2023-02-23 -37 144

Location

On the grassy side of the road where you'd expect a footpath to be, on Winifred St in Williamstown.

Participants

Expeditions

Expedition 1 (Lachie)

Lachie visited the geohash early in the morning before work. Details to come.

Expedition 2 (John)

When I awoke around 8, I looked at my phone, and saw that Lachie had already reached today's point as it was just down in Williamstown. I decided that I wanted to go too, and to also break my personal record from last February of 15.18km for a walk/run geohash. It was a similar distance away (11km), but this time I wouldn't chicken out and use trains on the way home, I would make the whole journey on foot.

I set off after 10, and jogged to the point with occasional walking breaks (to keep my HR from getting too high), while listening to a podcast. It all passed very smoothly. I reached the point after just over an hour and snapped the requisite selfie, and took the requisite screenshot.

I had thought of continuing to run on my way home, but my shoulder was starting to get tired and sore, so it was to be just walking for the return journey. I decided that I would take the slightly more scenic route on the way home, and headed east to the coast, whereupon I could follow the coast for a bit.

I was rewarded for this choice, by spotting a Pelican on the way. I did have to deal with a significant headwind though on the downside.

My feet were starting to get sore and blistery by the time I was getting towards the 15km mark, but I didn't have much choice, so I ploughed on. I stopped to get some liquorish from the Smithfield Rd IGA when I was almost home, and eventually reached home at about half past one, having done 23.3km in total.

Expedition 3 (Steve)

I slip out of the house in the early evening. The harsh, skin-burning heat of the afternoon has softened to pleasant warmth. It feels like a long time since I have been down to Williamstown by bike, and I'm a bit confused at first. Onto the Moonee Ponds Creek Trail, and then, the inevitable decision point: tempt the confusion of the Stock Route bike path, with its delightful quaint passages and quiet streets, or the certain industrial dullness of Footscray Road?

I opt for the former, confident that having travelled through it so many times prevously, I will sail smoothly through. That does not happen. I lose myself in the labyrinth, on the path for a moment, then off it, then on something which is neither definitely on the path nor off it. I nearly careen down a set of steps by accident, and then am thrust upon a dirt path I don't remember seeing before. It is a slow journey, but not an altogether unpleasant one.

I emerge onto the side of the Maribyrnong River, wondering for the hundredth time what the story is with that Buddhist temple on the opposite bank. It seems to have made progress, yet remains incomplete.

The gargantuan Westgate Tunnel construction site swirls around me, and I am swept up into it and spat out the other side into Yarraville. This is familiar territory, for I once had a friend who lived here, who I visited often.

There are no food trucks by the park tonight. Was that a passing fad? Or is it the wrong night of the week?

Entering the mysterious nothingness beneath the soaring Westgate Bridge I am struck by how distinctively barren this place is, its personality defined by the absence of one in a wholly unique way. There is a one-lane-at-a-time traffic system going on, which I gracefully opt out by hopping up onto the bumpy bike path.

Through parks of brown grass I admire the calm Yarra flowing out to sea, its serenity enhanced by a two-seater jetski trundling by. A game of softball persists defiantly into the fading light. I struggle to make out the players, or the ball, but sense their enjoyment.

Into the heart of Williamstown I make a sharp right turn, finding myself surprisingly in a thriving shopping strip I don't recall visiting before. On impulse, I make a masterstroke of efficiency, and plunge into a fish and chips shop, congratulating myself on the plucky wisdom of pre-ordering my dinner before even getting to the hash point, so confident am I of looming success.

Signs of imminent closure do not dissuade me. I ask if they are open. The reply, yes, but they are only serving fish and chips. I'm momentarily thrown off my course of action, wondering what possible delicacies I could have experienced had I arrived but a few moments earlier. But I stand firm. "A piece of fish and two potato cakes, please."

They don't give me an estimated time. I'm back on the bike, hurrying away, hoping to return before akwardness, or closure, eventuates. Through a roundabout, then another. Cleverly, I convert myself from a road-going-cyclist to a bike-path-going-cyclist and back again to avoid waiting for a traffic light. I'm down a side street.

I'm at the point. It's too easy. What's the catch? A photo. I'm back in motion. I'm at the fish and chips shop. My dinner is waiting for me. I have low expectations. I strap it to the bike and find a park with a view.

Dinner unwrapped, I discover an unordered potato cake. Tradition dictated it, I suppose. I'm contemplating the best order to eat the elements of this fine repast: surely one doesn't begin with the fish?

I nibble tentatively at a potato cake. It is good! Crisp, crunchy, fatty.

