Well I still haven’t sent out report 16 yet, but well here goes anyway. Just incase you missed it down the bottom of 16, Australia are to run the 2003 ARDF Region 3 championships, as decided by the ARDF committee last night. This is subject to approval by the next Region 3 ARDF committee meeting.
Well after an early breakfast (6:30am), which was actually quite good, but Bryan and Adam missed preferring to sleep in, we went out to wait for the bus. Well as we have come to expect to a degree, the bus ws 35 minutes late, and then we had to wait anyway for the 2nd and 3rd bus to arrive, which took another 15 or so minutes.
On the bus to 2m event
The 2m Start Area
Just off the Bus: Where to ?
We went for quite a drive back through Ulaan Baatar and out the other side. One odd thing I noticed is that the ramshackle old bus didn’t appear to have a clutch. The gears were changed by crash and bang method, but the driver seemed pretty good at it and there was minimal teeth cleaning.
The hills we approached were partially wooded with pine, and the rest grassland. The running even in the forest was reasonably quick. The slowest terrain was in fact some of the wide gullies which tended to be filled with largely unmarked swamp with little creeks running all through it.
As we got out of the bus and headed to the start, we were very annoyed to see some competitors (Korea, Japan and Russia) using their DF gear to get bearings before the equipment was impounded. This is of course cheating, and was specifically banned at the team leaders meeting last night. This was made very clear, so we are going to complain to the jury tonight. Of course it is lent much more weight since Adam was able to take digital photos of most of the offenders in action. They are already on this laptop and ready for display to the jury members !
Bryan was first in start group 5 (25 minutes after the first group with 5 minute intervals). Unfortunately the start time had lapsed somewhat from the planned 10:00am to 11:20am, both due to the late bus departure and a lack of handhelds for control/start communication. We were all asked if we had any on us, but of course we had all left them at the Hotel as it is not allowed for us to have them at the Start ! (for obvious reasons).
Adam was later in start group 18, and I was last for us in start group 31 (out of a total 39 start groups. Overall there were 98 official competitors with another 5 unofficial (not all start groups had 5 people).
Well I ended up doing them in the optimum order, I managed to stay roughly in touch with the map most of the time, and thigs went pretty well. My main stuffup was #5 which I had no good bearing on from the start (no-one else did either), but based on guesswork I headed up a track to the North-East near the top of the map (it was my 3rd transmitter). Even after all this time I still had no decent bearing on #5. They pointed all over the place. As luck would have it I was nearly right, but I had got on the wrong side of one of those blasted swamps, so that wasted at least 5 minutes, probably more. The only other difficult one was #2 (my 4th transmitter), which I always had good bearings on, but was so far up the map to the North-West on a gradual incline that I just ran out of energy (due to the very high altitude mostly). My time was 83 minutes for all 5.
Adam and Vladamir in Start Chute
Waiting at the Finish
A Mongolian (Elvis) Finishing
Adam didn’t fare quite so well, missing a transmitter on the way around which he had to go back for, so his time was 98 minutes. Bryan had a fall, bruised himself a bit and totally demolished his sniffer beam. Still managed to find another trasnmitter (that terrible #5) mostly by guesswork and signal strength, but after that he called it a day to make sure he got back before the 2 hour limit.
Overall I’m pretty happy with my result, considering the altitude, ankle and dregs of cold #2 (mostly gone now). We’ll have to see what the best times are, but I know my Russian roommate did all 5 in 68 minutes. It’s to be seen if I an do similar on 80m with less familiar equipment.
About to go the the jury meeting….. (ooohhh what a nasty spot to stop !)
Hi, from the base of Bagd Mountain near Bahkt outside of Ulaan Baatar.
All the competitors are housed in the Baht Hotel, a tourist hotel popular with groups, especially Japanese tour groups. I last spoke to you from Ulaan Baatar, the capital. The internet cafes there are aplenty, and it is quite cheap too (works out about A$2.50 an hour).
If you get this message in a timely fashion it means that they have finally got the modem here to work (the phone lines seem to be quite dodgy) ! If they do manage to get it going I’ll arrange to dump some pictures out overnight too. The “computer” room is on our floor, and I can hook my laptop into their hub with no problems. [Ed: They didn’t]
Buddhist Temple
Suburban Street
Sukhbaatar Square
We had a good long walk around Ulaan Baatar, looking at the main square and the Monestery to the North. It is still active, but obviously a good tourist destination too. As requested, I now have a Mongolian Hat ! (It is a fur and felt one that I can fit in my luggage, rather than the stiff peaked ornamental one which I’d never get back to Australia in one piece. We stayed at Nassan’s Guest house, which actually turned out to be very good. We had 3 beds , and the old lady who looked after the apartment preferred the floor. She could speak little English, but we managed (she must see heaps of tourists and backpackers). It was only A$4 each for the night. We found a Cafe opposite which looked to be very high class, but despite this was very cheap (well for us anyway). The food and service were excellent too, and the toilet even had toilet paper (a rarity in Mongolia it seems).
