2023-07-30 -37 144

Sun 30 Jul 2023 in -37,144: -37.8176492, 144.9737149 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Location

In Birrarung Marr park next to the Yarra.

Participants

• Lachie
• Cam
• Ed

• Felix
• Ruth
• Gretel

• John
• Bridget

• KT

• Stevage

Expedition 1 (Lachie, Cam and Ed)

First at the hash

Expedition 3 (John and Bridget)

John and Bridget

Expedition 4 (KT)

KT

Expedition 5 (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.

Photos

• 

  On the tram

• 

  It's a tap!

• 

  Hashcrew

• 

  GPS proof

• 

  Finding the hash

• 

  Walk through Fed Square

• 

  Stevage