2022-02-08 -37 144

Location

In the Bacchus Marsh Cemetery.

Participants

Felix Dance

Expedition

I've taken this week off - ostensibly to travel to the US but also just to have a bit of time not wasting my life at work beforehand.

I initially had some grand schemes of doing seven consecutive hashes with this time off, getting to one each day no matter the difficulty. Sadly, I'd forgotten about how much of my life I still do that isn't work and so I'm not totally unconstrained.

For instance, there were two accessible hashes on French Island on Sunday and Monday that I could have got by taking two trains (and/or buses) and a ferry and then camping on the island. But it would have taken a big chunk out of the two days and I had things planned. So my dreams of continuous hashing came crashing down with the reality of the randomness of the locations.

But Tuesday's was a different matter. It was right in the general cemetery of Bacchus Marsh, not an insane distance from me and extremely gettable being in a public place. I did have things on - I was getting Covid boosted in the morning and I had phone banking to do for a political campaign in the afternoon, but if I rode in one direction and trained in the other I could squeeze it all in.

After my shot in the arm and getting home a bit before 11am I checked the train times. There was one heading from Footscray Station in half an hour. I changed into my bike clothes, prepared my bike and was just about to set off. But then I found one of our chickens had broken out of its coop and into the general backyard. It took a few minutes of running after her and throwing her back in before I was really ready to go - and by then I was late.

I rushed down Moonee Ponds Creek and over Flemington hill to the station and beat Google with plenty of time to spare. The train swept me up and propelled me towards the hash.

At the other end, I got off at Melton Station, thinking the hash was there (I was very confused). Just before the doors closed and the train left I realised my error and jumped back on, getting off at the correct Bacchus Marsh Station. Phew!

It was a short, easy ride uphill in the hot weather. I turned off into the cemetery entrance where there was a large lawn area and quickly got to the hash. I did what I had to do, took a lap of the cemetery to see what was what, trying not to disturb some congregated mourners, and rode off back the way I came in.

The ride home was initially very nice - a long, straight, quiet road out towards Melton, shaded by trees. Soon this turned off onte the annoying Exford Rd with no shoulder and lots of trucks. It passes near where Lachie's hash was a couple of weeks ago (2022-01-18 -37 144).

The road dipped into valleys and retained its minimal shoulder and, later, slowly morphed into suburbia. I stopped near Caroline Springs at a petrol station to refuel my body. At this point I was making good time and seriously considered going straight for the eastern hash near Lilydale. However, I would definitely have been late for my evening plans, I was low on phone battery, and, mainly, the hash looked too inaccessible - right next to a farmhouse deep in someone's property.

The roads started to become more familiar and I soon reached home, a good hash well done. Barely an inconvenience!