2023-07-30 -37 144

Location

In Birrarung Marr park next to the Yarra.

Participants

Lachie
Ed

Cam

Felix
Ruth
Gretel

John
Bridget

KT

Stevage

Expedition 1 (Lachie and Ed)

First at the hash

Lachie and Ed purportedly met up on bike at Flemington Bridge near their places, they then met Cam at the hash, where they subsequently joined Expedition 2 (Felix, Ruth and Gretel), before heading off together to get three pints each at Carlton's Great Northern Pub.

Expedition 2 (Cam)

After seeing that Felix, Ruth, Gretel, Ed and Lachie were all on their way to the hash, and seeing the glorious weather, I decided to quickly jump on my bike and join them, assuring my partner that I would definitely be home in around 90 minutes.

I flew down the upfield bike path and kept pace with a south-bound train, allowing me to shoot across all the roads in time with the closed railway crossings. I ended up arriving at the hash a few minutes after Ed and Lachie, and a few minutes before Felix, Ruth and Gretel.

On the way home, Lachie and Ed tricked me into stopping at a pub for lunch and a pint, then tricked me into another pint, and then another one. I eventually made it home after a few hours, very well lubricated much to my partner's amusement.

Expedition 3 (Felix, Ruth and Gretel)

Felix, Ruth and Gretel on the tram

When the location of this hash became apparent, we all knew it had to be done.

Originally, I was thinking I'd have to make a sneaky trip in the evening. But our mooted trip to the micro-trains in the morning fell through due to lack of enthusiasm for a long car trip that baby Gretel seems to believe involves existential suffering.

So the fall-back alternative of tramming to a hash by the river on a nice day won out.

At the appropriate Gretel-waking up and post-feeding time, we got the pram and walked to the tram stop via a 7/11 coffee on Melville Rd. Just missing the non-pram-accessible tram we instead caught an accessible one, although the lack of accessible stop near our place meant there was still a bit of a step to get up to it.

Gretel was cool and chill during the tram ride - she seems to enjoy them. Through the city, we got off at Flinders St, under the rail bridge opposite Crown. The sun was out and the walk along the Yarra River was very nice. I think this was Gretel's first view of the river (she's crossed it four times by car).

When we got to Birrarung Marr, we could see Lachie and Cam on the map just ahead of us but it took us a while to reach the hash via an extremely long switchback up a ramped pedestrian bridge. It was interesting to see this part of the park, where we rarely go.

Soon the clump of trees of the hash was visible. I piloted the pram into the bush, looking out for others. Pretty soon a couple of bikes appeared through the foliage. Cam, Lachie and Ed followed and we greeted them at the hash point.

I off-roaded the pram trying to get to a sub-one-metre reading on the hash app, which took longer than it should. Ed gave me back the fermenter tap he'd borrowed from me and also gave me a beer - a canned Dainton NEIPA. Nice!

After a few chats and bants it was time to go. Gretel was starting to tire of being awake in the pram and the conditions weren't right for her to fall asleep. We walked back via Fed Square's miniature cobblestones, which were perfect for Gretel sleeps, and Lord of the Fries burgers. The same tram route took us home.

An excellent hash for Gretel's #2.

Expedition 4 (John and Bridget)

John and Bridget

John and Bridget were unable to join the vanguard crew and made a separate trip, to be described anon.

Expedition 5 (KT)

KT

KT made a surprise expedition we're all eager to hear about. This photo is all we know.

Expedition 6 (Steve)

"Only Steve could make a geohash in a public park within a km of the city epic..." (Tom Z)

I was pretty excited about this amazing location - central Melbourne, yet in one of the extremely rare patches of quasi bushland. I hatched a variety of plans, but a hangover from Lachie's party the night before, and other plans meant I couldn't get there until early evening. I was a bit bummed to miss the big gathering.

Riding from Kensington, I tried to remember if it was possible to ride on the north side of the Yarra all the way from Harbour Esplanade. Turns out yes, but...it's a journey. It's almost like the people who built this area just never really thought about it. One minute it's pedestrian walkway, then you're dodging cafe tables, then it's a derelict bit of warehouse land, now you're suddenly on astroturf. Quite weird.

The day's beautiful weather gradually gave way to a very light drizzle. Dressed in street clothes, I wasn't keen to get wet but the rain was so light, and kept stopping altogether. And my extremely overloaded pannier (I'd just found a salad spinner in hard rubbish) was difficult to extract my poncho from comfortably. I pushed on.

I wangled through pedestrians next to Flinders St Station and passed under St Kilda Rd. From the number of footy scarves heading my direction, I concluded a footy match had just concluded. Either Richmond had had a bay day out, or its fans are just a miserable bunch.

The wind picking up, and the rain getting slightly heavier, I turned my attention to trying to untangle the maze of overlapping pedestrian bridges in Birrarung Marr in my head. The best approach seemed to involve a long detour to my right, to then u-turn onto a bridge taking me close to the point.

It was definitely properly raining by the time I found the micro-bushland. I wasn't keen to get off and faff with a poncho, so tried to stay on the bike as long as possible. To my joy, there were enough gaps in the bush to ride all the way to the point. But just metres from the point, the weather suddenly opened up completely and BLAM rain and wind. In the confusion of checking whether I was at the point, getting off the bike, and getting the poncho out and installed correctly in the wind, I became extremely wet, in what seemed just a few moments.

Still, I was having a good time.

Station pizza. Pretty good!

I was very hungry though, so made another pass through all the football pedestrians to get to Flinders St Station for some hot takeaway. They looked somehow less miserable this time, despite their ongoing bedraggling.

As I was buying a slice of pizza, a man loitering nearby asked me to buy one for him, without offering a reason. I declined, whereupon he told me some interesting facts about my mother I wasn't aware of.

Then I discovered that my D-lock, which had been strapped to the front rack, had become missing. Probably lost at the geohash, in the confusion.

A small amount of public transport chaos later, and I was home and dry.