09-Oct-2004 -- This weekend one of the largest orienteering relays in the world, 25-Manna with 25 men & women on each team took place in Haninge south of Stockholm.

Before leaving Norway I had determined that the closest confluence was just 18 km from the event, so after running the 18th leg for my team Tyrving, I drove down HWY 73 to Häringe - Hammersta nature preserve.

The first visitor, from before the end of GPS Selective Availability (SA), noted that the walking distance was 3 km from the nearest road, while in reality it turned out that the turn-around parking lot at the entrance to the preserve was just 1570 m from the point, and a private dirt road leads almost directly to it.

A little over halfway to the point I passed a nice bay with a small old farm, possibly used as a summer home these days. A black labrador dog took an interest in me here, but it was satisfied when I left the area.

I walked south along the same road until I got to 59°N, and then simply hiked about 150 m east over the hillside noted by the first visitor. Even though there's some vegetation, GPS reception was quite good and it turned out to be easy to locate the all-zero spot.

According to the track log, the total walking distance was about 3.8 km. I had left the car at 14:06:42, got to the point at 14:27:03, and back at the car at 14:46:04, i.e. the round trip took just under 40 minutes. With a bike it would have been possible to cut this by half.

Afterwards I returned to the 25-Manna relay, in time to celebrate that my club finished in 24th place, out of about 350 starting teams. This made us the second best team from Norway, after Halden who won. They were the first norwegian winners in this event!