After looking at the open air market where we bought some bits and pieces (again very cheap for us), we took a taxi to the Baht Hotel. This was quite a trip (18km or so), but only cost us A$12 or so. We had no real other way of meeting up with transport from the airport or train station, so just figured it was easier to avoid the stuffing around and go straight to the Hotel.
Baht Hotel from the Hill
The Hills from Baht Hotel
Bruce tries Stirls sniffer
The Hotel is pretty nice (and yes it has toilet paper too :-)). It is set in a green valley with pine covered hills to one side and a grassy/rocky hill on the other. It is fairly remote and caters for tourists interested in hiking, horse riding or just the countryside. It is right next to the Bagt Mountain National Park. Maybe one of the events will be somewhere very near here !
We arrived at the Hotel and were at a bit of a loss, but Kazaks carrying Yagis convinced us we had in fact come to the right place (phew!… we had directed the taxi driver by pointing at the map and the Hotel name). The reception desk did seem to be familiar with what we were so we got some rooms eventually.
That night I had a team leaders meeting. As usual went on for ages for not much information, but we do know it’s a 1:15000 map. Unsure if true or magnetic North as yet…. Our starting order draw was last for 2m, and first for 80m. Some talk about how Kazahkstan and Eastern Russia are keen to join Region 3 ARDF (I bet !), but they would have to apply formally to IARU. The special event callsign here is JU1ARDF.
Dinner was in the Hotel and was a mixed affair. Salads, mutton, potatoes in various forms, schnizels and so on. Pretty good though. Breakfast the next morning was ok too, but I’m hanging out for some cereal… I miss it !
This morning was another team leaders meeting in a ger _inside_ the Hotel. The Hotel also has accomodation gers outside. Meanwhile the practice transmitters were running. For some reason Dale’s 80m set didn’t seem to pick up anything at all (I will have to have a closer look at it). They were unsure of the frequencies (again), as they had just bought new trasnmitters from Korea. The final verdict seems to be 144.76 and 144.42 for 2m and 3.57 and 3.92 for 80m. Of course, Bryan had to re-tweak his 80m sniffer to handle the range yet again.. Stirls one seems to cover the range ok (thanks Ian!). The time limit for both events is to be 120mins for 4 to 7km crow flies length. Disqualification if you lose your punch card, late, or mis-punch !
2m Practice
Australian Team lines up
China didn’t bring a flag
The opening ceremony was held in front of the Hotel, and was a return to the reasonably formal arrangement with each team behind a sign bearer. We also took the Aussie flag, prompting other teams to go and grab theirs (if they had one!). Lots of speeches in both Mongolian and English saying much the same thing. At last it finished and we were able to watch some traditional Mongolian entertainment. It broke for a short while in the middle due to rain, but the most unusual performances were the female contorsionist (that was incredible… does she have any backbone at all ?) and the male “nasal” singer (can you sing through your nose ??).
The Contortionist
Kazakhstan and Friends
Everyone (well most anyway)
My roommate is a Russian Open/Senior/OM competitor. He speaks little English, and I speak absolutely no Russian, but we both make do with woeful German. Who cares it works ! For the verbs we forget we wave hands.
I have just been for a jog up the valley, and returned to a “quick” Region 3 committee meeting. Bryan and I stood in as proxies for Jack WWW.
NEWS FLASH ! NEWS FLASH ! Australia (WIA) are to host the 2003 Region 3 ARDF competition ! Japan could not make a committment at this stage, but hope to aim for 2005 and China, though keen to run a combined ARDF/FRG in Suzhou, could also not commit at this meeting. The Australia decision is yet to be confirmed at the upcoming Region 3 ARDF committee meeting. Other possibilites for the future are India or New Zealand, or if the Eastern Europeans are sucessful in their Region 3 applications, Vladivostok or Kazahkstan.
I still have not been able to send this out, so maybe after the 2m competition I will go into Ulaan Baatar to do so (they are offering lifts there). [Ed: 2m event ran a bit late so UlaanBaatar was called off]
Well here’s a quick one, since I’m composing this online….
I’m in an internet Cafe in downtown UlaanBaatar. We arrived here only a short time ago on the train from Beijing. A very interesting train trip !
