Hunt 3 was scored on the final leg only, so the first leg possessed no scoring points it was merely there to get you within the vicinity of the much lower power final fox.
The VK3YDF team ran the June 2003 foxhunt. Four teams assembled at Bayswater Railway station (64G4) on a cool and otherwise clear evening. Points were awarded on position rather than time with teams not finding the fox awarded two points higher than the last team for each hunt.
The first hunt was located between factories (65B2) in Boronia just a short drive from the start. We decided to hide the vehicle, so as to not attract too much attention. Some wood lying nearby came in handy to create a box. The foxes hiding spot between factories (reflections galore) was beside some blackberries. These blackberries proved a very good distraction. The fox was sitting in a hole in the wall about 2M above the ground. First in was Mark VK3YDF, hotly followed by Gary VK3TXO (for BLN). Doug VK3JDO (for VK3OW) then Dennis VK3BQZ. The fox almost gave his spot away laughing, David VK3BLN was heard cursing on 146.575 “I’m stuck in a swamp, and I don’t think I am going to find the fox.” The fox soon regained composure and resumed writing down callsign’s.
The second hunt was at a place in Ferntree Gully that is known by locals as “the Rock” (74E3) and is famous for clear views of the suburbs of Melbourne, which are almost as good as from Mt Dandenong. It is not all that popular mainly because you can’t easily drive there, although there was a fire track that ran just above where the fox was hidden. We were actually expecting to see the BLN vehicle to find some way to get onto this track but instead David elected to scale the hill and even after doing a big loop around the fox still managed to find it first. Mark VK3JMD followed soon after with Dennis VK3BQZ managing third place. There was no sign of the OW team who it is reported dropped their runner at Ferntree Gully railway station, which was more than a kilometer away from where the fox was situated.
The third hunt was to be found mobile, in Knox City (63K11), hiding the car earlier ensured that no one recognised it. We initially began transmitting from the ozone area (the new bit). However, the police had some kind of hoon car blitz on.. So we cleared out to avoid possible problems. The remaining time was spent in the older section of Knox, mostly upstairs near Myer. First on the scene was the Denis VK3BQZ team, however they were piped by the VK3JMDMZTVBKIR team. Third and final was Gary (on foot) for the VK3BLN team. The OW got a bum bearing, and not content with the view from the rock, headed up Mt Dandenong.
The fourth hunt was next to Dandenong Creek on the edge of the Police Paddocks Reserve in Dandenong North (81J12). The idea was that there was a bike track on the opposite side of the creek that would be the obvious place for the fox to be hiding. All teams took the bait only to discover that the fox was on the other side of an otherwise uncrossable creek. Ian VK3MZ was the first to work out what was going on and despite an encounter with cow deposit on the way managed a comfortable first place to the fox. BLN followed later for second place just beating Dennis VK3BQZ who took third. Doug VK3JDO from the OW team took fourth place.
The fifth hunt was yet again mobile this time on a bike track between Stud Road (72K8) and Glenfern Rd (74A5). First in was the VK3BLN team followed a few minutes later was the VK3JMDMZTVBKIR team. Next in (a few minutes later) was the BQZ team, their first runner Graham (VK3ZEO) found the official fox photographer, Denis VK3BQZ however found the fox. The OW team had some problems with the mobile idea and didn’t make the cutoff.
All teams retired to the supper location, QTH of Steve VK3YLE where the following scores were announced:
Well done to the JMD/MZ/TVB/KIR team for their narrow win over BLN. TheVK3BQZ took points for third place – their team continuing the climb up the scoring ladder.
A reasonably mild evening saw seven teams of hounds meet at the traditional meeting place at the top of Swanston Street.
After some delay caused by a number of factors (teams and fox), the first hunt got underway with the teams chasing the first of four legs. This was located beside the Darebin Creek in a gully leading off to a tributary (near a bike track). The hounds soon had the measure of the slow CW and located Dough VK3JDO and Chris VK3CKH. First in was YDF with YQN and VR/etc close behind. Other teams straggled in after these.
The second leg saw the fox on a bicycle riding along the Merri Creek bike path between Bell St and St Georges Rd- those who deployed the right tactics soon had their calls in the log and were off after the next leg. Unfortunately the battery that had been charged the day before gave out on this hunt and so there were some teams badly affected by this. However as each leg of the hunt was scored separately it did not affect the overall score too badly. TVB/etc were the best with YQN coming in second – the rest got 10 but this was probably a function of the battery problem.
The third leg was on a bike track (have you picked the theme yet?) near the Ivanhoe golf course. I think the nearby fence must have had an effect and this leg proved very difficult. YDF led in TXO with BLN sneaking in seven minutes later. The rest took longer than 10 minutes.
Our final leg saw a return to the bike track beside the Darebin Creek with the fox again on a bike (different rider) riding between Bell St and Grange Rd. MZ/etc was the best team on this leg with YDF TXO and BLN following up.
Scoring was done on each leg in a similar fashion to the normal hunts with the shortest leg time scoring 0 and a point per minute for teams after that with a maximum of 10 points. Scoring in this fashion there were joint winners of the first hunt – YDF and VR/MZ/JMD/TVB on 13 points each, next was YQN with BLN a ways back in fourth.
The second hunt of the evening was a two legged affair – Once again Doug JDO lead the hounds to a reserve by the Plenty River on a bike track (yes another one!) Near Para Rd in Montmorency. First to locate Doug was TVB/VT/JMD/MZ, Geoff managed to find the nearby blackberries on his way out but the fox was not actually aware of these when selecting the spot. All teams found Doug and Chris within the 10 minutes.
Second leg saw the fox sitting on Cresswell hill in Macleod and as all the new roads in the area are just being built access was a problem – on my Melways this looked to have bike tracks planned so the theme was upheld although they could only be considered mountain bike tracks at the moment!. First to this was YDF with YQN close behind, BLN made it just before time and JMD/etc just beyond time other teams were in the area but difficulty in finding the access tracks proved to be their undoing.
Supper was at the home of Chris VK3CHR and for the first time for a while there was food left over – is everyone watching their weight or did we over cater? Or worse was the food unpalatable? Results were announced but the actual calculations of leg times had not been done so the results published here are the official ones. Winner for the evening was YDF with 14 points, second VR/MZ/JMD/TVB (how do they know what to call out!) on 23 and just one point away third YQN.
Scores are as follows (While discussions are encouraged there may be little chance of changing them!). Actual times and leg times are available for those that are interested.
MZ YQN TXO YDF OW BZQ BLN
Hunt 1
Leg 1 3 2 10 0 8 6 5
Leg 2 0 5 10 10 10 10 10
Leg 3 10 2 10 0 10 10 7
Leg 4 0 10 5 3 10 10 7
Total 13 19 35 13 38 36 29
Hunt 2
Leg 1 0 2 8 1 6 2 2
Leg 2 10 3 10 0 10 10 9
Total 10 5 18 1 16 12 11
Grand 23 24 53 14 54 48 40
Place 2 3 6 1 7 5 4
The VK3YQN team conducted Friday night’s hunt, with seven teams taking part. Six started from the agreed meeting place, while VK3BLN was *unusually* late and started while in transit from Ringwood. Weather was cool but clear, perfect for foxhunting. The were four two-legged hunts, all on 2m although frequencies had to be changed from time to time to avoid upsetting other amateurs occupying “our” frequencies.
On each hunt the first fox was on for 10 minutes from first discovery and the second fox for 20 minutes from its first discovery. All hunts were scored on leg time, ie the time each team took on each leg compared with the fastest team on that leg. So if you took 16 minutes and the fastest team took 10 minutes then you would score 6. Note that if you took 16 minutes and the fastest team took 3 minutes then you would score 16-3=13 but 13 > 10 so your score = 10. Teams that did not get in on a leg automatically scored 10 for that leg. Teams not in on Leg ‘a’ but finding leg ‘b’ were scored according to the time between leg ‘a’ being turned off and their arrival at leg ‘b’.
Maximum score for the night was (10 + 10) x 4 = 80 points
Hunt 1: The first leg was on a emergency vehicle access road under the Westgate Freeway near the (inbound) Shell service station. BLN arrived first (0 but subsequently disqualified (10) because their rolling start gave them too much of an advantage), followed by VK3MZ (0 due to BLN disqualifiation) and VK3ZPF (3). The second leg was behind the Yarraville Tennis Club on Cowper St. BLN (0), ZPF (2), HDF (3), MZ (5), PW & VT (9), HBD (DNF = 10).
Hunt 2: First leg on new industrial estate beside Kororoit Creek off Little Boundary Rd Laverton North. BLN (0), MZ (1) PW (9). The second leg was on the old Melbourne Outfall Sewer off Jones Rd Brooklyn. BLN (0), VT (3), HDF (5), MZ, ZPF & PW (in but too late = 10), HBD (DNF = 10).
Hunt 3: First leg 100m south of railway line beside Laverton Creek Altona. BLN (0), MZ (1), HDF (3), PW (4). All others DNF. Second leg in new housing estate in Point Cook around the Melway 207 J3 area. ZPF (0), VT (1), PW (4), BLN & HDF (7), MZ (in but too late = 10), HBD (DNF = 10).
Hunt 4: First leg on Melbourne Water disused outfall sewer in Hoppers Crossing. VT (0), HDF (2), BLN (3), PW (4), HBD (5 – yippee), ZPF & MZ (DNF = 10). Second leg in new housing estate behind Roger’s house, 202 B8 area. MZ (0), HDF (7), BLN (9), PW, ZPF, VT & HBD (in but too late = 10).
Supper was held at Roger’s house. Children and my_wife@home.com.au left undisturbed – thanks.
Scores were calculated, re-calculated, discussed, announced, corrected, announced again, checked further and corrected once more. Mental arithmetic needs more effort. So, after the tenth check, I am now confident that I have it right. Scores as follows:
Fox for the evening was the VR/TVB/MZ/JMD team. There was a good turnout – with 8 teams starting.
The first hunt was in a dead-end lane behind the cinemas in Glen Waverley. The hounds got into the area rapidly, but had some difficulty finding the correct entrance to the lane we were in. First in was YDF, followed closely by TXO, OW, BLN and VT; YQN, KIR and BQZ had dropped runners on the other side of the centre and took another 4-5 minutes to find their way in.
The second hunt was a Fox-O’ring event – a format made popular in recent times by Bryan (VK3YNG). The YQN team starred on this hunt – finding all 3 transmitters and the homing beacon in only 34 minutes. The were followed by BLN on 38 minutes and YDF on 39. The OW, VT and TXO teams also found all transmitters with KIR and BQZ only having located two.
The next hunt was supposed to be on one side of some horrifically dense blackberry bushes in Endeavour Hills (a spot that was in fact used by TXO only 2-3 months later). As we were pushed for time, we converted this to a mobile hunt to take the hounds back towards the next hunt. We transmitted as we headed back along the Mulgrave Freeway, seeing one or two hounds heading in the opposite direction as we headed North. We went to ground behind the AFL offices in Mulgrave. First in was VK3KIR followed by VK3OW and VK3VT with VK3YQN and VK3BLN taking the minor placings.
The next hunt was in Monash University and all teams found their way into this one. First in was VK3BLN – their good performance only being possible due to the dry conditions and the fox’s decision not to go too close to any sort of water course…as we had no recovery gear that night.
From Monash hounds took a longer drive to the area of Tally-Ho technology park. The transmitter was intermittent (to annoy the YQN team) and was tucked down a walkway at the rear of one of the buildings. First into this hunt was VK3KIR with Bruce from the YQN team second – climbing over a fence from an adjacent site to reach the transmitter. The YDF team drove directly into the transmitter stopping about 5-10m to let Adam get out for a run. This made the location a *little* more obvious for the other teams – with BLN and BQZ coming in moments later. Ewen, VK3OW, chose to take the same route to the fox as Bruce – but much less elegantly. As “time” approached he was entangled on the fence and the creepers covering it – so we moved the transmitter about 60 cm so that he could catch a glimpse of it and get in before time was up.
The final hunt for the evening was another Fox O’Ring event run by Ian, VK3MZ. Once again, VK3YQN took out line honours for this multi-transmitter hunt (if only they could learn to hunt ONE transmitter as effectively…). Next in was VK3TXO followed by VK3BLN, VK3VT, VK3OW and VK3KIR.
Supper was at the home of Geoff, VK3VR – lots of food was served – most was eaten. Scores for the evening were announced;
Five teams met on a balmy Friday evening at Quambee Reserve for the January 2003 Melbourne foxhunt.
Hopefully, everyone would have noted the fine print on the instruction sheet: Bonus points were to be awarded for unbogging the fox’s vehicle. Alert teams would have noted the police car, armed with speed camera, that entered the car park and turned to perch itself on the entry on Oban Rd — only to reveal that one of its taillights would fail the roadworthy test!
The location for the first hunt was a raised wooden walkway adjacent to a small lake in McAlpine Reserve, Ringwood North (MAP 50A1). Signal appeared to radiate all along the walk-way but where was the fox? The gaffer special transmitter was hiding in the end of a rotten log, home to an ants nest only a few minutes before. To make life entertaining for the fox, and frustrating for hounds, the famous BLN leaky coax-antenna was deployed. The coax was installed underneath the walkway, connected to the fox via a length of normal non-radiating coax run under the ant log. Hounds venturing under the walkway had to content with spider webs and creepy crawlies above, and the soggy marsh underneath. Hounds choosing the walkway were simply baffled with a conflicting set of bearings.
Hunt two was staged on a fire escape at the east side of the Eastland shopping complex in Ringwood (49H8). Entry could be gained from the stairs on the northeast corner car park but we imagined hounds crashing through shoppers and cinema-goers. Surely, we thought, someone will call 1800 1234 00 and report “Terrorists with funny antennas”. No such luck, the hunt went without a hitch. Bruce was first in and all the rest soon after. The asphalt had just been newly sprayed with gray paint, and now sports a fancy array of footprints traversing the upper and lower decks.
At the meeting spot, departure was somewhat delayed by some panic stricken phone calls to Brian Ackerly from David (XAJ) because the scoring box was unable to download to our laptop. This was punctuated with phone calls to/from YQN asking if the hunt had started — they had chosen to park 30 metres away from the meeting spot (within eyesight) but were incommunicado because our comms rig seemed to lose audio at this stage.
The third hunt was a three-legged fox O-ring affair using Ackerly Laboratories multi-purpose phallic-O-tron low-power (or no-power) transmitters. Approximate locations of the transmitters are revealed to enable teams DF the weaker than normal signals all sharing the same frequency. The use of automatic scoring allowed the transmitters to be placed in locations that would not otherwise be feasible, as normally a person accompanies the fox. The nano-power output of the first two transmitters made these legs extra challenging. Geoff, ‘3VR discovered the first transmitter in a lane way between buildings located South off Molan St, Ringwood (MAP 49E10), apparently after eliminating all other laneways. After running to the end of the lane, searching for a way through or over the impassable fence, VR found the fox in a louver window halfway along the lane on the return journey. VK3KIR was also successful on this leg.
The second leg was hidden in a tree on an overgrown path running along the West side of the Ringwood Powernet terminal station (MAP 49D10). Entry was off Heatherdale Rd. Given the proliferation of blackberries, it seems fitting that the one team to locate this transmitter was YNG of lets-hide-the-fox-in-those-thar blackberries fame!
Lily, Graham and crew met the other half of the fox team on the third leg to provide some moral support. David was in a lather, John was looking at a loss, Alp was trying but did not know how, Graham looked calm and tried to settle David, Guy was also working up a lather… Lily (wandering what all the fuss was about) got out the old clipboard and pen and waited by the fox and checked the runners in manually. (David was relieved but was somewhat bemused to having to resort to the “old system”).
Just as the third leg was about to be planted, news reached the fox of the lack of radiating power of the preceding legs — so this transmitter was placed in a more conducive location, up a tree at the end of Argent Place (49E12). It is ironic that this was the one transmitter that decided it would radiate at full power. No excuses for this leg. 🙂
Hunt four was held in a new development near the southwest corner of Dorset Rd & Canterbury Rd (64K1).. The fox was hidden in the scrub, where there were blackberries… lots of them. Bryan would have appreciated it. Everything went without a hitch, except that we lost BQZ.
The fifth hunt was to be found hanging over the wrong side of a fence behind trees in Jacobus Walk, Ferntree Gully (64H12). After first being very pleased with the choice of location, the fox was a little concerned when VR and YDF managed to locate the transmitter all too easily. The fox was relieved when the next few teams all arrived at once and proceeded to squabble and fall over each other for what seemed like an eternity – phew! BQZ was eventually successful with a little moral support from the fox… “Warmer, cooler, really hot, could it could be vertically polarized!?”
Hunt six saw us on a bike track in Wantirna South (72B3). Entry was gained via a track off Cathies Lane via the road to the Refuse Disposal Center. After having three men scout out which was the best way in, we drove down the bike track and planted the fox against the fence line. This hunt went off without a hitch. Everyone clambered in armed with the scoring box keys, a mixture of confusion and relief to find out that we were now operating on manual… no key required. But we seemed to have lost BQZ again… brrrr-brrrr… brrrr-brrrr… Where??? You’re in Dandenong???? And so the hunt was ended. We proceeded to drive to the meeting spot, trying to retrace our tracks only to get THE-SUB (Go-anywhere Subaru) well and truly bogged, to the amusement of the hounds. THE-SUB also chose this moment to reveal a propensity for not engaging reverse. With plenty of willing helpers we were soon rolling again.
The final hunt was located in shrubbery in the middle of an otherwise sparsely vegetated Llewellyn Park in Wantirna South (72E3). Entry was from the south end of Cathies Lane East via a 4WD proving ground, the normal entrance being closed. Although this location was only a few hundred metres from the previous hunt, most hounds ventured as far as Stud Road, which is over a kilometer away! Teams arrived from all directions and converged almost at once on the fox.
Just in case your eyesight wasn’t up to reading the scoring fine print on the handout, here it is again… “Hunts will be scored on order with a 2-point penalty for not finding the fox. Multi-legged hunts are weighted with first worth triple the points of the last and the second worth double the points of the last. No correspondence will be entered in to. We are not responsible for anything. Councils are not sue-able, we as an entity or as individuals are not sue-able. John K recommends you take care. All hunts are taken at own risk. If you can’t hear it, it is not our fault. We were covered by HIH. If you break your gearbox it is your fault. Points may be awarded for un-bogging the fox and/or providing slabs of cold VB.”
Thanks once again to Bryan, ‘YNG and Ewen, ‘OW for lending us gear. Bryan lent us the Gaffer tape special, O-Ring transmitters and for made a valiant effort organising five auto-scoring boxes with minimal notice. Ewen, ‘OW also provided a backup fox just in case ….
