05-Feb-2004 -- 5th February 2004. I first heard about the confluence project via a CNN news report about a new extreme sport that was taking off in China. After reading the article and then visiting the web site I decided it would be an interesting thing to attempt some of the confluences even though all the ones near me have already been visited. I chose the day in an attempt to grab a confluence before a colleague.

Setting out from work in Vienna at 11:15 I drove down the A4 then turned off towards Zurndorf, through there on the B10 and stopped at 11:45 260m from the confluence. I abandoned the car by the side of the road and strode into the field in search of the confluence, what a mistake! I should have walked back along the road a way to get as close as possible before walking into the field! What a quagmire! After 5 minutes squelching through mud coming up to my trousers I was within 30m of the confluence.

I now understand the references to the confluence dance made by so many people as I wandered around waiting for those all elusive zeros to appear. It was 11:58 by now.

It was only when I returned to the car and cleaned my very muddy boots that I realised that the pictures had not come out from the GPS, as it had actually taken longer to clean my boots than to find the confluence I was reluctant to return to the point to have another attempt at the GPS picture. At the time I couldn't think why the pictures were so rubbish either. With hindsight I think the camera was stuck in landscape mode and refused to focus on anything close by!.

08-Feb-2004 -- Having a couple of hours spare I decided I'd return to the confluence and get that picture of the GPS. Weather for the last couple of days had been good so I hoped the mud would be a little firmer (it was), but in any case I was going prepared with bags to cover my boots and lower legs (saved an awful lot of cleaning up later). This time easy to find as my footprints from the 5th were clearly visible so no "dance" needed. A perfect set of zeros 0.00m from the confluence with 4m accuracy from the 10 satellites (montage Pic 2) Altitude registered as 141m.

The last picture is of the windmills to the North-west of the confluence.