We left Beijing early on Tuesday morning, the only drama being the passport number on Bryan’s train ticket didn’t in fact match his actual passport number. The railways were no help at all and had no interest in being of any help, so we had no option but to risk it. It didn’t matter afterall because the guard took all the tickets just after we boarded.
The Train Cabin
The Train
Russian Hot Water Urn
Travelling for 32 hours
Interesting Gullies
Chinese Border Hills
The soft class cabins sleep 4 in ok comfort (pity the blanket is about 2/3 the width of the bed though…I either ended up sticking out the sides or the end!). We were joined by a guy from Italy travelling to Mongolia as part of a childhood dream after just completing his Enviromental Engineering degree. There is of course plenty of hot water provided at the end of each carriage, and we’d bought some neat plastic jars ideal for chinese tea (and luckily I also had some Ulong tea). Not so for the toilet paper, but we’d been forewaned of that one and came prepared with our own rolls.
I like train travel. You can walk around unlike a bus or plane. The scenery changed from Chinese city to industrial to farms, then after some mountains flat plains bounded by hills. As we approached Inner Mongolia the hils fell away and we were left with enless grass plains, some green, some brown (it varied quite a bit).
Inner Mongolia
The Gobi Desert
Great Wall (again)
We reached the border to Outer Mongolia about 10pm, but didn’t leave there till 12:40 ! We pulled into a station and had one bout of passport checks and immigration. Then we went to a large hall outside the town to get all the train bogies changed. Yup, just like used to be done at Albury between Vic and NSW the rail gauges chnage to a wider gauge in Mongolia,. All the carriages are seperated, then lifted off their bogies using 4 hydraulic cranes. The old ones are rolled out, the new ones in (half a train at a time), and then each carriage is lowered onto its new wheels. This all took about an hour or so, and then we sat there for unknown reasons for another 3/4 hour before finally all the carriages hooked up again. We weren’t allowed off our carriage (others were, dunno why). Back to the station again. This time more passport checks and a full search for hidden people, under the train, in the ceiling, under the bunks etc etc. After an age we finally left the stations. Half an hour later were were disturbed again for the Mongolian passport control. They waited till that was all done, then woke us all up again to do the customs forms. I’m sure this is all deliberate 🙂 Finally we were underway again about 2am. Slept reasonably well, but it was quite cold at times.
Bruce tries for 48V laptop power
Lifting the Carriages
New Bogies
UlaanBaatar Hills
Taxi ride in floods to city
Nassan Guesthouse
Morning was clear (a relief after smoggy China). I had some late breakfast in the dining car which had changed overnight from a Chinese one to a Mongolian one. It started to rain as we approached the hills around UlaanBaatar (apparently this is the more correct Anglicised spelling). The hills are largly bare grass, but are some forests on some of them. No doubt we’ll see more in the next week. We’re in a guest house in an old apartment building for tonight (US$4 each), and tommrow we go to the university (not sure which one as yet….). This internet cafe is across the road from the guesthouse. Anyway, that’s all from me for now. Feel free to ask any questions ! Well it’s been a bit of a while since I wrote the last report, and it may be even longer before I manage to send this out ! We’re now back in the Tientian Sports Hotel after a very interesting outing out of Beijing. By the way, there won’t be much mention of ARDF in this one, except for that one just then.
Nassan Guesthouse again
Very early tommorow morning we catch the train to Ulaan Baator, the capital of (Outer) Mongolia. It’s a 29 hour train journey, but we hope we are prepared ! Thank God I’m nearly over cold #2.
Well it’s been a bit of a while since I wrote the last report, and it may be even longer before I manage to send this out ! We’re now back in the Tientian Sports Hotel after a very interesting outing out of Beijing. By the way, there won’t be much mention of ARDF in this one, except for that one just then.
Very early tommorow morning we catch the train to Ulaan Baator, the capital of (Outer) Mongolia. It’s a 29 hour train journey, but we hope we are prepared ! Thank God I’m nearly over cold #2.
The title of this report would more suitably be called:
In Search of the Real Great Wall of China
Leika had suggested we visit the Tai mountains. After some investigation Adam and I discovered they were in the ChangDong province, halfway between Shanghai and Beijing. As it would be a 5 to 6 hour train journey to get there and we only had 2 spare days once Bryan arrived from Melbourne, we decided instead to attempt a more modest excursion to the Great Wall of China.
It was imperative, though, that we were to go to the real original wall (or as original as can be found), rather than the reconstructed effort I visited last year after the World Championships (throngs of thousands of tourists and a wall that didn’t go from anywhere to anywhere but just in a loop). After much poring over guide books we decided that the HuangHua section of wall was suitably original and also off the beaten tourist track. Of course, being off the beaten track means it’s actually much harder to get there, but we had two days so it seemed feasible.