Five teams assembled at the BiLo supermarket in Burnt Bridge for the 2001 Christmas fox hunt.
While John and Brett were logging entrants, a ratbag in a Holden demonstrated the ancient and complex art of “burn-out”. Encouraged by the noise and smoke generated from rear wheels attempting to gain traction on asphalt, the local car enthusiast endeavoured to spin his car around for more action. With the vehicle leaning at least 10 degrees and the rear differential refusing to allow both wheels to lose grip, understeer prevailed and the lurching automobile headed towards a stationary object. Displaying a reaction time unrivalled by the Schumacher brothers, the driver stepped on the go-slow pedal and locked up all four wheels. Tyres screeched, more smoke was released and the car came quickly to a halt – aided during the last milliseconds by a “no standing” sign that stood in our way of a greater appreciation of supermarket motor sport. We should note that no fox hunters were involved in any way in this fine exhibition of vehicular control.
Team hand-outs included instructions that hunts would be scored using an order-based system using numbered tickets attached to the fox. This method allows difficult hunts to be run longer if necessary so that teams have a greater chance of finding the fox without penalty. This is more encouraging for novice teams.
Meanwhile, David and Sophie tore off in the Landcrab (as much as you can tear off in an Austin 1800) to give the impression that the fox was being planted some distance away.
Some hounds took nearly 10 minutes to discover that the fox was actually in an alley way behind the supermarket, only metres away! No need to drive at all… the microfox was planted in the top of one of a number of bales of waste cardboard. All senses were working overtime included olfactory — the smell was reminiscent of dead alley cats and discarded fish bones!
The order was TXO, YQN, VR followed a while later by OW and VT. The location seemed to totally throw some teams whilst others took it in stride, tracking straight to the trasmitter. Perhaps they were expecting the classical fox — especially because the carrier was modulated by one of those annoying “music on hold” tunes. How could it possibly be that small?
The second hunt brought out that leaky coax thingy. Once untangled, it was strung up, over, around and through shrubbery in Warrien Reserve in Croydon. Powering the coax was Bryan’s “gaffer-tape-special” to ensure sufficient radiated signal.
If the near-field radiation pattern of 30m of leaky coax wasn’t enough, the damn antenna connection parted company with the rig, further increasing frustration. YQN first, followed closely by VR, OW, TXO and VT, the later teams incurring two breaks in signal. Luckily for them, hunt scoring was order based.
Hunt three required hounds to enter Currawong Bush Park in Warrandyte, map 34 G3, preferably from the north through an easily accessible gate. The fox was planted at the base of a tree amongst tall grass, near Mullum Creek, beneath transmission lines. After a long wait, VR arrived and found the fox quickly. YQN was second, running (as always) from a different direction. OW was third, and with time almost up, VT came forth.
Bryan entered Currawong Park from the south and became totally lost, with seemingly little guidance from his team. After the hunt he struggled onward until the fox was turned back on. Eventually he was reported found, accompanied by the usual impatient cries of “Is this the supper hunt?”
To maintain our outstanding record of controversy, the fourth hunt took advantage of a new bridge construction near Deep Creek Road in Ringwood. The gaffer-tape-special just happened to fit a cavity behind the NE end of a truss beneath one side of the bridge. Entry was via an undiscovered nature walk starting at an entrance on the south of the east side of the bridge. The walk led down to a location where one could choose either to crawl under the bridge (hard) or travel a little further down the hill and walk in (easy).
Signal strength (or lack of it) added to the challenge due to the unforeseen attenuation characteristics of the hidden cavity, steel and concrete, cyclone fencing above and the general topographic depression of the area. Bursts of signal from the car were needed to assist the hounds’ plight.
This was a turning point for VT, who was not unhappy with the location and finished first. VT was closely followed by the VRs, with lack of first apparently causing them some upset, then TXO, YQN and after some wait OW.
Just after the fox was hidden for hunt 5 in a devious but yet-to-be-revealed location, a hound requested that supper commence no later than 11:30. In the interests of world peace and hunger, the accommodating BLN team arranged a plan B.
The fox was quickly driven to Mahon Reserve in Ringwood and hidden amongst a thick group of trees. Anticipating that the fox might be hidden at the pre-arranged supper location, the hounds took off towards Ringwood’s McAlpine Reserve and waited.
Just as the last clump of dead bark was being gathered to conceal the fox’s bright LED, the park shook with the roar of 4WD vehicles and the smell of half-burnt diesel. Three teams entered the park from three different directions, leaped out of their possum-squashers and converged within the cluster of trees. In the midst of the dust haze, a scuffle broke out between Bruce and Geoff — these two hounds, who are normally quietly spoken and the model of politeness, engaged in what could best be described as a tug-of-war over the ticket booklet!
* Note for next BLN hunt: Remind hounds that their score is not proportional to the number of raffle tickets torn from the ticket booklet or the volume of foliage severed from the surrounding trees.
Fortunately for the remaining hounds, Bruce replaced a few tickets. After a confusing examination of the torn ticket remnants that were handed in and over threats of disqualification, VT was awarded first place followed by OW, YQN, VR, and (with only a few oddly-numbered tickets to choose from), TXO.
A BBQ supper was held at McAlpine Reserve in Ringwood, map 50 A2, where it was proven that you can’t cook meat if the gas bottle is empty. Thanks again to Sophie and Jodi-Ann for catering, Graham ‘3ZKM for assistance locating locations, and Brett for helping hide the fox.
Scores: <- Hunt Number -> Team 1 2 3 4 5 Total Place
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:
The November foxhunt was hosted by Ron, Dennis, Jarrod, Courtney and Andrew, and consisted of five multi-legged hunts.
This was the first time in ages that we’d organised a foxhunt, and a few difficulties were experienced at the start of the evening. Amateur ingenuity did prevail however, and regular programming was restored after some technical hiccups. Eight teams gathered in Brice Avenue Mooroolbark at 8.00 pm.
Hunt 1 was a three-legged affair, but owing to a transmitter failure on legs 2 & 3, only the first leg was ultimately scored. Most teams found Hunt 1 Leg 1, which was a high-powered transmitter strapped to a tree in Castle Hill Park, Melway 37 H6. First in here was the TVB/JMD team, followed by VT and YDF. For those of you who found either Leg 2 or Leg 3, congratulations because you would have been hunting the radios’ local oscillators. In any case, these legs were hidden in Brushy Park and Griff Hunt Reserve in North Croydon.
Hunt 2 was a two-legged affair and all hounds found the transmitters within 10 minutes. Both legs were within 100 metres of each other, in the football ground at Ringwood North Reserve, Melway 49 K3. First team in was BLN on Leg 1, and TVB/JMD on Leg 2.
Hunt 3 for the evening consisted of two transmitters, hidden beneath the new Deep Creek Road Bridge (Melway 49 D7) and in Antonio Park Mitcham (Melway 49 C8). Geoff VK3VR decided to join the evening at this point; glad you could make it Geoffrey! First in on these two legs were YDF and YQN respectively.
The fox struck westward and went to ground in Slater Reserve, Blackburn North (Melway 48 C5). Another two-legged ordeal left many teams approaching from the north, trying to negotiate freeways, stormwater drains and pine plantations amongst other things. Well done to the BQZ team who found both transmitters on this hunt ahead of everyone else.
The fifth and final hunt for the evening was in Surrey Hills. One transmitter was hidden in a car park off Windsor Lane near the intersection of Canterbury Road and Union Road, while another transmitter was located slightly to the north near Surrey Hills Railway Station, Melway 46 H11. The YDF and TXO teams came first on these two legs.
Supper was held at the QTHR of Ron VK3EHF: a great feast was consumed and scores were concocted. Teams were marked on order of arrival at each leg. This means that the first team on each leg got zero and the clock was started at this time. The second team got 1 point, the third team got 2 points, etc.. The clock was turned off 10 minutes after the first team got in on each leg, and any outstanding teams were awarded equal next place. Using this system, the best possible score for the night was 0 and the worst possible score was 72 (9 legs scored x 8 teams participating).
Thankyou to everyone for participating, we hope you enjoyed the evening; and thankyou especially to Elaine and Linda for their help in the preparation of a lovely supper. Cheers, Ron VK3EHF
Hunts 1a, and 3a consisted of three fox-or transmitters each worth 5 points. Hunts 1b and 3b were time scored out of 20 minutes. Hunts 2, 4 and 5 were scored by the standard 10 minute rule.
A report will hopefully be published sometime soon.
The October foxhunt was hosted by the YDF team. Clear weather conditions prevailed and 5 teams assembled at the Knox city carpark here hounds were briefed about the format of the nights hunts.
This time we decided to try something completely different for the major event of the night. Instead of having one or two individuals complaining about trying to figure out a “cacophony” of multiple foxes on the same frequency, we decided we would tell them all the locations of the foxes instead! Three small transmitters were built into small length of PVC pipe about 25cm long. The melways grid references of each were given at the start of the hunt and each team had to work out the best order to do them in to be ready for the final leg which was on a different frequency and at an undisclosed location. The format turned out to be more challenging and interesting than was first thought. Several teams commented that they quite liked the format.
