sleeping in the car on saturday, so I guess the hotel wasn’t that bad…
We had an event planned this day as well, and as with the other ones, it was only a few meters away from the hotel. A lot of friendly people showed up, and some of them even spoke a bit Norwegian! Awesome!
We got invited by one of them to join her to the Norwegian Seamen’s Church, which we of course did. They had closed on Fridays, but gladly let us come in for a short visit. We got some interesting information about the church, and the history of it. And yes, of course, there was a cache there!
After finding some caches, we had a non-caching stop planned. An amazing “bridge”, that we just had to visit. I’ll let the pictures talk for themselves.
We did end up finding a cache there as well, since we did a detour on the way back to the car.
We also did a short drive through Belgium, and made sure to find a few caches there as well. A few caches later, we arrived in Eindhoven, in time to attend the Meet’n greet event.
The hotel was completely fully booked, and we barely got the rooms we had booked.
Day 9 – Saturday – Geocoinfest 2015
We got to the event in good time before opening, and after waiting some minutes, we entered the second Mega event on this trip. We spent the entire day at the event location, looking at coins, buying coins and other stash.
Meeting people you don’t meet too often is one of the nicest things about attending big events like this, and we met a lot of people here!
I had brought some geocoins for trading with me, but somehow I managed to leave them in the hotel room! So olabirk, Heltinnen and myself walked back to the hotel to get them. I ended up not trading anything, but at least I had them with me…
I left the Geocoinfest with a mini-Signal, and he got to meet the big Signal.
We did a short drive to find a few more caches after the event, before getting back to the hotel to count all the travel bugs we have picked up during this trip.
Day 10 – Sunday – Eindhoven – Amsterdam
This was the last day of our trip, but we still had a lot planned. We started with the last of the three official events.
After that, we continued to Hertogenbosch, where we had the last of 6 events of our own. As with the previous events, this one was also a success.
We did a few more caches along the road, before arriving at the airport. After dropping of GorgonVaktmester, we did one more cache, and then headed to a gas station to empty the car. Amazing how much trash we managed to fill the car with!
Even an awesome trip like this, have to come to an end. I would like to give a big thank you to all my fellow crewmen, this was fun!
Summary
The route this year took us through 5 countries (Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland and Belgium), and all the provinces in the Netherlands. We also almost managed to do all the states in Germany, but we’re one short…
We drove over 4400km, and my find count for the trip is 173.
Our events
- GC600J3 – Meet the Norwegian Road Trip Mainiacs in Nürnberg
- GC62R9F – Meet the Norwegian Road Trip Mainiacs in Slubic
- GC607C5 – Meet the Norwegian Road Trip Mainiacs in Wismar
- GC62TJ3 – Meet the Norwegian Road Trip Mainiacs in Zeegse
- GC62QPN – Meet the Norwegian Road Trip Mainiacs in Rotterdam
- GC62TH3 – Meet the Norwegian Road Trip Mainiacs in Hertogenb
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