Lake in Beijing Park
Tientian Sports Hotel
Dinner at Local Resturant
On Friday, after an amble through some Beijing Parks (as an aside here, I should mention I’ve discovered running shoes make very poor walking shoes; even the old trusty comfy Street-O runners gave me blisters after a deal of walking; still, I had limited luggage space), we took the bus back out to the airport to meet Bryan. That night we returned to the resturant of the 1st night, this time managing to indicate we wanted one of the BBQ pot tables where you cook your own selection. This was fun, some things working out a bit different than expected, but we ate well.
On the way back from the airport we had bought some train tickets to Huairou, a largish town not too far from the small Huanghua village. I didn’t know if we were going to use them as they were for a 6:58am departure from Beijing Central, but at Y4.50 each (about A$1), I bought them just in case so I wouldn’t have to stand in the ticket queue again. As it turns out we didn’t use them as on later reading found there is a regular bus service to Huairou so the early rise wasn’t necessary.
Tienmen Square
Bus to Hairou
Department Store
So on Saturday we left most of our luggage checked in at this Hotel and departed for Huairou, armed with our huge Chinese vocabulary of “Hello”, “Thankyou” and “Steamed Rice” and a Chinese guide book with some helpful phrases. First off we walked to local market, but left there soon as we realised we weren’t going to be a ble to carry anything much anyway. Then onto Teinmen Square (well you just have to visit if you’re in Beijing don’t you). The day was very humid, so much so that walking was a big improvement on standing still as you got some airflow.
The next step was to negotiate the Beijing subway system to get to where the long distances buses leave. The subway in Beijing is quite straightforward and this turned out to be quite easy. Again only about Y4.50. We decided the long distance bus station must be the congregation of buses around the corner. Well it was, but we weren’t prepared for the extent. Buses stop at seemingly random (to us) spots all along a fairly long road. After some hand waving we eventually found our bus stop (bus 916), but as it wasn’t there we decided to splash out on a mini-bus which was apparently quicker and a whole Y1 more expensive, taking the trip cost to Y5 (about A$1.50) for the approx 1 hour trip.
I’m not sure if it was quicker because we kept stopping every now and then to cram more passengers in, but we did arrive eventually. Now what ?? The mini-bus operators wanted to know what stop we wanted to be dropped off at (well at least we assume this is what they wanted to know). Somehow we managed to convey we were after a Hotel, and they dropped us at a street a bit out the Northen end of town and a helpful Chinese girl getting out at the same stop waved us vaguely up a side street.
Well, we did find a Hotel up there eventually, quite a nice one in fact. In fact too nice, and a bit too expensive. We said confidently we were going to look elsewhere, without having really a clue what where to head. Walked back into town. The small backpacks we had with us were starting to feel kinda heavy and no Hotels in sight. Still, plenty of time, and at worst we could always go back to the expensive place (actually not too expensive in Australian terms, but much more than this Hotel here in Beijing). At last I spotted a Hotel on the opposite side of the street. After some hand waving, phrase book pointing and finger holding we were booked into a not too bad but a bit rundown Chinese Hotel pretty much in the middle of Huairou.
At a nearby brand new super department store/ supermarket (and I hate to say McDonalds) there seemed to be some sort of music/dance Eisteddford performance on out the front. The first rock band were quite good. Later dancers were ok. Can’t say I can really get into Chinese Opera though. We bought some supplies from the supermarket and settled down to pre-dinner nibblies on the Hotel balcony overlooking (at some distance) the performances. They were also shown on a big screen on the front of the store. During the interminable opera it started to rain, and then rain a bit more. This wasn’t the occasional droplet that managed to find it’s way through the fug over Beijing we’d experienced before, but real proper rain. What’s more it didn’t stop raining for about another 20 hours !
Needless to say, the opera experienced a precipitate termination (no pun intended, really !!). In what seemed a bit of a lull we dashed out to get some late dinner. It decided to do a decent job of raining on us on the way, but it wasn’t cold so it didn’t matter too much. Dinner was in another roadside resturant, this time mainly cold stuff (it was fairly late). We were also treated to a Jackie Chan movie (without SBS sub-titles, but that isn’t too critical for a Jackie Chan movie anyway). The staff & locals seemed amused we were watching.
We mananged to dry off a bit at the side of the big department store which had some ground level heat exhaust fans that were just great for the the job. Not sure what the security guard (there were many of these) thought of us gently rotiserarying ourselves in front of the fans, but we didn’t much care.