63 G12: Tree beside creek, pretty straight forward, quite a few ways in, most of these hampered by the winding creek.
64 E11: Bushy area behind Gym carpark, adjacent to bike track.
73 C2: Knoxfield lake reserve, beside the lake, the creek beside transmitter also provided added challenge.
The final leg of this hunt was near the Caribbean Gardens market by Dandenong creek. Melways 72 H10.
First on the scene was Bruce VK3TJN who true to form found one of the more difficult access routes. A few minutes later the VR/MZ team turned up. It turns out that you could get a vehicle in there. They pulled up within about 10 metres of the fox location, crossed the creek (on foot) and found the transmitter hidden in foliage nearby. Some minutes later, the BLN team turned up in their vehicle but for some reason did not elect to drive across the creek. Teams KIR and TXO were not seen in the 20 minute time limit.
The second hunt was a 10 minute drive off type. The fox was located in a park area to the north of roadworks on High street road. Melways 72 A1. The actual hunt location was not the intended one but seemed to work out OK. The fox was placed up a tree barely seconds before the VR/MZ team turned up. It was found without too much difficulty. The BLN and YQN teams came in seconds later to tie for second place. KIR and TXO teams did not get to the fox in the 10 minute time limit.
The third hunt was another fox-or-ing event.
63 J4: Easement adjacent to horse padocks. (BLN had fun in here)
64 H11: Bushy area beside bike track. pity the swamp had evaporated
72 E2: Creek, scrub, bike track and just enough black berries to keep TJN interested.
The fox for the final leg was hidden in a shopping trolley parked near the entrance of an upper level of the new Knox District centre development that had opened only days before. Although the location was fairly simple as far as accessibility was concerned, the intention was to add a bit of confusion for people who turned up at the lower level because of the amount of things for the signal to reflect off. This idea seemed to pay off as a lot of teams spent a considerable amount of time running around the lower level. First to work out what was going on was Geoff from the VR/MZ team. The YQN team came in about 6 minutes later and BLN turned up just before the time limit had expired. TXO forfeited due to a temporarily damaged human.
The next hunt was a 10 minute drive off. The fox had to change plans last minute as the intended location ended up being blocked by a locked gate! It was discovered that there was a small (2m wide) laneway that led behind a small set of factories nearby. This location turned out to be more of a challenge than expected. Most teams appeared to be convinced that the fox was hidden in thick scrub near the Manhattan Hotel. Melways 63D10. A lot of cursing could be heard in the distance. Several people started making their way down the lane and one ended up jumping the fence convinced that the signal had to be in the bush area while others turned back to find another way. One of the members of the KIR team who was first on the scene got to within 2 metres of the fox (from the scrub side) several times but for some reason never found the transmitter that was just hanging on the fence. The VR/MZ team were first to work out what was going on closely followed by John from the BLN team who had finally made their way down the full length of the laneway.
The supper fox could be found off Glenfern Rd, Melways 74 F10. The low signal strengths from Glenfern Rd indicated to the hounds that the fox must have been further away. Most hounds were dropped from the opposite ends of the reserve. Those dropped in Upwey found a gully in the way. Those from the football oval found a long run ahead of them. The VR team discovered an I beam that took offence to their vechicle tire pressure.
All hounds soon retired to the QTHR of VK3YLE for food, stories, slideshow and scores. Appologies again for the very late posting of this report.
Well, the title is the name of the district in Prague (Praha) where this hotel is located. It’s not a bad place, pretty basic, and based on some quick checks I’ve done on other Hotels today, pretty damm cheap too by central Prague standards.
It is Monday evening now. It’s still warm, but the window is open and it’s quite pleasant with the soft ‘going to bed’ noises in the surrounding buildings. It’s been a busy day, but first lets rewind a bit to Slovakia.
Instead of going more into the results of the 80m ARDF competition, I’ll refer you to http://www.ardf-r1.org (I think… I haven’t checked that address) where Rainer will be putting up all the results and splits from the German ARDF software. I haven’t seen the splits yet so that will be interesting !! (I really want to know how I compare on some of my better legs).
After the prize giving ceremony, which was similar to the 2m one, but inside in the basketball court due to inclement weather (now doesn’t that sound familier fellow ARDF-2003 organisers ?!!), it was straight into the HamFest.
Oh man was there a lot of food there !! After already feeding us a light meal beforehand I don’t know what they were expecting, but I can’t imagine anyone could possibly have gone away hungry. The gift swapping was much more muted than in Region 3 championships. I suspect it’s just a cultural thing. There was certainly a fair bit of it, but rather than feeling inadequate like we did the that first time at Townsville, I had some stuff left over !
Remember the Slovenian junior who had followed me to TX1 earlier in the day ? Many of the receivers couldn’t hear with the hopelessly weak signal from the defective transmitter…which incidentally affected all competitors so that’s why they left it as is rather than turning on the backup. Note to ourselves: [Must check power level of TXs after turned on in the field in International Competitions we run].
Anyway, his name was Ziga, and he ended up coming 10th in the M19 category, his best ever performance. Not that this helps my own result at all of course, but it is kinda nice to know I’m worth following (at least some of the time). That’s one of the splits I’d really like to see (4-1). He gave me a bottle of Slovenian wine from his home town since he was pretty excited at his result and grateful for my (sort-of) help.
Having been to some big (well Easter 3 Days anyway) orienteering competitons, and world ARDF competitions this sort of intermingling of competitors and making friends is something that is quite different, at least in degree. With ARDF the whole group are together for the 5 days of the carnival, not just the few hours of competition, partly due to the way it is structured, and also since it is held is some pretty obscure locations where making your own arrangements from afar would be almost impossible. Dave, one of the US competitors, came along just as almost a side trip to some rock climbing he is heading to in the Dolomites in Italy. He says he had so much fun at this world championship he is hooked…. “When’s the next one ??”
During the gift exchange I gave one of the German competitors a special gift. She nearly fell over laughing when I presented her, with great ceremony, with a green capsicum (pepper). This was in reference to the green capsicum that was mysteriously suspended from the roof of one of the lifts during the German celebrations after the 2m event.
Larry, Adam & Bryan under the Luge
The Summer Luge
Mountain Railway
Most of the Yanks were due to head off early the next morning, many back to Hungary with Ghuri. Larry remained for a bit and the next day we were going to head up the cable car with him. Unfortunately I discovered I had to go into Poprad with one of the organisers to organise our train tickets for that night otherwise we probably wouldn’t get them at all. Adam and Bryan had to travel that night to get back in time for their train (didn’t really worry me since I have the whole week). The mountain had clouded in (again) by the time I had all that organised, so instead we ended up going up a cable railway on a nearby peak. Interesting ride, and a good walk up the top. A fluke we ran into Sergei on our walk (who wasn’t competing in this championship, since he didn’t make the Ukraine team…and he was the one who won the USA champs last year) who was on the last day of his visa. He rode by bike to the championships from Ukraine to save money since as an observer he gets no government sponsorship.
Cable Train (Funicular)
Ski run
The Tatra Peaks
Afterwards Larry and us took the train(s) to Poprad. Larry is staying there a few days. We found a great (and cheap) restuarant in the pedestrian mall there, before heading back to Poprad station to board our sleeper.
Caught Out !
The Prague Sleeper
Relaxed Lunch
The sleeper was pretty nice with only 3 pretty generous beds (for a train) in a cabin. Of course we had to be woken rudely for the passport checks, but unlike Mongolia at least they did these whilst the train was on the move. We were also stopped for a while with lots of compressed air noises, so it’s possible the rail gauge changed here too, but the stuffing around factor seemed considerably less than in China/Mongolia. Other than waking whenever we hit a station (odd sort of express that seemed to make lots of stops) it wasn’t a bad night.
Took a while to get ourselves organised in Prague. We didn’t have a prior booking at all and it took a bit to get oriented. I went and bought a map that has already become a valuable if somewhat dog-eared possession.
After finding a Hotel (that has turned out to be pretty cheap compared to many others, and quite acceptable) we lugged our luggage up the stairs (no lift) and settled in. Bit a a walk around the area was planned before lunch, but we didn’t end up returning till evening.
I now have the tram system pretty well worked out. The metro undergound is out of action due to the floods except for one line. I’m told it’ll probably be that way for 6 months to a year since the whole system and stations were completely flooded. There a few extra trams called XA and XB that attempt to follow the missing underground loops.
I won’t go into too much detail about the city, but we did of course visit the Karluv bridge, and a quick walk through the Prague castle (the centre of Czech goverment). Prague has many streets and lanes heading in odd directions. Apparently this is partly intentional so invaders would get lost !
Prague
Canal
Flood Damage
The damage due to the recent floods (they flooded the West bank particularly about 3m or so up on the buildings) is extensive, but repairs are well underway. Workmen with cement dusty overalls are everywhere in the river district, and there is a damp musky wet cement smell in places. Lower floor windows often burst due to the flowing water pressure. Thought this means we might not get to see everything, it does work in our favour too since the crowds are apparently *well* down. Still, you can tell you’re in a tourist mecca when you hear English and German more often than Czech.
The Karlov Bridge
Starom Square
Narrow Lane
Took the trams back to our Hotel to get ready for a concert we’d booked for on the spur of the moment.
It turned out to be a quartet in the Municipal House whereas I had more a full symphony orchestra in mind (Gerswin, Bernstein, Bizet etc. usually are). Still, after the initial surprise (in retrospect the tickets did seem fairly cheap), it turned out to be quite interesting, especially when they had to improvise to fill in extra parts.
