#7: [14-Feb-23]

#6: [23-Dec-21]

#5: [28-Jul-18]

#4: [14-May-10]

#3: [02-Oct-08]

#1: [28-May-01]

07-Oct-2004 -- Checking the Internet for 46N1W showed at visit #1 photographs of "corn, corn again, more corn and even more corn". Corn in the US = maize in the UK = maïs in France = maïs in our country, the Netherlands.

We hoped the corn to be harvested at this date in order to take more interesting photographs. Visit #1 also hinted the difficulty to choose the right motorway exit. And indeed we took the difficult one. Next visitor take exit number 33! and drive up to the edge of the field.

For the sports we didn't exactly locate the DCP on our map, only a good guess based on distance and bearing from our starting point at about 70-km SE. The Michelin book of France 1:200.000 1999 version doesn't contain WGS84 information. Once again guided by my wife reading the map we took exit 32 of motorway N137 just north of Rochefort to Breuil Magné. In this village we turned left into an agricultural road almost directly heading to the DCP. But... at 1.3 km from the DCP the road ended in front of a bridge only suitable for pedestrians and bikers. The car was parked and walking shoes put on.

But which direction to take. In a short distance 5 choices could be made. One of the tracks on both sides of the first canal, one of the tracks on both sides of the second canal or just crossing the canals by the bridge and following the track perpendicular to the canal? Across the bridge the DCP line of sight is about 45° right to this track and crosses a huge field of bare fat clay surrounded by a recently dredged ditch. So we took the 5th path which led us first to a small "dolmen" which is a megalithic tomb or cromlech. I couldn't verify whether this is a real old one.

We reached a bunch of houses called Grand & Petite l'Houmée ( Grand meaning about 5 houses). North of a lorry company the cornfield with the DCP in it was not harvested as we hoped. Only along the edge of the field a swath of about 20-m wide was cut. We followed this lane and at the time we circumscribed the field halfway there was suddenly a trail of about 3-m wide through the field.

This trail brought us within 70 m of the DCP. No use to go into the corn. The North and South photographs show the trail, which was made for the irrigation system. The piled pipes can be seen in the South. The East picture once again shows corn, a bit more brownish with regard to visit #1.

Originally I thought of lifting my wife to my shoulders to take the photographs from a higher point of view. After a look at her trousers and shoes, I abandoned this idea.

Proof is given by the GPS readings. The trajectory to and from the DCP by car and by feet is plotted in a map. The map is an overlay of a modified map collected at Maporama and an old satellite image collected at National Geo-Spatial Agency. We came by car, the blue dots, from the right-down corner. The green track is the walking section. Have a look at the agricultural structure of the fields. The "dolmen" is at the 90° right turn at the end of the first straight leg. The depicted area is 2 x 3 km.

It is autumn now so my usual collection of plants from the DCP region shows different kind of seeds and berries.