My Hotel room bathroom was a bit average. It had an odd smelling moat around the toilet I did my best to avoid. That night though, I was treated to a water wall inside the bedroom. Obviously this was a bit more rain than they normally get. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t much and it wasn’t my carpet that was getting wet :-).
The next day we attempted to find the minibus that passes through Huanghua. We did eventually find roughly the correct bus stop, but an English speaking chinese gentleman was able to inform us that the bus wasn’t running today due to the rain. We caught a bread-box taxi (a very small bread shaped mini-van) driven by a Chinese woman. It was a bit of a slow day for the bread-boxes, so we were able to negatiate the trip down to Y40 from Y60 we’d been offered earlier. For a 70 minute or so drive, A$10 between 3 of us sounded a pretty good deal.
Taxi to Huanghua
Click to see Movie!
The next day we attempted to find the minibus that passes through Huanghua. We did eventually find roughly the correct bus stop, but an English speaking chinese gentleman was able to inform us that the bus wasn’t running today due to the rain. We caught a bread-box taxi (a very small bread shaped mini-van) driven by a Chinese woman. It was a bit of a slow day for the bread-boxes, so we were able to negatiate the trip down to Y40 from Y60 we’d been offered earlier. For a 70 minute or so drive, A$10 between 3 of us sounded a pretty good deal.
By the way, there are a number of different “Hellos” in China I’ve discovered. It’s hard to tell them apart:
Hello: Probably means “hello”, but could also mean, can I speak English to you ?
Hullo, Hullo, Hullo, Hullo: Most likely means I have something ghastly I want to sell you.
Helllllooooooo: I wish to give you a pedicab/taxi/breadbox ride to Huanghua.
It continued to pour on the way there, dashing our earlier hopes it was starting to clear. The van wipers after a while started to run into each other and so she had to make do without. The scenery was now very impressive. We were up in the mountains, and with only the occasional cultivated area about as wild as you might get in this part of China. In one village we had to drive though a ford. Due to the rain this was more a raging torrent, but we made it through with little drama, the driver giggling madly.
We made it to Huanghua, and there was the Great Wall. we piled ut of the van and into the shelter of a small kiosk. There were quite a few other sheltering there, including a foreign backpacker (european?) who spoke English. He gave us a bit of a description of where we could walk, and warned us a downhill section might be a bit dicey today in the rain. After drinks and an ice cream from the Kiosk, we managed to borrow 3 umbrellas and off we went.
Climbing Up
Nice Shot Adam
Overgrown in places
Down a dirt track, across stones in a rapidly flowing creek and eventually to a lady charging Y2 for the use of her specially constructed bit of track and steel ladder. We could have bypassed her had we known, but it wasn’t was if it was expensive. Finally we made it to the Great Wall…. the Real Great Wall.
It was in original crumbling condition, and we had an interesting (and fairly active) few hours exploring that section. The only other person we saw was a backpacker making a cup of tea (he was obviously a backpacker since he had a “Let’s Go China” under his arm). Also a tent was pitched at one of the higher guard posts (all the standard two arrow shots apart). Hopefully sometime I can get some photos up of this. Certainly a much more fulfilling visit than my last Great Wall visit I think at Badaling. It even stopped raining for us about halfway through. It’s hard to imagine a project such as the Great Wall taking so many resources of a country just to fuel rampant paranoia these days…., well, maybe, until you start to think about the Bush Administration and Star Wars MKII…..
Overgrown in places
View from the top
We returned to the road to find our original bread-box driver waiting for us, so after taking the umbrellas back to the Kiosk owner (and buying some beer and drinks as a thankyou), we returned to Huairou. The wipers still weren’t working.
This morning greeted us with an almost blue sky. (I wonder if the young kids in Beijing know what stars are ?). It looked amazingly blue until you realised the Hotel windows were deliberately tainted blue, but it was certainly much clearer than we’d experienced up till now. We decided to take the train back to Beijing from Huiarou for a bit of variety. Also we’d end up at Beijing Central so we didn’t need to do the subway bit. The hardest part of this turned out to be just finding the railway station (hidden at the end of a side road about 2km from the Hotel), but the guide book phrases came to the rescue again here. The trip took about 1.5 hours, and was a pleasant enough journey.
On our return to the Hotel (we finally found the #39 local bus route, yay!), Mr Han was there waiting for one of his chinese ARDF competitors to come in from elsewhere. Also we found the triple room we had booked (about a month ago) was in fact a double room with an extra piece of solid wood thrown in masquerading as a bed. None of us felt we would be able to sleep on the wood board, so I went back to reception and demanded either a real triple or another extra room. I just stood there refusing to go away, so they finally had to give in and give me another room. We arranged to go out for dinner with Mr Han, and he treated us to a great selection at a local resturant. More than we could possibly eat, but we made a good attempt. (Perhaps he is trying to slow down the Aussie team :-))
Better go now, early start tommorow and it’s already late.