A more Italian style pizza (yum) on the way home. On the way home just turned out to be a bit longer for Adam and myself since Adam wanted to take some night shots of the city from the castle (this was not a trivial walk!). Some sections and roads in the city are taped off. This is either due to danger of collapse (sometimes the flooded cellars get some structural damage and you get sudden sink-holes), or a lack of power in that area making it dangerous. In places there are big portable generator sets humming away to provide power for that area. Even so, a couple of the streets we went down were alarmingly dark! Finally got back after midnight (with rather too many time exposure photos of city buildings).
Prague on (mostly) 2 Wheels
Today I was set to meet Maurice from the Belgium team as he was passing though Prague. I was at the appointed place and time so something must have stuffed up. Anyway, instead I checked out bike rentals and an internet cafe. I did end up hiring a bike, which included a 2 hour tour of the city. Ideal way to get around, and much more fun. I mananged to talk min into giving me an extra 2 hours of rental for the same price, so basically I had the mountain bike for the rest of the day.
The bike tour was good. I was just me, a couple of Londoners and the guide, plus a trainee guide tagging along. Probably a bit shorter on details that your typical tour but that didn’t worry me too much at all. A few titbits: Nick Cave lived in Prague for a short while. He wrote a song about a cafe here called the “Thirsty Dog”. That cafe now has a signed Nick Cave portrait 🙂
On the Bike Tour
Starom Square
More Flood Damage
Micheal Jackson had a tour here a whike back. He donated a huge blow up statue of, you guessed it, Micheal Jackson. It stayed on the hill to the North of the city for some years before it was “decommissioned”. They floated it up and down the river a few times as a boat. In it’s place they built a giant metronome. Yep…looks just like that metronome your Granny used to have on the piano. It’s meant to symbolise the continueous passing of time since it always ticks…..uh…except at the moment when it’s not due to power problem due to the flood.
Mozart performed Don Giovanni here for first time in 17?? something. It’s been playing in Prague ever since…uh…except for now when it isn’t and something else is instead.
There is a graffitti wall called the John Lennon wall. They paint it clean every year and immediately it is filled again. The first time someone had painted a portrait of John Lennon, which didn’t sit terribly well with the at the time communist regime. Later, when Czechoslovakia regained a democratic system, someone remembered the John Lennon had been painted over and re-found it.
Hmmmmm a noisy group have just arrived downstairs at the Hotel, so though it is late I may as well keep going…..
One of the girls keeps trying to say shhhhhh but I suspect it’s a hopeless cause 🙂 Of course I can’t understand a word they are saying/yelling.
Afterwards I took the bike to the park across the river to the North of town, took some photos of the city, and gave the bike a bit more of a workout than it would probably normally get riding up and down steps. (Hey, the tracks were marked with a bike symbol, and I was just following the locals :-)). Due to the wide paved areas in this park it seems to be a very popular in-line skating, biking and skate boarding area. A mountain bike is essential in Prague due to the cobbled streets. A road bike would be a disaster.
I rode up to the castle (again) but could not ride in since it’s only for pedestrians. Oh well, around the castle, and back through the river district and a complicated route back through the city (ok, my technique was to ride for a while anywhere it looked interesting, and then try to find myself on the map again…which wasn’t easy with this map!).
Radio Free Europe broadcasts from the centre of Prague from a big building. One of the most powerful HF transmitters in the world apparently. The building now is fortified and no visitors are allowed (since September 11). After returning the bike (damm what a pity…that beat walking) I did a bit of shopping (gasp horror…Bruce doing shopping).
Tommorow the Technical Museum, and possibly a Jazz Club dinner. Later in the week I’ll probably move onto Rock 🙂
Hmmmm that was a long one !
PS: Jodi, still no O’Henry Bars in Czech Repulic either, but I do have something else instead……
On the Jazz Train
I’m just back from a dinner Jazz night at a Jazz and Blues place recommended by the bike people. I wonder how this will come out after a few Czech beers. Well the beer was certainly cheap, and the Mexican style food excellent (and filling)…… but the jazz ? Well it was what I’d call country music (bleah), not one of my favorites. Maybe given a stretch you could call it Bluesgrass, and hence a tenuous connection to Blues, but only just. I was most disappointed.
According to an English couple I chatted to over dinner, a Jazz band is back playing at the bridge…they weren’t there when we went over the other day. It rained on me on the way home too (actually I would have made it back ok if I hadn’t got my tram stops confused….. it’s so much harder at night to tell where on earth you are in an only slight;y familier city). Oh well 🙂
It’s a relief to use a normal keyboard again. You have no idea how hard it is to use a European keyboard in the internet cafes. The Y and Z are swapped over, the numbers have to be shifted, and I still have no idea how to get to the 3rd and 4th characters on the keys (which include semi important things like : and !… bit hard to do a URL without an : I’m reduced to finding an old shortcut and changing it !
As for the rest of the day:
It was a bit of a slow start, partly because of a late night last night (recall those noisy ppl who arrived ?), and also because it’s a holiday, dammit, and it’s been up early nearly every morning (well Bruce’s definition of early anyway) for weeks.
I sent off the last report from an internet cafe just up then street. Pretty convenient really since this Hotel is in a bit of an out-of-the-way place.
Took the tram to the Technical Museum. Turns out it was just behind the park where I went cycling yesterday, but then things move much faster on a bike. I have to admit the museum was a bit of a disappointment… not at all like the visit to the one in US a few years back. I finally found the place by guesswork and a bit of map help…the 1:16000 tourist map is a bit of a beast to read at times; pictures of monuments and churches tend to obsure important steet junctions ! The museum would be excellent if you’re a steam train buff; and yes Roger, I took some photos for you. Otherwise the displays well, were a bit dull. The technical displays stop before surface mount chips, English only appears on about 30% of exhibits, and despite the pure volume of things in a particular category (say cameras), it was interesting but not fascinating. I think more thought needs to be put into the presentation of material. There are only so many box brownies I can look at before I yawn. The number of staff out-numbered the number of customers 2:1.1
Technical Museum
Steam Trains
Now why didn’t this Tandem design take off ?
The industial design exhibit was, erhem, well thought it was some sort of joke to be honest. Some vacuum cleaner company presented all it’s failed designs and called it an exhibit. Lots of curvy plastic and zero content.
There was a good school-level introduction to resonance and modulation of waveforms, and as well as the full actual steam locomotives and early cars, a whole room dedicated to steam train art (pretty strange for a technical museum).
Possibly I’m bagging it a bot much, or maybe I’m spoilt when it comes to sciece museums. It’s only 70 Kc (about A$5) so make up your own mind 🙂
A threatened species
New model analogue sniffer for Marvin
Afterwards having a bit more time than expected I walked back through the park (letenske sady) and visited the castle (properly this time). I bought one of the tickets simply to climb the cathedral steeple, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have bothered. Don’t bother buying a guided tour or anything… just lob past a tour group when you need to find out about something. It that doesn’t happeb to be in English, try another ! There’s enough of them. That way you can speed past the less interesting bits, such as the old palace. The view from the steeple was good. Worth it for that alone.
Prague Castle
Castle Cathedral
Riegrovy Gardens
Another interesting bit is where they have lots of little shops that were built into the original wall. There is an extensive display of body armour (that stuff must have been so uncomfortable!) in a room upstairs within the wall itself.
I went walking through Stare Mesto, the old town, after that. I wanted to check out the big square where there had been anti-communist student protests. It’s well just a big square (well actually a long rectangle).
Here’s another titbit: The Jewish part of town is one of the most well preserved Jewish quarters in the world…the reason being Hitler declared it off limits for German bombing in WW2…Why ? Why would *Hitler* do that ? Well apparently he wanted a monument to an completely exterminated race…and the one in Prague was to be it. Now that’s wierdness.
I also had a look at a room in Pension Unistas Cloister Inn. The rooms according the Lonely Planet Guide are originally jail cells. Well they did look pretty basic, but comfortable. A kilometre of corridor to walk down to get to them, and shared WC/showers, more little more expensive and harder to get to the airport… so I won’t bother moving. Interesting to see though.
I have to tell you this tourism stuff is hard work !! I’m footsore. Probably I tend to move a bit faster than most, and think nothing of walking across town. Oh yeah, I tried to track down a Northern Hemisphere compass for you, Bryan, but the trail went cold when I was referred to a shop that referred me to a shop that didn’t seem to be there. Probably faulty directions.
Prague
Oooh the noisy ppl are back . Oh well 🙂
The Rock of Stvanice
This’ll probably be my last report. [Many sighs of relief I hear that there won’t be yet more stuff filling up the mailbox]. Now, hands up who has read all of every report ??
Well if yesterday was a day of a few disappointments, today exceeded expectations !
After sending off yesterdays report at the local internet cafe I had some time left to do some research. Yay I found an orienteering shop…via, would you believe, the Rogaining World Champs web page, so nice and recent too. They had an email address so I asked if they had the Russian compass. As it turns out, I got to the place just after they’d sent the reply… and yes they did ! Sometimes the trams didn’t turn the way I expected, but that didn’t matter, just swap sides at the next stop 🙂 It’s cheap travel too… about A60c for 15 minute ticket and A90c for an hour ticket. Easy.
It was a funny little place where you duck down low into a doorway. Possibly it wasn’t the usual entrance since the building had some flood damage being near the river. I bought a plate compass fro Bryan pretty much the same as the one I bought in Germany last year. Also got a spare blank Russian plate so I can mount a plate permanently to each sniffer, and a thumb compass blank (for fox-oring in Northern Hemisphere in the future ?). There were also a nice range of O shoes, and since I’d thrown my old ones in the bin after the last event (they were surviving on gaffer tape) and I bought some 1999 “model” ones for a fair bit cheaper.
