November 2000 Foxhunt

Seven teams congregated on Lytton St Carlton on a mild Friday night. Shortly after 2015 signal was heard on 2m and the hounds were away.

First, a note on multi-leg scoring. All hounds were required to find the first leg before proceeding to the second, even after ten minutes were called. The second leg was scored on the basis of leg time, ie the team that found the second leg in the shortest nett time scored ‘0’ and the other teams’ scores were calculated using the difference between their respective leg times and the winner’s. This method prevents the possibility of short cuts and is intended to maximise fairness.

Hunt 1: two legs, 1a under the control of Bruce VK3TJN and Ian VK3YQN and hidden on a railway embankment near the Maribyrnong River, Melway 2TC7. VK3PW was first in, followed by VK3HDF, VK3VR and VK3HBD.

Leg 1b was under the control of Roger VK3HRL, concealed near an unmarked track close to National Rail Corporation’s West Melbourne fuelling point, Melway 2TA11. First in was VK3VR, followed by PW and HDF. BLN reported equipment problems, while HBD and ZPF simply didn’t get in at all.

Hunt 2: A single-legged event, with the “normal” fox concealed in a small alley behind the old Brunswick Market, Melway 29G7. VK3HBD recorded their first ever event win (well done), followed by ZPF and HDF, with VR being the only other team to find the fox.

Hunt 3: Another two-legged event. Roger VK3HRL ran the first leg, in a cul de sac in Newmarket St Northcote 30H10. VT was first in, followed by VR, HBD, HDF and PW. VR should have done a little better but drove straight past me as I was standing in the open – oh well. PW managed to upset a resident and it was left to me to handle PW’s PR. ZPF found the fox as a (a pre-requisite for the next leg), but were out of time. BLN at this stage were still at West Melbourne fixing the Kimberley.

Hunt 3b was run by Bruce VK3TJN, near a bike path under the Chandler Hwy bridge (north bank of the Yarra, near AMCOR, 31B12). Ian YQN and assistant stood in a well-lit clearing and successfully distracted most hounds, who forgot to trust their sniffers and pursued the obvious suspects. Bruce struggled to contain himself as hound after hound ran straight past the fox. Eventual finders were VT, VR, HDF, HBD, PW, ZPF, but nett leg time resulted in HDF taking the honours from VT, VR, PW, ZPF and HBD. BLN still broken, but trying to catch up with the pack.

Hunt 4: A single legged hunt, with the fox being hidden in a playground in Surrey Park Box Hill 47B11. VT skillfully marooned their Commode wagon on a large rock, but most other teams took a conventional approach to this event. VR took the honours, followed by HDF, HBD, VT, PW, and BLN (at last!). ZPF had taken the equipment problem baton from BLN and hunted no further.

Hunt 5: Two-legged hunt, culminating in Supper at Bruce’s. The first leg was hidden near a rock pool alongside Damper Creek Mt Waverley 61D10. Hounds appeared from all sides, but first in was VR, followed within seconds by HDF and later by BLN, VT, PW and HBD.

The second leg fox was turned on, but being a low-powered fox was unable to be heard by some teams. On realising this, teams were told to head towards supper (within 500 metres of the supper fox, near Gardiner’s Creek 60J8)), but VR had headed for high ground instead. The result was that HDF was followed in by HBD, PW, VT and BLN. VR’s leg time put them 14 minutes ( = 10) after HDF. Needless to say that was considerable discussion afterwards…

Supper was well-attended, and lasted a while – probably due to the very mild weather and fairy bread. Most teams seemed happy with the format, and although the HDF team won the night, congratulations went to VK3HBD for their best performance of the year (and in living memory?).

Scores are tabulated below:

	Hunt 1a	Hunt 1b	Hunt 2	Hunt 3a	Hunt 3b	Hunt 4	Hunt 5a	Hunt 5b
VK3HDF	1	6	3	5	0	1	1	0       17	1st
VK3BLN	10	10	10	10	10	8	3	9       70	7th
VK3VR	1	0	7	1	2	0	0	10      21	2nd
VK3VT	5	10	10	0	2	3	5	8       43	5th
VK3PW	0	3	10	9	2	4	7	7       42	4th
VK3HBD	1	10	0	3	8	2	8	6       38	3rd
VK3ZPF	10	10	3	10	3	10	10	10      66	6th