It’s Thursday morning and I’m in the Tientian Sports Motel. It’s fine for us, even though it has some amusing quirks. We’ve elected to leave the top of the toilet cistern since that makes it easier to push down the valve which won’t reset on its own. Also, with a bit of a design flaw, the drain for the shower has been set on one of the higher points of the bathroom floor. Luckily there is a small hill between the toilet and the door where you can dry your feet 🙂 Otherwise the staff at the desk have been helpful (but they do seem to be reluctant to hire us a bike… foreigners ?).
The trip here went fairly smoothly. The 3 sets of directions Mr Han had prepared for us in Canada got us onto the correct airport bus, and directed the taxi to the Hotel once we got to the Beijing railway station. Lost one of my credit cards (yes, again, Jodi) somewhere at the airport yesterday I think. This time I was prepared and have another. Managed to get onto the “which bank” to stop it, and no furthur transactions had been recorded aginst the card since my ATM one at the airport. It’s possible in sleepy fug I even left it in the machine (surely I wouldn’t be *that* stupid!).
Beijing Railway Station
Walking at Night Beijing
Beijing
We went for a walk last night, along some of the main roads, and some of the unmarked alleyways in between which are full of street vendors. We ended up for dinner at a resturant we felt looked good. Ordered mainly by pointing at other peoples dishes (they all love this). Tried for some time to order rice, but since there wasn’t any nearby to point at we had to give up, even with the help of a chinese boy who spoke some English who came to our aid. Anyway, the prawn, vegetables and cashews was very good, as were the fried packages of that sweet brown stuff (seaweed ?) we’ve definitely had before. The Chinese boy joined us to practice his English. He is also visiting Beijing (staying with his uncle and Aunt who we were to meet shortly) during the long summer school holidays. His uncle and aunt work at one of the nearby Hotels. He is from Changdong which if I understood correctly is between Beijing and Shanghai somewhere. We were invited to their table and tasted some other dishes (the “sheeps meat” was excellent, but very spicy at first taste).
Afterwards bought some DVDs and CDs (and Adam accidentally ended up with a couple of VCDs which he thought were CDs). They all work out at about A$4 each, even the DVDs ! Of course, no Aussie music. Had a look at one of the VCDs on this laptop later on (no, it’s way too old and slow to play DVDs).
Getting a map, and taking our compasses we went on another walk to the North a bit later to locate a market, and a shopping centre. Pulled out a bit more money to pay for the 3 train tickets. Mr Han has offered to pick us up today for this since he has to pay for his 16 Chinese team members also. Hopefully he can also point us to an Internet Cafe or similar so I can send you these reports (and do some internet banking to move money out of the now dead credit card account!). By the way, I had bought another compass from the “Kevin”-like O shop at the German ARDF championships. It is an excellent (very good settling) Russian compass that comes at nearly half the price of an equivalent Silva. Also it suits me better for ARDF since it’s easier to read the bearings off the ring when I’m looking at it from an angle, whereas the Silva has a very high ring that tends to obsure the needle when not looked at from above. Somehow I picked up another small cough in Germany (can’t think where), and the lovely Beijing air (yeah, right) as you can imagine did wonders. It is quite hot here during the day, with that bright but diffuse sunlight you get here.
I’m on the flight from Frankfurt to Beijing. It’s Tuesday evening (Deutsche Time, early in the morning Beijing time). Unfortunately we’re in the middle two seats of four on a 747, and the flight is packed. Adam has used nearly all my laptop batteries, so I might not get very far. No matter. After an uneventful drive back from Passau to Frankfurt we ended up in a small village outside of Frankfurt called Obernhaim which is where the Knoeble’s live. Stephan had arranged for us to stay there the night which was fantastic as we hadn’t really had anything arranged for Monday night. Geog and Barbel (sorry, no umlauts on this keyboard!) have a lovely house complete with a set of pools and fountains in the back garden. Oh, and of course the German Shepard, Fiona. Georg works for the networking section of the Deutchesbank. Later we met their other son Markus who is at University studying Electronics Engineering. Stephan, as you have already seen, was able to send out my two recent reports. Thanks also to Rainer for sending out Report 9 !
