Canberra, Australia

Coordinates and map quick links
Monday 2024-11-25	-35.7269909, 149.9214530
Sunday 2024-11-24	-35.3551281, 149.6005570

Yass, Australia	Goulburn, Australia	Wollongong, Australia
Tumut, Australia	Canberra, Australia	Bateman's Bay, Australia
Kosciuszko, Australia	Cooma, Australia	Tuross Head, Australia

[[Category:Meetup in {{{lat}}} {{{lon}}}| ]]

The Canberra graticule lies at -35 degrees latitude, 149 longitude. It encompasses Canberra, Queanbeyan, Bungendore, Braidwood and a number of smaller towns.

The region consists of farmland, National Parks, a generally dry lake, and a few hills that we call mountains. Also to be found are dirt tracks, ravines, cliffs and at least one mountain worthy of the name. Canberra (the largest city found in the locality) is more commonly known as the Politics, Porno and Pyro hub of the nation, but sometimes also referred to as Our Nation's Capital. We love our city. We especially love the porno(graphy), pyro(technics) and pro(stitute)s.

Canberra is renowned for being a navigational nightmare due to its high number of roundabouts.

Info on the odds of a hash point falling within the city of Canberra can be found here

Meetup Details

Note: XKCD Geo Hash meetups occur at 4pm Saturday afternoons according to the standard, but in Canberra during the colder months, 4pm is far too close to dusk. So meetups in Canberra during Winter will be at 2pm (some time after spring rolls around, we will switch back to 4pm. Stay tuned!)

1pm is the carpooling-O'clock at the Glowing Cube

Eastern Australia is 14hrs ahead of NYC. So, like all other Australian cities, Canberra's target for the Saturday meet-up will be determined using Friday's (US Time) data - that means that we get Saturday's time on Friday at 23:30.

Where the target lands in the East of the graticule, we may instead invade our neighbour graticule of -35, 148. Similarly (though less likely) is a northern invasion to -34 149.

Both ACT graticules shown in this map

Geohashers will often meet prior to a hash at the Glowing Cube for carpooling purposes

What about inaccessible Saturdays?

“	It's impossible to get lost in Canberra	”
—Nemo

In the Canberra graticule it is generally agreed that should the Saturday geohash fall in a remote and inaccessible location, we may instead opt for visiting a geohash location from earlier in the week, ie, a recent retro hash. We feel this is preferable to a voted hashpoint (which, in our humble opinion, rather misses the point of a hash by turning it into a popularity contest).

Our first recent-retro was Saturday 2008-06-14 -35 149, when we visited Friday the 13ths hashpoint.

Upcoming Locations

2008 August 29 - Friday - On East St in Harden. Note: this is in the "Yass" graticule. However, it has MUCH viability for Saturday.

Saturday potentials

Candidates for Saturday 2008-08-30

2008 August 29 - Friday - On East St in Harden. Note: this is in the "Yass" graticule. However, it has MUCH viability for Saturday.

2008 August 27 - Wednesday - Middle of farmers fields between Belconnen and Gungahlin (Between Nicholls and Evatt). Despite it's city proximity, it looks like private land. A viable ambassador hash?

• Ok, so my GPS is new and I'm not convinced I know how to use it yet, but if it's the area next to Owen Dixon drive (which I think is probably between Nichols and Evatt), I'm pretty sure it's CSIRO research land. Probably doesn't make it any more accessible than if it were private, but you know, useless trivia.

Summary of Expeditions...

OMG WTF Geohashers!

2008 August 17 - Sunday - A warm and sunny winter's day greeted the geohash crowds who found themselves on a mountain bike trail on Mt Stromlo...

2008 August 05 - Tuesday - With a curious neighbour watching us to make sure we weren't doing anything naughty.

2008 July 23 - Wednesday - Drive by hash, now with 100% less chance of angry farmers

2008 July 13 - Sunday - Recent rain swelled the river to unpassable levels. London Bridge successfully visited however.

2008 July 05 - Saturday - Creeks, bulls, and the two types of farmers in Australia!

2008 June 29 - Sunday - Bulls, barbed wire, a pond and pines. A successful hash visit!

2008 June 17 - Tuesday - Three seperate visits! Two made independently in the early morning. At lunch there was a successful crowd and frisbee

2008 June 14 - Saturday - we were deliberately 24hours late... i.e., we did Friday's graticule since Saturday's was particularly poor.

2008 June 08 - Sunday - we got there, after climbing through 2 (thankfully non-electric) fences.

2008 June 07 - Saturday - We are MNB. We went the wrong way, and it ended up being down the side of a cliff

2008 June 02 - Monday - No access: Psud got to the edge of private property - a youth shelter.

2008 June 01 - Sunday - Graticule invasion of 148! We invented the Geohash Card Game in the pine regrowth past Cotter Dam

2008 May 31 - Saturday - Best expedition so far! (it had a cemetery!)

2008 May 24 - Saturday - Attempted graticule invasion of 148... Damn GPS navigation wanted to go via Tumut on fire trails.

Non-Geohash things to do in Canberra?

Activities

• Play "Spot the Olympic Torch Relay rent-a-crowds"
• Climb the Carillion
• Steal the blinky light from Mt. Ainslie
• Throwing things at ADFA until they chase you
• Picnic at Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station (retired)
• Breaking the law by carrying such dangerous items as fire crackers and "laser" pointers into the New South Welsh portion of our graticule.

Notable Events

• The Annual Tulip Fest AKA Floriade
• Legal Fireworks Purchase Weekend
• Kangaroo Cull of 08

Local Geohashers

Canberra is rather pleasant at times...

Sign up, fellow xkcd hooligans

• Psud AKA Adam has started a mailing list and expects to attend on Saturdays - Seats available for car pooling for some hashes.
• Nemo expresses an interest too, hopes to get more involved after the current few months of busy get finished!
• Black Rattism is also an interested party
• Likewise for Somersault 00:59, 22 May 2008 (UTC). *puts up their hand*
• Luke is interested in attending. If not this weekend (may 24) then perhaps the next.
• Llandorin has a toy 4WD he wants to try out (see photos of 2008-05-31).
• Chris is keen
• Cameron is in the area.
• xen will try out his new GPS on saturdays
• 'gim is up for some random travelling
• Kieran is a Canberra resident, originally from a small place near Wodonga.
• Joanna is keen to meet people
• Raphael is in Canberra but relies on buses. You better not screw us up this year, ACTION.
• Terry can attend sometimes and should be able to provide a car seat or two for others.
• Baz is interested.
• Spectra AKA Bernard made it to the hash in the parliamentary triangle. Hopefully more soon.
• ConMan (another Chris) will try to get to ones in the Territory, and elsewhere if there's a car seat available.
• DancingMan is a Sydneysider, but is occasionally in Canberra on weekends.

Contact and organising

Mailing List

The Canberra Geohashing mailing list is the main tool we use to organise geohash expeditions and carpooling. Even if you're planning on sneaking to a hash point without letting anyone else know, you can watch the mailing list to see when others are planning on being there.

• See here to subscribe to the list.

IRC

Several Canberrans are regular on the #geohashing channel on Foonetic- especially throughout the Canberra day and evening. Final tuning of carpooling and pickups for geohash visits sometimes occur in this channel as well. Join us and other geohashers from the world for social real-time chat

Facebook

Kieran also took the liberty of creating a Facebook group, but it's more for propaganda purposes. Invite all your friends geohashing.