2024-02-25 -37 144

Location

On the footpath outside Al-Taqwa College, Truganina.

Participants

Expedition

Another hot day today, forecast 32 degrees. In order to beat the heat, as they say, the crew started early(ish) - 8:30am/9am. Cam and Lachie departed from Lachie's house, and attempted to chase John down who had left earlier. From the comfort of my own home, I (Felix Dance) noted that they had some success in this, or so it seemed from observing shared locations on Google Maps.

And at 10:43am, the success photo was published to the gchat. Celebratory drinks were had post-hash, as is tradition.

Pwc's report

Cam, Lachie and myself agreed to meet on bikes at Lachie's at 9am. John was heading separately by foot-power. I set off for Lachie’s house fashionably late. As I was crossing Flemington Bridge Station bridge, I saw Cam below and realised that if I arrived with him, we would be such a substantial fraction of the party that we couldn’t be late, so I immediately accelerated after him. Unbeknownst to me, he had spotted a cyclist ahead who he thought was me, and had also set off at a cracking pace. So there we were, steaming up Mt Alexander Rd: me chasing him, and him chasing a random cyclist who was confused about why he was being stalked on a beautiful Sunday morning. Thankfully a red light intervened before any crimes were committed.

We arrived at Lachie’s without further incident, and set off, heading for the Federation Trail. Speaking of stalking, John was heading on foot and we had his position on Google Maps, so we rapidly crept up on him. Lachie announced we were 4km from him and would overtake soon. However, I pointed out that in the time it took us to get 4km, he would have gone further, and we would have to go that distance, but he would get further still away... reaching him was impossible.

We soon reached him on the path and exchanged pleasantries like “get a car loser” and sped off to the hash, confident that we would easily beat him there.

Fate intervened, as we realised we were beerless. We immediately assembled a crisis council, Cam looked up the nearest open bottle shop, and we diverted towards the local purveyor of morning-alcohol. Crisis averted, we returned to our route and were soon approaching the hash-containing footpath. Disaster! Despite a distinct lack of mechanical assistance, John had beaten us there. We had restorative beers at the hash.

The next task was to locate a pub for more restoration. Thankfully the Phoenix Hotel (open 7am to 3am, seven days a week) was nearby and we were certain to beat John there. And indeed we did, so we did a victory lap of the carpark and then spent so long finding a place to lock up our bikes that John beat us inside.

After an early lunch, we set off back home. It was now the middle of the day and extremely hot. Nonetheless we made it back without incident, excepting a few stops to refuel water bottles.