2020-01-03 -37 145

Location

On a farm next to a quarry near Broadford.

Participants

Felix Dance
Jude

Expedition

This was a fairly legendary geohash. My friends Jude and Astrid and myself were on a three day cycle tour north of Melbourne. I started a day earlier than the others and worked my way from Euroa on my bike, down to Merton across the Strathbogies, then along the Great Victorian Rail Trail to Tallarook where I camped the night next to the rail line. In the morning I met up with Jude and Astrid who arrived by train from Melbourne.

We rode back up into the Strathbogies along some extremely picturesque bush tracks. But when we stopped at a picnic table for lunch a park ranger came to us and told us we needed to evacuate because of the extreme bushfire threat. This was during the massive fires that engulfed a lot of Australia's east coast over the summer.

That put the kibosh into our plans to ride through Kinglake National Park to Hurstbridge, so we had to come up with a plan B.

Plan B involved riding along some farm tracks to Murchison Gap, down to the town of Broadford, then out west towards the brewery in Woodend and home from there. However, once we were in Broadford we stopped at a pub - which is where I discovered the geohash nearby.

A few beers and a swim in the local pool later we were on our way towards the hash. In only a few kilometres we were at the turnoff. However, it was behind the locked gates of a quarry. There was a sneaky way in though, through a dilapidated fence. Jude and I ventured inside with Astrid waiting for our return.

Jude and I got into the quarry okay with our bikes, ignoring the 'DANGER: ALSATIAN' sign, before climbing the steep hillside and over the other side. We zoomed down towards the hash. After overshooting a little we dumped the bikes, clambered over through a barbed-wire fence into a farm next to the quarry and headed down to where the hash was. We took some photos (pictured) and returned.

We spent the next day riding into the sunset towards our camp for the night - an old scout camp Astrid used to go to as a kid. We spent the evening drinking whisky, listening to tunes and reminiscing about the day's adventures.

Here is the route of our geohash day.

More photos of the trip are found here.