From Warrington to Wennington

05 Jun 2019

A blog post about finding myself. I recently calculated my geographic mean, so Sarah and I undertook a mini-adventure to visit the actual spot, which at the time of writing is somewhere near Wennington, Lancashire. Taking advantage of a very welcome short break from being parents, we made a little detour off the route between a wonderful restaurant and me Mum and Dad’s house, and stumbled, climbed and squelched our way to the middle of Mozz.

Mini-adventure seemed appropriate: it felt as if nature didn’t want us to get there. I wasn’t to be deterred, though: even fully understanding the vagueness of the estimates with which I’d carried out the calculations, I still felt like I had to get to the exact, over-precisely-specified spot. The first obstacle was a fallen tree, or a big branch at least, blocking Back Lane. So we hastily re-navigated via Spout Lane. On the way I mused on the maths: my average position moves incredibly slowly towards my current position at all times, but its direction of travel changes instantaneously, so as we spiralled in around the three sides of the diversionary rectangle, “virtual me” must have been getting dizzy like never before.

The next challenge was a slithery descent past barking dogs and through some muddy landscaping to a footbridge over a tributary of the River Greta. “Do not use this footbridge”, read the sign, and smaller text explained that the crossing was awaiting renovation. The smell of pine and the sharp edges on the bridge’s brand new timbers suggested the signage was outdated, and we gingerly traversed it, reaching a clearing between woods. Here the soaking grass was stretching above our knees, and my adventure and life companion and I decided that we were close enough for a photo.

A spherical image of the location seemed appropriate (I have been playing a lot with a new camera toy the past couple of months):

I still had the feeling that I hadn’t quite bagged this self-centred geocache properly, so Sarah waited patiently while I scrambled up through Gill Wood and carefully stepped over some barbed wire to capture a selfie with the “real spot” in the background (it’s over my right shoulder near the prominent tree). The quarter-mile round trip across thigh-high drenched grass in between was too much even for this geo geek.

Tags: geeky, geography

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