2024-03-12 -37 144

Tue 12 Mar 2024 in -37,144: -37.8300870, 144.9787946 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Location

In a garden bed in Royal Botanic Gardens, just outside Melbourne's CBD.

Participants

Expedition 1 (11:30am):

• John

Expedition 2 (12:15pm):

• Stevage
• KT

Expedition 3 (4:05pm):

• Felix
• Gretel

Expedition 4 (5:45pm):

• Wizdude

Expedition 5 (6:15pm):

• Pwc

Expedition 6 (7:12pm):

• BarbaraTables

Expedition 2

I definitely couldn't turn down a geohash in one of my favourite places, the Botanic Gardens, a pretty amazing wonderland of plants great and small. The weather had dropped about 600 degrees from the sweltering weekend, although it was traded for a very sticky humidity.

KT was on a train from Ballarat, so I waited a bit to sync up, falling down a weird YouTube hole of blackjack card-counting videos. Eventually I launched and steamrolled the direct route south into the city. A slight strategic error to ride through Birrarung Marr, the rather pleasant banks of the Yarra River, which was undergoing a massive Moomba (festival) hangover. I dodged trucks and carnival rides for a bit until I made it up to St Kilda Road, which was surprisingly peaceful.

KT duly emerged from a tram, disguised as a train driver. She suggested cutting across and up the grassy slope, I suggested continuing to the footpath marked on the map, she pointed out that it was actually steps, I didn't listen, and was surprised to discover that it was actually steps, whereupon we decided that walking up the grassy slope was a great idea after all.

I locked up my bike at the visitor centre and we strode boldly in, with NaviKT taking charge and leading us to the point. Somewhat anti-climactically the app suddenly told me I had reached the point while we still on the footpath, but I chose to ignore it, so we could experience the illicit thrill of trying to stealthily enter a forbidden garden bed while wearing an eye-searingly bright orange backpack. It was worth it.

We strode back out, collected my bike, and bid each other a fond farewell.

Then I attempted an overambitious manoeuver in which I tried to reposition the pannier that was slung around my neck back onto the rear rack while cycling in a bike lane and cocked it up completely, leaving the pannier in the path and me looking like a dill. No one seemed to notice, or at least they were too polite to say anything.

Moments later I arrived at Flinders Street Station, and ordered a piece of pizza, whereupon surprise KT arrived again upon the scene. I filled her in on all the drama she had missed in the 4 minutes since we had last seen each other, then we went through the whole fond farewell process again. We must have done it better this time, because, at the time of this writing, I haven't seen her since.

Photos

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Expedition 3

I'd neglected to check the geohashes today. Probably because it was just after a public holiday I'd assumed that I'd already looked and they were rubbish. But no - Labour Day is a Victorian public holiday only: Americans were at work and opening their stock exchanges just like normal.

Seeing as the hash was in the Royal Melbourne Botanical Gardens there was no way I was going to miss this one. It's one of the great Melbourne locations. Initially, I thought I could ride down while my daughter's Nan was looking after her in the morning. But then I realised that it would be way better to take her with me (the daughter, not the Nan). Even better, there was a very convenient tram that went directly from near our place to right on the hash-side of the Gardens. Perfect!

I woke up Gretel from her second nap slightly early in order to catch the wheelchair-accessible tram going past (although, without wheelchair-accessible stops, this is still a challenge). I had to run for the tram but it was late anyway, getting me all sweaty in the humid air for nothing.

And we were away! The tram was quite empty. That is, until we went past my old school, Uni High, and then it became briefly packed with tiny high school studends until they all got off at the Flagstaff Station stop. A couple of non-high school people made little interactions with Gretel that she greatly enjoyed. She loves attention.

I half-heartedly fed her afternoon tea on the tram - some dal curry, a squeeze packet and a sliced cucumber, among other things. She made a bit of a mess and when it was time to get off I realised from the platform that she'd thrown her cucumber on the floor. I was about to go and get it but realised I'd be holding the tram up, so I waved the driver on.

We walked around the annoying Melbourne Metro works that had taken up a few local roads. I had to walk the pram along the tram tracks for a bit to avoid crossing three roads in quick succession. And then I realised I was going the wrong way by Google Maps. Oh well.

In a few minutes we were through Alexandra Gardens and into the Bot proper. I remember going there as a kid a lot - such beautiful and varied gardens! Sadly, I haven't been back much since I've been living on the non-Botanical Gardens side of town.

In absolutely no time we were at the hash. Like Stevage before us, my GPS put me sub-1m on the app before I'd left the path, but I dutifully bashed around in the garden bed until I felt like I was really there and had the GPS to recalibrate. Gretel enjoyed the experience and didn't seem to mind we had branches all up in our business. It was 4pm.

After hashing, we found a nice spot above the lake to have G dinner. She had some egg and tried to share it with the river birds (not sure what they are) [Edit. Stevage informs me they are Eurasion Moorheads]. I shooed them off with a newspaper. I remembered having a picnic at this spot with my extended family about 30 years ago.

I had a specific tram I was aiming for on the way home, so this time I took the Google Maps route to get there on time. But all the roadworks for Melbourne Metro had me going along a footpath next to Melbourne Grammar for a couple of hundred metres and then terminated it on me. It turned out that this footpath was just for Melbourne Grammar and their gate was locked.

So we missed our tram and had to go all the way around the school. The route forced us to watch Melbourne's snobbiest kids playing cricket in their silly clothes and making dumb little comments to each other.

But we eventually got to the tram stop. We waited 10 minutes for the next tram, then another 4 minutes for an accessible tram after that. We got on and sat in the same seat as on the way to the hash, but mapped onto this tram.

But wait! No - it was not just the same seat placement within the tram, but the same seat itself! Right under my foot was the missing slice of cucumber I'd failed to pick up. I put it in a side pocket of the nappy bag to dispose of later.

Gretel had another great time on the tram, exclaiming 'Gah gah gah' to everyone she met. I fed her some more puree and some biscuits. She got wriggly so I took her out of the pram and sat on my knee, where she could see out the windows better.

We got off at our stop and to celebrate I took Gretel to our local swing, which she loved as she always does.

Photos

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  On the tram

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  GPS proof

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  At the hash :)

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  Picnic dinner in the Bot

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  Dinnerscape

Achievements

Stevage earned the Bicycle geohash achievement by cycling 15km to the (-37, 144) geohash on 2024-03-12.

KT earned the Public transport geohash achievement by reaching the (-37, 144) geohash on 2024-03-12 using public transit.

Felix and Gretel earned the Public transport geohash achievement by reaching the (-37, 144) geohash on 2024-03-12 using public transit.