I’ve finally found a hypothetical hour to take off from watching TV so here is Decembers foxhunt report.
The December hunt was based on a Christmas theme although the hounds didn’t know what the theme was until they found the fox on the first hunt which was appropriately hidden in Christmas St Northcote. (30H7). The first team to find Henk was 3VR followed at about 5 second intervals by 3BLN,2nd and 3TXO,3rd. The order for the rest of the hounds was 3YDF, 3KIR, 3BQZ, 3YQN, 3VT.
The remainder of the hunts were 2 legged with the first leg being a conventional find the fox hunt and the second being a find the fox team member in a street with a name representing the Christmas theme.
The second hunt was run by Stephen and Adam with the fox located in a park in Carlton North (29J11) for the first leg and in Mary St for the second leg. The finishing order for the first leg was, VK3’s YNG, BLN, VR=YQN, BQZ, TXO, KIR. For the second leg, VT, YNG, TXO, KIR, VR, BQZ, BLN, YQN
The third hunt moved to Preston with the fox hidden near the creek just east of Nicholson St and south of Bell St. The second leg was Ewen who was parked in front of the entrance to the Coburg Cemetry in Bell St. This must have been too obvious because although several hounds drove past this spot on the way to Henk on the first leg it was some time before Ewen was found. It transpired that people were very creative when it came to finding streets with Christmasy names and investigated these before deciding Bell was worth a try. The finishing order for the first leg was, VK3’s TXO, VT, VR, KIR, BLN, YNG, YQN, BQZ. For the second leg,, YNG, VT, TXO, VR, BQZ, BLN, YQN, KIR
For the forth hunt Adam moved to a small park off Fordson St in Campbellfield (7G6) with Stephen in, appropriately, Holly crt, (7H6) a few hundred meters to the West. The finishing order for the first leg was, VK3’s YNG, TXO, BQZ, YQN, BLN, VT, VR, KIR. For the second leg, the order was, YQN, BLN, VR, KIR, VT, BQZ=YNG, TXO.
The fifth hunt was held in Epping where Ewen hid the transmitter close to Darebin creek in a small park off Dalton Rd (182C9). It was very amusing to hear one or two hounds cursing the somewhat tall undergrowth in the area. Some simply cursed and didn’t do much else, the less inhibited crashed their way through and were rewarded with the higher points. For those who came from the wrong side of the creek, once again the more adventurious were rewarded, both with finding the fox and also dry feet as the creek was dry. Geoff, I think we need to educate the young generation about crossing creeeks and other wet obstacles on foxhunts, they seem to be averse to getting their feet wet!!. First on this leg was VK3VR, follwed by YQN, YNG, BLN, VT and TXO, with BQZ having headed home and KIR sorting out some equipment problems. Henk was positioned reasonably close in Nicolas St. First on this leg was again VK3VR, followed by YQN, YNG, BLN, and TXO. We’re not sure where Greg and team got to and Andrew was still sorting out equipment.
The last hunt of the evening was run by Adam and Stephen with the transmitter hidden in a small park off Hillview crt in Bundoora (9G12). VK3BLN was fisrt in on this leg, followed by YQN, VT, VR, KIR, YNG and TXO. The second leg was in Joseph St a few hundred meters to the East. First in was VK3VR folowed by VK3YQN, YNG, VT, BLN, KIR and VK3TXO.
The scoring was based on placing with points being awarded for each placing. The first leg of each hunt had about twice the points of the second leg, as per the table below:
| Position | Points First Leg | Points Second Leg |
| 1st | 10 | 5 |
| 2nd | 8 | 4 |
| 3rd | 6 | 2 |
| 4th | 4 | 1 |
| 5th | 2 | 1 |
| Other | 1 | 1 |
The overall scores were as follows:
| Team | Points | Place |
| VK3VR | 51 | 1 |
| VK3YNG | 46 | 2 |
| VK3YQN | 43 | 3 |
| VK3BLN | 42 | 4 |
| VK3TXO | 34 | 5 |
| VK3VT | 30 | 6 |
| VK3BQZ | 13 | =7 |
| VK3KIR | 13 | =7 |
Maximum possible points 85