The Knoeble’s House
A Swiss Log Fire
The Fountain Garden
We were treated to afternoon coffee in the garden, and later on to a BBQ, accompanied by a Swiss fire. This was a pine log standing vertical. It had been cut into quarters most of the way down with a chainsaw. It was a first time experiment for Georg after he had seen it working elsewhere. The log cuts act with a chimney effect to keep to log burning, and it did (after some initial tribulations). Most impressive, and a great BBQ too with pork steak and weiners. After showing off our pictures of the German Championships (aren’t digital cameras great ?) and Markus showing us his work for encouraging junior ARDFers in Germany, it was suddenly quite late, so off to bed.
Today was pretty relaxed (nice sunny days of about 25 degrees in Germany at the moment). Stephan had to head off the school early (good luck in the French Region 1 championships, Stephan), but Markus took us on a tour of the surrounding area, including a replica/rebuilt olden village where we had lunch, a quick tour into the nearby town of Bad Homburg (Markus also does volunteer work for the Red Cross Ambulance so we had a look at these too). Then he took us to the Frankfurt airport for this flight. Thanks to the Knoeble family for putting up with us !
Tommorow (today) we’ll land in Beijing. Mr Han ahs given us directions in Chinese to get the bus and taxis and so forth, so hopefully all will go smoothly. We also hope to leave the Roller Hockey bag at the airport since the baggage is restricted on the return flight from Mongolia (please note Bryan !).
It’s late on the evening of the 2nd day 80m contest of the German championships. Well today didn’t turn out to be a great deal easier despite the alleged lack of bad bearings on 80m !
Walking to Start
80m Receivers
The Aussie Area
I ended up in the middle of the field again (18th) with 5 foxes and 95 minutes or so. Adam managed 86 minutes also with 5 foxes. There was one tranmitter #5 which was very low in power. I lucked near it when I was heading for another fox (actually on a dud bearing!), so got there in 12 minutes or so. Lost myself on the map a bit going to the next one at #4 which did nothing good for my time. I had thought I’d kinda stuffed up the order, but I had little choice since I could only hear 3 foxes at the start (not including my 1st fox!). As it turns out I did end up doing one of the better courses having managed #5 1st. Many had to return there at the end, which was right back to near the Start. The start and finish were exactly the same as for the 2m competition, so I just used the same map again. I relocated luckily on the way to #3 and after that my course was about as good as I’d do with a still slightly sore heel (it varied). I had about a 5km run back to the finish from the last transmitter. A long way between controls ! One split between #1 and #2 transmitters was one of the best times (aren’t splits marvelous in improving your outlook).
Adam Starting 80m
Adam’s Map (messy!)
Bruce Finishing 80m
As usual we botted a lift to the presentation for the 80m event also at the Bier Hall. Also since this was the last event in their series they had overall tally placeholders for each division. Thanks to Stefan and Stefan for various translations when my limited German could’nt cope. We presented the WIA clock to DARC in our appreciation of a wonderful challenging event. It showed exactly how to run a good competiton with many competitors. They have had lots of practice at this and it all runs very smoothly (well it looks to an outsider like it runs smoothly anyway !). They want us to come back again! The British team commented they have been coming for a few years now, so they are no longer such a novelty :-).
Final Presentations
Stephan Won Juniors
German Competitors
Afterwards we went for a look at nearby Passau, a lovely town with cobbled streets and huge churches in the European style. Thanks to our hosts, and the great Bavarian style meal we all enjoyed at a BierGarden in Passau.
The Alte Schule gasthaus where were staying also had two mini 9 pin bowling alleys, so we had much fun afterwards along with a Dutch ARDF family also staying there with a bowling competition.
Passau
Passau Streets
Bowling at AlteSchule
Tommorow we head off back to Frankfurt, and Stephan (not to be confused with Stefan, Stefan or even Stefan) has invited us to stay with his family for the night before our flight to China on Tuesday. So Aufweidersehen for now, and thanks to DARC for the hardest contest so far on our itineray.
Well this morning we had the German Championship 2m event, but first, what happened yesterday ?
We arrived and registered for the ARDF championship in a country Bier hall on it’s own about 10 minutes out of Passau, near a small village. After a bit of time there we were taken to the guesthouse, (Das Alte Schule, old school) where we ended up in a nice attic bedroom. We had about 3 hours sleep to recover from the long journey form Canada. Later we returned to the Bier hall to test our receivers and catch up with Rainer Flosser.
Registration
Guesthouse
Rainer was in a jury meeting, so we had some dinner there and met some of the competitors. I found out that the Ultra sniffer has another small sprugle right on 144.525MHz. Luckily I was able to tune up 5kHz and it was ok (phew !). Met with Rainer and some others and amongst other things had an interesting discussion about electronic tagging. DARC have one set of their own specialised device based on a hard pin contact and an I2C Eeprom inside a blocky card thing you carry around your neck. It works well though.