A man walks up, informs me that I have left my rear bike light on, flashing away. He is well informed on the matter. I thank him for the unneeded information, and return to the process of deciding what to munch on next.

But the man is not finished. He is now telling me that strobe lights are better than fixed lights, with the implication that I could somehow do better than I am currently doing. I'm unclear on the relevance of this information, since the rear light is, indeed, a strobe light.

I peer at him, undesirous of conversation, and wondering what I need to do to make him go away. He is probably in his fifties, short and wiry. He looks fit.

He soon announces that he is a cyclist. Ah. Well, there are many of those in this suburb. He is telling me I should get a strobe light for the front. "Ah yes, good idea, I will." I'm trying harder to end the conversation, making gestures at my fish and chips.

I take a tentative bite of my fish, but before I have time to thoroughly assess it, my unwelcome interlocutor continues. He had a head-on accident, on a bike. He is showing me scars. Telling me a story I can't quite comprehend, something about a helmet taking a piece out of another helmet.

The fish is surprisingly firm, and crunchy. But the man goes on. If he had tried to sue the other individual, then lawyer, something, twist the facts, something, thirty percent to blame, incomprehensible train of thought, but if he won tattslotto then he would sue the bastard. Not for the money, but for all of us. The cycling community.

Things are going very badly. I stare determinedly at my fish. It's really unexpectedly firm. It has the texture almost of fried chicken.

There is something in the story about an e-bike, and about a helmet coming off, and a chin strap being attached, but the helmet no longer being attached. Is it the same story? Or did this happen to a friend of his? I was never really following to begin with, but now I am most assuredly a long long way from comprehension.

It is so fatty, it is delicious. But it is still very hot. I want to be left alone with my fish, to have a moment together, just me and the fish. I will give it time to cool down, while I work through a potato cake. Then we will come together again, and see how things stand at that point.

Disaster. He reaches a climax in the story, "And you know what that means, don't you?"

A question. What do I do? Guess "yes" and hope that suddenly ends things and he goes home? It seems unlikely. But I also really don't care to hear the explanation he has wound himself all up tight to give.

"Uh..."

That's enough. Triumphantly, he exclaims, "Impairment!" I'm not sure of the significance of this word. At first I presume the participant - him? his friend? this unknown villain? - suffered impairment from the accident. But the tiny bit of my attention that is not wholly absorbed by my fish or strategising about ways to be left alone with it slowly works its way to the utterly uninteresting conclusion that he is claiming that the villain in question was somehow impaired at the time, perhaps by alcohol. I regret the wasted brain effort.

"Mmm." I say, desperately playing the straightest of straight bats, gesturing less and less subtly at the dinner spread out upon my lap.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, he is wrapping up the conversation. It feels like he has done this before, many times. A journey, to the word "impairment", and then we are done. He departs, and my fish and I are alone together.

I take another bite, grateful to now be allowed to fully appreciate it. It is, indeed, very, very good. I don't know what type of fish it is, but the crispiness of the batter is just perfect. Recently I spent a month in New Zealand, where terrible fish and chips is the order of most days. Frozen, pre-crumbed fish fingers. Tasteless, textureless. This is the antithesis of that. It is delightful. Firm and juicy on the inside, golden and crispy on the outside.

It is, I come to realise, almost certaintly the best battered fish I have ever had.

Eventually the meal comes to an end, and I roll home. My route choices are imperfect, but I'm feeling fit, and healthy, and I do not crash into any other cyclists. I avoid the Stock Route - witness my personal growth - and take in the construction spectacle looming over Footscray Road. The hills into Royal Park feel great. It is dark, but warm, and I have spent a wonderful evening.

And I am home.

Expedition 4 (Felix - failed)

I planned to get this hash after work. I mentioned to my partner Ruth that since it was a hot day we should go to the beach. I could pick her up in her car from the city at work (she's been having really bad pregnancy sickness recently), straight from my optometrist appointment on the way.

Unfortunately, I'd forgotten what driving a car in the city is actually like, and it was super-packed. It took half an hour to go about 2kms, and when I got Ruth from Collins St Google said it would be another 55 minutes to reach Williamstown Beach. So we decided to go to St Kilda Beach instead, only 25 minutes away.

When we got home at 9pm after dinner, I thought about making a bike-dash for Williamstown, but it was 55 minutes from my place and not on good roads. I decided to abandon so I could get enough sleep for my dad's 75th birthday party the next night.

Still, we wouldn't have gone to the beach if it wasn't for the geohash, so thanks geohashing!