2024-06-15 -37 142

Location

On an empty plot of land in Ararat

Participants

BarbaraTables

Expedition

Day Before

Waiting around for Geohashes in other graticules accessible by public transport is like waiting for a completely random point to land on a couple of tiny, pinpoint dots. Well, that analogy failed to be an analogy, but you get the point. If you want to grow a collection of visited graticules in Australia, you have to jump on these opportunities, because if it's just a little too far, it becomes a multi-day activity.

So, jump on the opportunity is exactly what I did. Here in our time zone, we currently get the list of available Geohashes for the next day at 11:30pm. At 11:30pm yesterday, I scanned for achievable regional Geohashes, found this one, and promptly connected my laptop and powerbank to the powerboard. I knew what I was going to do tomorrow.

Traveling There

When I got up, I purchased my V/Line ticket online. Of course, I missed my first bus by two minutes and got a taxi, so there goes my Public Transport Achievement (and $10) again. In Australia, to that we say: "Good on ya!"

Besides that, the rest of the trip in Melbourne was straightforward. I took the train from Ferntree Gully Station to Flinders Street Station, and then Flinders Street to Southern Cross Station. Altogether, the trip from my home to Southern Cross was about an hour and a half.

At Southern Cross, I got my ticket printed. Felt very suspicious buying a same-day-return ticket that gives me all of two hours in a random regional town, but no one raised an eyebrow.

Nearly scared myself when I saw "coaches replace part of the Ararat line, allow an extra 45 minutes" - I didn't have an extra 45 minutes. It wasn't for today's date, fortunately.

From Southern Cross, I took the long, regional V/Line service from Southern Cross to Ararat. Finally, I got off at Ararat after two hours.

While I didn't have a long time to stay there, I figured that if you're gonna get something to eat, you gotta avoid the big chains and get something you can only get here. It'll be just ten or twenty bucks, but it's money that's found its way out of the big city into the smaller town that's not just gonna immediately shoot back to a big city. And even if it weren't for that, I'm not traveling 200km for same old.

Unfortunately, I think that fight's a little too far on the losing side to accommodate this. Closed, temporarily closed, closing early for the day, and a local told me that that convenience store "usually isn't open". All the while, every big chain is wide open. I ran out of time I had saved for this, so I went without. Always worth a try.

Radio Yerevan

On the train ride back, I typed this report. As I did so, I solved the last piece of the puzzle: did I earn the XKCD-100 Achievement? I couldn't stay until exactly 4:00pm, but the idea of a meetup on Saturdays at 4:00pm is just a suggestion in some other contexts. All of this research is, of course, excellent use of my laptop, which I brought for work and has 12% battery remaining.

I decided in the end that if Fippe intentionally waited until exactly 4:00pm to claim the achievement once, then I didn't get the achievement.