2024-03-27 -35 149

Location

In a park in Latham, Canberra

Participants

Plans

I awoke somewhat groggily at around 7:30, and reacquainted myself with my surroundings. I was on a couch that had been configured to make do as a bed, in a relatively unfamiliar living room. As the dreamtide ebbed from my mind, I found myself staring at the flotsam and jetsam that remained on the shore - my recollections of the events that led to this point.

I was in Canberra, having flown up to attend my mother's valedictory speech in the Senate the day before. The speech had gone well, and was succeeded by a sequence of shorter speeches from senators from across the spectrum singing her praises. With the formalities thus accounted for, the crowd of her well-wishing colleagues, friends and family who had gathered to attend moved on to a venue by the shores of the lake, for drinks, dinner and more speeches.

Over the course of the evening's festivities I drank several delicious IPAs. We tried to move on to a second pub when the first closed its doors, but the second's bar was already closed. Luckily we found a third pub to accommodate us a little longer. We eventually withdrew to mum's partner's place for the night, which was where I found myself the next morning, feeling the after-effects of the consumption of several delicious IPAs.

Despite offering her official farewell the previous night, mum had to be up early to head back in to the Senate for one last sitting day before her job was actually done. Her pottering around getting ready was what woke me up, since the living room I was in was conjoined to the kitchen. There were two perks to having been woken up. Firstly, mum delivered me a cup of tea. Much more importantly, however, I was able to check where that day's geohash was.

And what a spot it was! Just in a park under 7km away as the Australian raven flies (it being the dominant species of corvid in the capital, as opposed to the little raven that Melburnians would be familiar with). I had thought about going for a run that morning, but 16-17km return (factoring in necessary indirectness of route) was more than I really had time for (a plane to catch), the inclination for (hungover), or good sense for (nursing a mild foot injury). What was I going to do? I knew I would regret it if I let this chance slip to bag a hash in a new (to me) graticule.

Before mum headed out the door, I asked if there might happen to be a spare bike around that I could borrow, and to my delight, mum's partner was happy for me to borrow her bike for the morning. I got the Garmin app to plot me a popularity-based route I could load onto my watch to guide me there. After a bowl of muesli, I set off.

Expedition

Garmin's plotted route had upsides and downsides. It soon led me down a road-work induced dead end and I had to backtrack several hundred metres, and then lift the bike over a barrier to get onto the road that I wanted to be on. Luckily, with this annoyance out of the way, things improved. I was led down a path that gave me wonderful views of Lake Ginninderra in the early morning sunshine. As I drew closer to the hash, I had to go back onto a busy road with an 80kph speed limit, but at least it mostly had a bike lane.

I then found myself in the suburb of Latham and turning onto Stretton Cres. Stretton was my great-grandmother's maiden name, before she became a Whetton by marriage. If only they'd hyphenated! As the Crescent started to bend to deliver on its promise, I got up onto a footpath that didn't exist on the map, but seemed to be leading me exactly to the hash. How convenient! As turned out, I probably only had to step less than a metre off the paving to get the sub-1m reading I desired. In the vicinity, I disturbed a cockatoo that was munching something in a branch. I hope it wasn't too put out.

I got back down onto Stretton Cres and rode the rest of its length connecting me back up to the way I'd come. My route back was different, I tried to take a more direct route, not feeling the need to go via the lake again, but I also tried to make use of off road paths where I spotted them. This approach worked okay, but I did have to consult the map frequently, slowing me down. The way I went did take me past a structure claiming to be Canberra Labor Club BMX Racing, which was a combination of ideas that took me by surprise. Along my way I also passed several of Canberra's classic 70s design bus stops.

I got back to base with plenty of time to spare, squeezing in a shower and another cup of tea before heading off for the airport for my flight home. The flight went smoothly and while I daydreamed of heading straight to Mornington Library to try to knock off hashes in two states in one day, this was never a serious prospect (not least because it might actually be in some council offices rather than the library itself). As such I just went home, whence I write this report.