Next stop was a particular ticket office on Vaclavske (Wencelas I think) Square to see if there were any rock concerts at the this… nothing of interest this week, but some good things coming up in November (how useful to know). Then a bit of a walk in the sun (it had started off overcast and a bit dampish) to an obsure part of town (definitely not tourist trampled zone here) to check out a bike shop mentioned in lonely planet. It had disappeared, but it was a nice walk back through a big park I hadn’t yet discovered.
Some more internet research and I found a new list of bike hire shops (one of my possible plans for tommorow), and, by a bit of a fluke found out about an outdoor rock event…today !!
Looked ideal… outdoors so I could mostly avoid the heavy Czech smokers, a benefit concert to raise money for the “Roxy”, a venue that has had to close temporarily as it was completely flooded out (over 6m). It was all afternoon and evening, but from experience I knew the best is kept till later so I only headed to Stvanice Island SK8 park about 6pm. Luckily only a 20 min walk from the Hotel (I didn’t have a clear idea from the map how to even get ONTO the island, but it turned out to be quite easy).
All the ingredients were there…about 4000 people, lots of portaloos, hot corn cobs, and even Hare-Khristna vege-burgers. The only thing is I couldn’t understand a word anyone was saying, except for some of the songs that were in dodgy english. Didn’t matter much though.
No ID age checks, no wet/dry areas, no convoluted “double” mosh gating (hardly required with such a small event), but quite a few more cigarettes. There we 2 stages though, one for live bands and the other for DJs.
The first band I saw was a sort of electronic groove band.. not bad but a bit boring. The next one was a surprise…. trombone, trumpet, guitars… yep a ska band. They were good too. A lot closer to Jazz than last nights “country” at a Jazz bar!
The vege burgers turned out to be excellent on that yummy moist bread. The corn was, well corn.
The next band was popular, but since it was hip-hop entirely in Czech it had little appeal to me.
To make up for the healthiness of the previous courses I had a evil deep fried thingy with lemon and cheese on top. Reminded me a bit of those beaver tail doovers at Whistler. Also bought a T-shirt since it was getting cold. The final band are hard to describe. Sort of a mix between Enigma and Chemical Brothers with MachineGunFellacio’s taste in night-shirt dress. Bongo drums too. Very strange, but I liked them a lot.
On the way home for some reason a street didn’t go where I expected and I ended up on a railway siding. Hmmmmm not good. I wasn’t keen on back tracking due to some dubious characters I passed quickly in one of those “generator” power zones. I followed the railway line since it basically went the way I wanted. After winding through some stationary trains and past a few workshop buildings I saw the street I wanted to be on… below me. Dammm. Past some more derelict buildings (this was getting spooky) and then there was merely a fence between me and the road. Oooops… policemen guarding one of the many flood no-go zones right outside the fence. Bugger ! I didn’t fancy attempting to explain in sign language exactly why I was climbing out of a high security area at 11pm or so. I had no ID on me (I’m not going to take anything even vaguely valuable like a passport to a rock concert now am I ?). I had this nasty suspicion that my explanations would be met with some incredulity, or misunderstanding.
So lurk back into the buildings. OK…I’ll just walk along kind of parallel to the road and hope something better turns up. More derelict buildings. A few locomotives, an unscalable concrete cliff up to the road now. Ahhhhhh a carpark, with other people in it. I walked like I was entirely where I was meant to be, out a walkway and out the gate. Quick turn left and all was well…. Phew ! Exactly what the people in the carpark thought I was meant to to be doing stumbing about the railway lines I have no idea, and I don’t care.
The noisy people turn out to be a school group from Denmark, but it’s possible they were only last nights noisy group and the night before had been a different noisy group.
Well that about wraps it up. Be back in Oz on Saturday, but I doubt in a useful state. If I make it to the MTB-O on Sunday it will be a miracle !
Today was another biggie… The 2nd and final competiton for the World Championships: The HF (80m) competition.
We had an even earlier start than the first competition (6:30am bus departure) since it was furthur away, and there was a 1lm or so walk into the start/holding area from where the buses could get to. I had an 11:45am start, and we arrived there about 7:45am. Groan !! Again Bryan had the first start in our Aussie team in the 6th group (1st start was again at 9am). Adam was in the middle with 10:10am, and I was last. Not a whole lot could be seen from the start area, but occasionally we did glimpse just a few up in a clearing on a hill. Turns out this wasn’t useful information (I think they must have been pretty lost!).
Start compound for 80m (similar)
My map and (approx) course
Nice Clouds
My event:
There was a thunderstorm that was threatening to break every now and then, but luckily it didn’t till the last competitor had finished. This time I was organised enough to start my stopwatch 1 hour before my start time. This means it rolls over just as I start, and is one less thing to forget at the start line. I could just hear the orienteering beeper at the start to synchronise my watch to.
There were two start corridors as before to split up the competitors somewhat. Ours (M21) headed right up a steep hill, and the damm thing seemed to go forever. Must have been 300m long or something (or at least it seemed like it). Normally I get to the end of the corridor before TX1 has finished its cycle, but today I had to remember 2 bearings as TX3 was just on as I reached the top ! These bearings all turned out to be roughly right. I chose to take #2 to the left as it was away from the finish and seemed strongest. #3 was directly towards the finish circle and the others spread in between.
As I continued up the hill towards #2 (what a hill !!) I got a bearing for #1 that was radically different and pointed back towards the edge of the start circle. Either one of other of my #1 bearings was significantly off, or there was something terribly wrong with TX1 as it was a very weak signal. I carried on to TX2. Bad decision. My bearings were right and the trasnmitter was faulty… still hard to know that in advance.
One problem with the sniffer I was using (apologies Ian) is there is almost no feedback as to how far you are from the tranmitter since it’s just a knob you turn. I kept on thinking #2 was closer than it was and plumbing for the bush-bashing bit WAY too early. I did a lot of bush bashing on the way to #2!! Very slow. Every time it came on it was still furthur. This was taking forever ! I eventually found the bastard 50 minutes into my event. Awful !
Luckily I passed a road creek combination on the map that was unique just before #2, and I was relocated (phew!). I took a good route to #5, but unfortunately either my navigation or the map was wrong and the track petered out unexpectedly. Despite some mucking about trying to find it again I reverted to bush-bashing, but this time avoiding the worst of it.
When #5 came on again I had gone past, so I heading back and got it when it was off (one of the advantages of starting late is earlier competitors often leave a path through the bush near the transmitters…not always reliable though). Next was #4 which I sprinted to. This was getting better. Not enough to recover from my earlier slow start, but at least I had an outside chance of finding all of them now…just.
Said a quiet hi to Karla at #4 and headed back around a lake and up a steep hill to head right back to the start to get #1 (the faultly one). Almost all competitors had similar problems with #1, so I wasn’t alone here. One Slovenian boy could never hear #1 at all since it was so weak (our receivers are more sensitive than most it would seem) and he followed me the entire way to #1. I did that one really well as it happens. I only had an hour left from #4 out of the 150 minute time limit, so I was glad things were going well now. I was determined to get all 5 transmitters. Off now to #3 which I had many bearings for now basically towards the finish. I sprinted towards the finish and when #3 came on did an immediate right angle (in fact even back a bit) and again found it when it was off. That was 4 out of 5 TXs I found when they weren’t transmitting!
All I had to do now was plummet towards the downhill finish (thank god it was downhill). I made it in 136 minutes for 35th place (same as the 2m competition…) I was kinda hoping I would do better, but the weak TX1 and my bad route to TX2 put paid to that. At least I made a good recovery.
Finishers for 80m Event
I again beat Csaba with 149:10…cutting it fine!! Ghuri took just under the time limit for his 4 TXs himself since he had knee troubles.
Adam had took 131 minutes (so close!) for 33rd place. Bryan took 138 minutes with 3 TXs for position 45.
Saw Stephan back at the hotel looking very depressed. He had broken his headphone wire on the way to his 1st trasnmitter, and then broken his spare headphone wire on the way to his 2nd ! I take a spare set on 80m since I don’t have the FM radio link like I do for 2m. I hate having a wire between me and the sniffer, so my next 80m sniffer will have the FM link as well for sure !
We have had a light meal already. Later there is the prize giving ceremony (no prizes for the Aussie team I’m afraid. Our team placing is 12th. Not bad considering what we’re up against, and a lot better than some other countries with bigger teams, but not quite placing material at a World Championship. Region 3 championships are a different matter !).
There are 323 competitors at this competition, the biggest I’ve ever been to for ARDF, and quite possibly the biggest ever. Not in the league of say a World Orienteering event with 2000 competitors, but this is a bit different.
80m Prize Ceremony
SportIdent at the finish
After the Prize giving is a “HamFest”. This isn’t what you might think (that is, unless you read my report from the German Championships last year). I suspect it’s a booze up and gift swapping ceremony (this is a must for World Events… you have to take with you little gifts to swap).
Anyway, not sure if I’ll have internet access after this or not. Possibly at some stage. The plan is to take the cable car up the mountain outside our window tommorow morning, maybe try to get the the castle the US team got to yesterday (but we don’t know how yet…), and then get on sleeper train to Prague overnight tommorow night. The constraint is Adam and Bryan have to be back to Prague for their flight back, otherwise I might have taken a day train.
