2021-06-15 -37 144

Location

In a freight logistics terminal in West Melbourne, surrounded by busy semi-trailers and mobile container cranes.

Participants

Felix Dance

Expeditions

I woke up in the morning of an RDO day at work, meaning no site works and so I didn't have to come in to the office (or, in this case, do any work at all), so of course my first action was to check the location of the geohashes.

And what do I find? A geohash only 1.6 kms from my house, just next to my old work at the Eastern zone of the West Gate Tunnel Project, across from some rail stabling yards. But on closer inspection the hash point was right inside a freight logistics terminal. Not easy!

I rode down the hill towards the hash, immediately getting stopped at the level crossing by three linked diesel train engines shunting across the road. At one point the driver got out to manually toggle the tracks into another switch configuration while sitting at the level crossing.

But eventually I got across. Initially, I looked into the gate of the freight terminal to find an absolute hive of activity with semi-trailers and mobile crane trucks driving everywhere, chockablock and getting in each others' way. Not much luck of getting through here, I thought.

I clambered my way across the driveways and non-footpathed verges to get around the corner for another entrance behind a warehouse. Still no luck - even more fenced and busy than the first one. I gave up and went to Footscray to get a haircut, pausing briefly to admire my old work at the elevated freeway road segment lifting gantry along the way (pictured below).

Post-haircut I made a second attempt. This would be a bit easier I figured since it was now lunch time. And I was right! Much less busy and the gate was wide open.

I found a semi-trailer loaded up with containers and followed into site to minimise obtrusiveness. I rode right past the sign-in shed (no-one saw me), then out into the wide, empty concrete yard between rows of containers. A mobile container crane span around towards me and I dived between two containers adjacent to the rail siding against the cyclone fence. No-one came and accosted me so I checked the app, figured the position by dead-reckoning, and made my dash. A ute drove past me as I sprinted to the hash but the driver just looked at me suspiciously. I checked the app and found I was only 3m away - close enough! I took a screen shot, spun around a bit on the spot to make sure I really got there, took a selfie and rode out, snapping a couple more photos on my way out. Soon I was back on the street one more geohash under my belt. I rode back across the tracks and uphill towards home triumphantly.

Below is my rough route, as recorded in Google Timeline: