2008-05-31 -35 149

Owen Elliot, geohasher, died 2nd of March, 1880

A successful Canberra geohash! What a day! At around 4:30 eNIGMa and another made it to within 100 metres of the hash, which turned out to be in a paddock about 800 metres south east of the cemetery in Gundaroo. Unfortunately there were device problems.

At four thirty it must have seemed that no one else would show at the hash site, but these intrepid adventurers didn't count on one thing, the sheer disorganisation of another Canberra group. Oh yes, Canberrans made it to the hash site, at 5:30pm, after plenty of f-cking around!

The First Mob

eNIGMa and whoever else attempted it should write this bit, and upload photos of that cool cemetery during the day!

The Second Mob

Participants

A group of shady characters (see the story below)

• Deb
• Psud - it was his birthday!
• Kieran
• Dave - Deb's sig other, and our driver

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  Deb

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  Psud

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  Kieran

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  Dave

The trip, a Cemetery, Fences, and the Hash

We drove from before sunset (just after 4:30) to twilight to get to the town nearest the geohash. Psud couldn't get it straight whether it was Gundaroo, or the neighboring village Gunning. He settled on a cover story of "We're doing a photo survey/art project about towns with names starting with "Gun".

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  We drove through Canberra

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  We drove through sunset

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  We drove down rural roads

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  We drove to Gundaroo

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  Then we had to walk

The hash was in a paddock about eight hundred metres north east of a the Cemetery in Gundaroo. Owen Elliot came within sight of winning the Couch Potato Hash... or would Coffin Potato Hash be a better term? The appropriate terminology was appropriately debated. Psud now reckons it should be Plot Potato Hash.

It was late twilight when we got to the gate to the Gunning Town Common and cemetery - 1100m from the hash. Not being an "Official Vehicle" we had to walk from there. By the time we got to the cemetery Deb was near invisible in her black cloak. She decided that it would be more fun hanging around the graveyard rather than joining us in fence-jumping-geohashing-fun. So she waited there. Dave, Kieran and Psud continued.

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  Psud's flash caught the sign

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  Dave, Psud and Kieran under the sign

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  The graveyard at which Deb stayed

Normally fences aren't a problem, you just climb through them - over the mesh or wire, under the barbed wire. We climbed through about 5 fences on our way to the hash (neither Psud nor Kieran have ever met an Aussie farmer who cares about trespass), but unfortunately a fence that had been well made separated us from the paddock the hash was in. Two rows of barbed wire and heavy, taught mesh. We wandered along the well made fence line, found a gate to the nearby state forest, and wandered along that fence line. We had almost circled the hash point by the time we found a wombat scraping into the paddock we wanted to enter. FSM bless Wombats, nothing gets in their way!

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  Psud

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  Dave

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  Kieran

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  With the flash on...

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  And with the flash turned off.

Eventually we made it to the hash point, but Psud's super cool camera died on us - it's parting words "Battery Exhausted"! And it was pitch black! So the photos to confirm we made it to the hash point are camera phone shots of a camera phone screen at night. Just believe us, we made the damn hash! Next time we'll bring another GPS with better display. And a spare battery for the camera.

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  The point

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  Dave, Psud, Kieran at the point

Then back again. Through the wombat trench, through a gate, over five more fences. Deb guided us towards the cemetery with her torch. We made it back to the car and Deb programmed the GPS to take us to the Party. It was well and truly night and Dave, Kieran and Psud were looking shady. Deb had taken inspiration from her visit to the graveyard with her best "Post mortem table" look. We arrived at the birthday/post hash party at about 7:30 to find that AD, Nicola, Matt and Jason had arrived, lit the fire and broken out the beer.

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  On our way back

The Post Hash Party

We went to Psud's place, because it was his birthday. And there was a bonfire. And there was drinking. And there was a geohashing cake made by Nicola complete with trees, river, pirate ship, drop bear, sea serpent and a flag emblazoned with today's hash coordinates. This is Psud's last 5 bit birthday. Next year he will need a sixth candle. Cool photos to be posted soon.

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  The fantabulous cake by Nicola

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  The fantabulous Nicola

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  Dave and Deb were there too

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  And AD has clearly taken lessons from Deb

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  The phone camera picked up that the fire was bright in IR

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  The big camera caught a later flaring of the fire

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  Kieran liked stirring the fire with an oar

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  Psud liked the fire

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  The bonfire made boncoals. They're still glowing at 04:44

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  The sparks danced for us