I’m in the ARDF Team Leaders first meeting. Since these tend to be fairly lengthy affairs, especially due to 2 or more languages, I have the laptop here to write a report in the slow bits.
Yesterday we drove from Orfu, via Budapest all the way to Tatranske Matilare in northern Slovakia. We fitted into one van and two cars. At one point Gyrui got a phone call about 2 compass left at the house, but no-one seems to have claimed them.
Not lot to say about the journey really. The border crossing was slow but uneventful. As we approached Poprad the roads got windier and more interesting. As we wound our way to Tatranske Matilare I could follow the path of a narrow gauge mountain railway which services all the resort towns around here. It was even electrified (saw the train leaving one of the towns and it looked to be a two carriage forwards-backwards affair).
Map of the Tatras
Hotel Hutnik, Tatra Mountains, ARDF Practice
Team Leaders Meeting
Arrived at the hotel and it wasn’t really clear what we were meant to do (there was no registration desk in evidence). After a bit of waiting about we went into the ARDF admin office and found out thats what we were meant to do.
Met many old friends from many countries. It was while we were having a post-dinner drink with Mauris from Belgium that the bombshell dropped…. we had left the two large tube containing out 2m antennas back in Hungary.
Oh s^%$^%$t !
Panic !
It was going to cost a packet to get them couriered up, and they would probably not arrive in time anyway. After much questioning we have located some spare beams from the US team. Phew ! I had to re-solder the spare one I borrowed from Dick last night, but it seems to have gone together ok. I will try it out today at the practice event after this meeting.
They are just demonstrationing the Sport Ident setup to be used. No manual punch backup, but they do have two SI controls at each transmitter (and of course the officials required at an Interntional event) for backup. They are using the German ARDF software (It was Stefan doing the demonstration). Looks like it also does ARDF start lists and other useful things like that. Another interesting statement in the brochure is “support for quick registration of competitors”.
…. – that means time has passed !
OK Relief…the antenna seems to work ok. Thanks Dick !! Adam has borrowed a similar tape measure construction from Bob, and Bryan has modified a large 5 element 2m beam from Larry (a US competitor who has come to the championships directly) to 3 elements. The practice area was on/near a little ski run just outside the hotel with a baby poma. The real ski runs are up on the mountains we can see out our Hotel window. Very impressive looking cable cars.
I have just been handed a VHS video of China championships 2 years ago by the Norwegian team. I had asked way back then if they could do me a copy, so at last I have one !
….
Again I’m bored at a team leaders meeting. It is delayed because a couple of countries did not hand in their start lists… so we wait….
The opening ceremony was help in a nearby town around a picturesque lake. The stage was on the lake itself. There are 29 countries represented at this championship, so I think it is bigger than China. Two Hotels (well one really but two connected parts) are entirely taken over by ARDF, as well as a camping site.
The opening ceremony was the normal sort of ceremony. Since Australia is first in the alphabet we get to lead the procession, following our local schoolkid holding the AUSTRALIA sign. Our foldable flagpole was, you guessed it, in the cylinders with the antennas back in Hungary ! I bashed into the forest on the way to the bus and picked up a straight small pine branch that served well along with our new Aussie flag we bought at the airport.
Team Bosnia Herzegovina
Lined up and Ready !
Team Australia with Austria
The biggest teams here are Russia, Bosnia H, Ukraine and Germany. China was expected to bring a big team but has cancelled many due to some inability to get flights. Neither Mr Han or Madam Chen are here.
The ceremony started with the normal photo taking, and then the procession. Then 3 almost identical interminable speeches in 2 languages, and at last it was declared Open. Following were some traditional Slovakian singers and dancers. In the last song the dancing girls came out to the competitors and led us a in a human chain around the lake (with of course us leading!).
The Opening Ceremony
The Slovakian Dancers
At last the meeting has started. We just get the low down on the map size, contours, orientation and so on. Also details of what we do at the Start when we get off the bus and how long before the Start time you need to front up to the controlled Start area. Even all this takes quite a while because the instructions are given in Slovakian and translated into English (the official language of the competition). Interestingly they create 3 different starting lists, and then one is selected at random. Not sure why this is.
There is a cable car that operates in summer, so if we get time it would be great to take a ride up later on.
Elecronic devices are banned from the Start area in case of cheating (eg. Taking a picture with a digital camera and sending it out via a mobile back to the un-started competitors in your team).
…
STILL at the meeting. Getting sleepy…yawns ! Nearly 2 hours now. They are argueing technicalities about the slightly unusual finish corridor setup. With 29 countries all trying to follow the English the possibilities for misunderstanding are endless. Now it’s been changed ! At last. Someone else can be team leader next time !
Adventures in the Tatra
Well, today was the first biggie…the first world championship event for these championships.
How did we go ? Did we win ?
You think I’m going to tell you everything so you don’t need to bother reading all my other blather. No way !!
It was a 5:45am wake up today. Still, the mountains looked eerie in the dawn light. We had to get all our shit together and be on the bus at 7am. We drove down the mountain road a ways stopping near a grassy field setup as the holding area and nearby start corridors. About 7 bus loads of competitors.
Start Compound for 2m
Everyone has to impound their equipment before they start up the transmitters in a officially run event so no-one can take bearings before they start. They took a long time to do the impounding today, calling up each country in turn. It was neat how they had metal stands to hold all the sniffer beams though.
Waiting for our starts…
My map and (approx) course
Me at TX #4 (thanks Karla!)
Everyone must be in the holding area. Once anyone leaves they cannot come back. Karla was an International Jury member, and her task was to sit at one of the transmitters, so I gave her my digital camera to take some shots of competitors actually in the field. This is normally pretty difficult to do so we’ll see what they come back like ! Had to give her the camera last night since the officials had to head out at 6am.
Bryan was off first in the 3rd start group. Competitors are let out on 5 minute intervals, normally of around 9 people from different age categories. Today they had two M21 or two M40 competitors let out at once just to get the number of competitors through.
I had to wait around an hour for my start. An hour of being nervous :O) At last after a bit of a warm up I was called up for my 10:10am start. The start order is determined by computer ballot the night before each competition, but guided by the teams preferences as to which member of the 3 person team goes 1st, 2nd or 3rd.
I had a couple of dud bearings in my first 10 or so minutes so I chose what turned out to be a non-optimum transmitter to go for 1st (#3). I realised this later on the way there, but was pretty much committed by then. It was roughly in the middle of the map, and compared to some of the others found it pretty well….it just took a while to get there. My first punch of the Sport Ident was at around 25 minutes, which is pretty poor.
Harley had an interesting tale to tell about transmitter 3. He was heading downhill to it with some fairly thick scrub to his left.He started to hear crashing and smashing noises in the scrub. This got louder, also accompanied by loud grunts. Being from Montana US his immediate thought was “that sounds like a bear and it’s heading straight for me”. Well funnily enough it turned out to be just that, and a pretty big one at that !!. The bear crashed out of the scrub not more than 4 metres from Harley. Harley gave a loud “ARGGGH” noise and waved his map board vigourously at the bear. The bear was as startled as he was and immediately did a U turn back into the scrub. We suspect the bear may have been disturbed by another competitor.
I knew now I had to head back almost due North to get the #5 (which is the one I should have got first). I ran there pretty quickly, being pretty confident where to go, but got confusing bearings near it. Took about 3 cycles (15 minutes) to finally find it whereas it should have taken 1.
The next one #2 a distant one way to the East, and that one, plus the way I picked to it went pretty well. A little bit of mucking about near it again.
Now it was #4 roughly South. Somehow I got confused about a road junction and got a bit lost when the road didn’t go where I thought it should, so I went bush. I know now where I went, but at the time I was less than sure. Despite this I didn’t do too badly on this leg, with some slow down due to messy terrain (since I didn’t know where I was exactly). There were lots of swampy creeky bits on the map, with heaps of running water.
I overshot #4 a bit and had to head back when it came on (the transmitters take turns 1 minute each). I found it after it had turned off just by following my last bearing. As it turns out this ws the trasnmitter Karla was stationed at, and as I headed off from the control stand I saw her taking a picture of me.
I knew roughly where my last TX #1 was on the map (back betwen the start and the finish), but the problem was I didn’t know quite where *I* was. I headed off down a road that seemed to head in the direction of my bearing to #1, but after a while it started to diverge too far South. Again I went bush after being unable to find the track that ran East-West I’d hoped to see. Luckily a saw a house in the distance. AHHH I know where I am now… bit South of where I’d hoped but not a disaster. #1 took me way too many cycles t find. It gave really erroneous bearings close by. I’ve never had so many problems. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t used to the borrowed antenna. I really don’t know. You can always be more confident with gear you KNOW.
Anyway, back up the hill to the finish. I tried to run up but was simply too buggered to be able to, so I alternated running and walking. I walked just prior to the finish corridor so I could put on a good race up the public area (these things are important :-)).
Overall I took 129 minutes, just piping Csaba on 132 minutes (YAY). Adam did a commendable 96 minutes, and Bryan 4 TX’s 139 minutes. I don’t know the placings right now, but it’s well down with the winning time just under 62 minutes for M21.
One thing with these championships is they know how to celebrate. The finish area and chute was a carnival atmosphere. Music and people with rattles and bells cheering on their teams. I had a boomerang throwing seesion with one of Roger’s Boomerangs (very poplar Roger!).
