2013-06-28 -37 144

Location

Derrimut, in the middle of the mess of Freeway at the intersection of the Western Ring Road and the Western Hwy.

Participants

Expedition

I looked up the day's hashpoint at about midday, and I thought it looked very intriguing. Located only about 13kms west of home, and being all mixed up in the middle of freeway on/off lanes, I thought I really should go, since I had nothing else to do.

I ended up leaving home after lunch at almost 2pm. I rode off through West Footscray and Sunshine and ended up taking a wrong turn that took me to the awful intersection of Boundary Rd and Fairburn Rd. On my retreat back up the footpath of Fairburn Rd, there was a path leading off in the right direction, but it didn't exist on googlemaps on my phone. I took it anyway, but then it ended. The reserve that the path was on continued however, so I powered over the muddy grassyness on my bike which is thankfully a hybrid and not fully road bike. So I got to where I was heading anyway. Just before the end, I saw two things which you can see in the gallery at the bottom: A rather huge TV out on the nature strip, and also a front yard with some very impressive topiary. To describe the actual approach to the hash, a map may be handy. Open it in a new tab perhaps.

Map - Click on it and it might help comprehension.

I locked my bike at the intersection of Fitzgerald Rd and the on-lane to freeway (Green dot). Between me and hash (point A) lay an elevated road. Luckily the on-lane I was right next to ran underneath this road. I was hoping just to go up the side of the on-lane (towards blue dot), and when it went under, I, on the side, would go under as well. Unfortunately, there was no room on the side for a pedestrian to go under next to the on-lane (besides maybe a 20cm wide ledge which I was unwilling to attempt). At the blue dot however, on the freeway itself, I could see there was a van in the emergency lane with its hazard lights flashing. I wondered if maybe this was a fellow geohasher stopping briefly to dash off to the hash. But since I couldn't get through this way, I went back down to my bike (Green dot), crossed the on-lane at the lights there, and went towards the blue dot once again, since from my previous approach, I could see there was room for a pedestrian to cross under the bridge here on this side, it just mean I'd have to hop across the on-lane on foot to get back towards the hash. When I got back the van was gone, so I put that from my mind and when there was a suitable gap in traffic (A really long gap, both for my safety, and so people didn't see me and get suspicious), I crossed and dashed down the embankment, which, since the satellite image was taken, has really been thoroughly beshrubbed.

My GPS wasn't working again, so I had to rely on estimations. On the map, on the far side of the hash, you should be able to see a road, on the other side of which is a golf course. Jutting off from this is a sort of path that doesn't really go anywhere. I figured that the hash was about two thirds of the way along this path and about half way back up the thoroughly beshrubbed embankment. So made my estimate of where the hash was and took this photo. You could be able to see the path on the satellite image match up with the one of the background here.

photo from hash location.
me in photo from hash location.

Anyway, after that it all went according to plan. I rode home, stopped for a snack of a muesli bar, apple and a drink of water on the banks of Kororoit Ck. In West Footscray, I was excited to see a cat, because I thought I qualified for the Hashcat achievement, but reading about it afterwards it seems it needs to be near the geohash, and that was well gone. I stopped and coaxed it into one pat, before it got scared and ran away. I looked up and saw another cat! It got scared too and ran away before I even got close. I then saw another cat!!! This one was very friendly and let me give it a belly rub. In light of such an overload of cats, I am tempted to award myself the Hashcat achievement even though I was kms away at this stage.

And then I got home.