With the equipment largely bought, the big hurdle is to work out a route. Asking around it took a few attempts to get some feedback and I was beginning to fear I would have to work out a route manually. Then Rorym suggested the graphHopper routing engine, which is made to solve this type of problem. I was cc’d with a Peter Karich the founder of the company, who kindly offered me an API with 300 locations to help work out the route. Rory had done a project to walk through Dublin by not passing by a pub which he blogged about, unfortunately, that blog is no longer online, but it seems to have been a manual process, which a blog on grasshopper shows how the process is simpler with their software. https://www.graphhopper.com/blog/2015/11/15/publess-routes-graphhopper-edition/

So that evening I spent most of my time reading through the two blogs about routing around or to visit pubs. Also out of curiosity had a look at the northernmost town on the Irish side of the border, Muff, and saw five or so crossings just around that area and a few choices as to how to go past them all. A nightmare to plan and remember.

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With Brexit on the horizon and the possibility of customs post returning on roads that have had unimpeded access for the last thirty years or so, I had the idea of recording its current state for posterity. Around thirty thousand people cross the approximately 270 official places where roads traverse the border, from both sides, everyday. After raising this with other mappers they pointed out that by documenting its current state snaking back and forth across the border it would also provide a useful baseline to compare any changes to. Today the difference between either side is largely invisible, noticeable from small changes like the type of kerb stone, names of company’s on utility poles, the yellow or white road markings. So with a motorbike to make the journey, the next question was how to pull off this idea, esp, since the deadline of the 29th of March is near and the idea came late in the day.

On the OSM Ireland trip up to Belfast I talked about the project and got enthusiastic feedback. Coincidentally Mapillary were sending a gopro camera to fellow OSM mapper Dabigc, which suddenly made planning much easier. After it arrived we went for an practice run in his car to see how it worked. We looked at different options to mounting the camera on my bike helmet, unfortunately it has a piece of plastic that means it can’t be in an optimal position. The other option was a chest mount, but Dabigc pointed out pictures taken as I move my head around doing safety checks would add more information about the area.

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