The food here is excellent, so I’m now off to dinner.a Later will be the prize ceremony for the 2m competition, and Tommorow will be the tour day. At this stage have no idea where to !
Finish Area for 2m
2m Prize giving ceremony outside Hotel
The M19 category (with Marmints)
The German team celebrate!
…. – time passes again
Been to the prize giving ceremony. Again heaps of celebration. The teams that figured most were the bigger teams: Russia, Ukraine, Slovakia, Germany, Czech Republic.
Also good to see a bit more variation in the womens categories with China 3rd and Kazakstan, Estonia in there somewhere. They had 3 Beavers who helped with the celebrations.
The theme of the night has been celebration. The Germans are occupying the floor below us and are having a great time having done very well in some team events. You can’t go past without joining in for a bit. Bryan is a bit drunk after having consumed “Fox Hunting Fluid” which is an unusual sight !
Some good news is the FTP is now working. Try http://www.netspace.net.au/index.html for the first couple of my reports with real pictures!
Floating on the Borderline
Well, before I go into the tour days events, I’ve got some 2m competition results for those who might be interested.
The Aussie Teams placings were Adam 23, Bruce 34 and Bryan 44 out of 61. 9 of those competitors were overtime in M21. Csaba (US) was 35th. Nikolay from Kazakstan came 8th, but the next KAZ entry was 27th. Ukraine was 1st with just under 62 minutes, Slovakia 2nd and Czech Republic 3rd.
More impressive sounding are the teams results. These are taken by taking the best two results of the 3 competitors in a team and adding their times to get an overall team ranking. In our case my and Adam’s results were added to give us 11th place out of 16 valid team entries in M21. Since there are 29 countries here, most with an M21 team, it looks like there were quite a few teams that didn’t even get two valid entries to add (ie. 2 or more were overtime). Unfortunately USA in M21 was one of those not valid.
It is good to see we beat the French, and were just piped by Norway. If you take the “real amateur radio teams” (those with callsigns) we did even better !
Incidentally, Stephan’s M19 German team came 5th. Another interesting result is 1st, 2nd and 3rd in M19 were all Czech Republic, and again 1st, 2nd and 4th in D19 (Womens) as well as placings in some of the other categories.
By the way, the offical amateur station of the event callsign is OM9FOX.
Today was the tour day, a day of rest between the two competitions. We had about an hour or so bus ride (8 buses!!). Australia lucked on the modern bus (Austrian) rather than on one of the older (Czech) buses. The destination was the Dunajec river right on the border between Slovakia and Poland. After a bit of a wait we boarded rafts on the river made from 6 smaller boats lashed together. They are done this way to ease trasporting the boats back upstream on trucks. 20 years ago they used to be transported back upriver by horse and cart up an ancient road beside the river made from stonewall (no cement).
Awaiting the Rafts
Whitewater Rafting on the Dunajec
Ramming Speed!
Who’s that idiot poling ?
We rafted from Majere Kvasne Luky to Lesnica, about 11km. Each raft had two polemen, one of which could speak English to give us some commentary. In a quieter part of the river (lazy river) I had a go at poling the raft myself. A very pleasant journey. It took just over an hour to float down.
After lunch at the destination port, we were bused to Poprad, the major town in this region of Slovakia. Free time to go shopping or whatever. One interesting thing we saw was one of the event posters in a shop window.
Whilst most of us were having a fun time, the majority of the US team had decided to take the van and car and go on a self-tour. Things didn’t go quite as planned !
First stop was a castle. They parked, hiked up 800m or so only to be barred by a annoyingly shut gate. Since they had come so far they decided to break in. This involved something to do with rocks under the gate to raise it. Harley had just slipped under the gate and a woman came running to let them in. Luckily nothing was said about the rocks…. Once they got in they found other people were wandering about…surely they hadn’t all broken in too ??? Nah…they had parked in the wrong carpark. There was another on the other side with only a 20m walk to the castle 🙂
Next disaster occurred when they decided to cross the border to Poland. Nadia (US team) was on a Russian passport, and her Slovakian visa was a single entry type. She had to wait with another on the border whilst the others went in and proceeded to get thoroughly lost! After finding where they were, eventually, they had little time left but to go back and pick up Nadia and head home… All in all we probably had the better time with the rafting 🙂
Again I’m taking the opportunity of the team leaders meeting to write this report, but this one seems to be going a bit more smoohly, so far. One leader has brought up the ludicrous concept of allowing smoking at a world championship sports event, so the organisers have banned it. Yay !
Ooops it all seemed to be going so well…but now there is some problem with the Bosnia H. team entries in the database for the start ballot.
PS: German ARDF software costs 75 Euros for the 1st copy and can be downloaded.
Today was our final practice event. If we haven’t got it by now we’re not going to get better during the world champs next week !
It was a longer full 80m event, set by Gyrui and Daniel. Daniel had to head off at the Start since he was taking a train journey to a major orienteering event to the North on Sunday. Good Luck Daniel !! I ran the Start and hence headed off last.
Gyrui had set an interesting course where you had to run in and out of a couple of the controls. He did this, he said, to prove what a poor thing this is since competitors see other competitors coming out as they are heading in. Well it happened for me so I guess he proved his point.
I really only made one mistake in the event making a pretty poor navigational choice at one point that took me way way down a valley and up again (pant pant). Probably cost me 10 minutes or so. I took 92 minutes, and for comparison Adam took 82. Others were longer, despite the fact most only had to find 4 transmitters.
It’s interesting the poor choice I made was one Gyrui had not expected anyone to do (it was meant to be his “in and out” illustration), but both myself and quiet Bob individually decided to do it the long way.
Gyuri’s 2m transmitter
Bruce Fox-oring
Orfu Lake
The Water Mill
This afternoon one car headed back to Pecs to do some shopping, and the remainder (we only had 1 car available) had a look at a nearby water-wheel mill, still operational. In fact, the building was original, but the 120 year old equipment came from other old mills in the area since the original equipment had been cleared out during socialisation (1950s). The mill was brought back into full operation only in 1994. Lots of amazing wooden tubes & grain elevators in a multi-stage process. There was also an older horse drawn mill wheel on display, but it is not operating.
We also tried to get to some caves in a nearby town, but it became obvious as it “got furthur and furthur away” that we weren’t going to make it before closing. We all may go back tommorow afternoon (Sunday).
The shoppers returned sucessfully with the main requirement: A present for Gyrui & family for all their work. There was a mad scramble to sign the card as Gyrui arrived with Susan and Thomas (I’ve been told we have to call him Tommy now). Gyrui presented us with survival certificates and some Hungarian white wine, and in turn (after a bruce pause to increase suspense) we presented them with a Canon digital camera (actually that was my idea…. it had been difficult to think of something useful for them all).
We watched the Hunagrian day fireworks on TV (went on for ages!) which had been delayed from their normal date earlier this month due to the floods. There were some strange lights shining up and about in the centre of Orfu, but on investigation they turned out just to be a light outside a pretty ordinary looking disco.
I have built a bit of a web page (it is soooo slow doing much with images on this old laptop!) but have not yet had the opportunity to upload it anywhere. May have to wait till we get to Slovakia.
The Twin Towers
Well after all the activity of the last week today was to be mostly a relax prior to the championships. After a very laid back start of 9:30am Gyrui took us to the TV tower overlooking Pecs. As well as the city itself we’d visited on Thursday, we could also spot some of the areas we’d run in towards Orfu. Gyrui also pointed out the gruelling ARDF course Danny had set for him to practice the week before… Evil !
The Ceremony
The Digital Camera
The Public Tower
The TV Tower
Gyrui had worked at the TV tower buildings years before. They also used to monitor the ham bands for “good protocol” at listening stations there ! Later Gyrui described how he was often monitored himself during socialisation; speaking another language (German), being intelligent and good at electronics made him a prime suspect for crimes against the state.
We also climbed a nearby public tower on a neigbouring hill that we could see from the TV tower to get a better view towards Orfu. From the 2nd tower we could see the bigger of the two Orfu lakes. Next door was an obvious military TDOA direction finding setup.
The area of this tower is an old volcanic region with rock just below the surface, so the trees tend to be fairly short and the rain falls staright through the porus rock cracks. Gyrui refered to this as ‘cast’ region.
Afterwards Gyrri & Tommy had to leave us as Tommy had a school opening ceremony for the start of the school year this afternoon (Sunday since it was a church school).
We made another attempt to get to the caves but were foiled yet again ! This time we were driving, but when we got into the car we found the gauge was on E. On advice from the information centre in Orfu we headed off on a10km trek to the closest fuel station. Despite being assured it would be open it was in fact shut (well it was Sunday). After enquiring for Benzino (the local could speak only Hungarian and Spanish) we found the closest from there was another 20km. No guarantee they would be open either. Instead we elected to limp back to Orfu on fumes hoping we’d make it back the 10km…. so much for the caves, which would have only been a 12km round trip. Oh well. Turns out the gauge misreads considerably and there is about 100km on E, but we weren’t to know.
Susan, Gyrui and Tommy appeared again after dinner (bearing another bottle of home made red wine from Gyrui’s father). Danny is due to return late tonight from the orienteering competition. Update: In the car now on the way to Slovakia. We have two cars and one mini-van so it’s quite comfy. It was an early start though, and since we’re not really on a major highway it could take a while. As we go through each town we see the kids all dressed up for the 1st day at school.