E Tag Reader
E-Tag
DARC have developed their own software similar to SportID, but much better and easier to use ! Sport Ident has been used once at an international ARDF championship in Czech Republic. They used their own software, and also specially controls built specifically for the event by SportID due to a radiation on 2m problem (they radiate on 144MHz for about 50m or so). This of course means you could hunt the control itself when the transmitter is off, so a special fix had to be done. DARC have offered a deal with Sport Ident to use the DARC software with the SportID hardware (for both ARDF and Orienteering), but SportID so far haven’t leaped at the idea. Maybe worth exploring for Orienteering ? The DARC software has all the web publishing features and leg analysis ability… take a look at the DARC website: http://www.ardf.de
Today we took part in the 2m competition. Well this one has lots more people attending, about 120 ! Also a lot more who looked like they knew what they were doing. The map was not a secret, and many people already had a copy of the orienteering map used before we got given maps at the start. The way the events work here is everyone drives and parks at the finish. There you get your electronic tag and chest numbers.
Everyone then walks all at once to the Start in a big group.
The Start was a couple of km away. I was to be in start group 10 and Adam later in the last group 25. The area is reasonably heavy wooded with rather wet pine trees (I can hear Mark JMD groaning already :-)). We were to start at the bottom of the 1:15000 map and finish to the left, so there was a lot of map left above that ! Quite hilly too, with plenty of dark green about.
Finish
Walk
Waiting…..
Basically I mucked up my first control taking 25 minutes. Things did go better after that, but unfortunately a dud bearing led me to do one in the wrong order wasting about 15->20 minutes. I also got a sore ankle somehow (but I don’t think I twisted it). Lost my compass also while leaping over a creek. All in all a bit of a disaster, but I still got back on time with 5 transmitters (just under the 120 minute time limit). This gave me 17th place in M21, out of 26.
Adam, however, had his turn for this event and managed an excellent event taking 79 minutes. This gave him 3rd place in M21 against some pretty tough competition. He was beaten by Czech Republic. Other foreigners at the event were Czech, Netherlands and England (yes there is an English ARDF team: 2 competitors and a helper). There isn’t a great deal of ARDF activity in England, and it has been furthur curtailed of late by the foot and mouth epidemic restricting that sort of activity. The results from the competition are printed periodically, and they also have a laptop and a special keypad so anyone can call up latest results of their category on demand. Very neat. Afterwads everyone one gets a personal analysis sheet which shows how you did all your legs compared to others who did your order, and the leading competitor. A little graphic shows the order of transmitters you did and whether it is the best order or not.
Impounded
O-Shop
Results
Finish
The prizes were presented that evening at the Bier Hall at what is called a Ham-Fest. This isn’t what we would think it is at first, but is more related to the consumption of pork and beer ! We were there for some time, and also the HausMeister has given us two huge (1.5L ?) glass Bier Steins (we’ll have to fit into the growing volume of luggage somehow).
This report comes to you from Germany, somewhere on the AutoBahn between Frankfurt and Nurenberg. I’m in that slightly numb state after too many hours of travelling, and your body clock is confused by the bright morning sunlight when it’s meant to be night. The evening of the 2m FRG ARDF event many of the group gathered at Rik’s place for drinks and pizza. Perry and Anne gave us a lift there. A warm pleasent evening was spent discussing things ARDF or whatever. We were awarded our 1st and 2nd place medals ahead of time as we were due to fly out the next day. Thanks to the FRG organisers for a great time. A friendy bunch of people who I hope we’ll catch up with in the future.
It turned out to be a late night as we waited for the IRLP node at the Geelong end to be turned on, but it seems is was not to be. Oh well. ICQ still worked though. Thanks to Glenn for the marathon effort and now the pictures on the website http://streeto.cable.nu/bruce now go all the way up to report 8 ! Not sure if we’ll have the chance to load up more images from now on… see how we go for internet connections [we did…but they didn’t make it to the website till now unfortunately] !
We flew from Victoria to Toronto (this slightly odd route was what Carol was able to book for us in order to get to Germany in time for the German ARDF championships). Toronto was experiencing the hottest day this year, and was sweltering under about 42 Degrees and very humid. Felt like getting out of an airplane in Singapore. Onto Frankfurt, with a total time shift of +9 hours (uggh). We were met outside the McDonalds at Frankfurt airport by Stefan, a young competitor in the German champs who also went to China last year.
We’re now whipping along the autobahn amongst the holiday traffic (it’s a long weekend here) in a van with 6 of us plus one baby ————–>
As an aside, Stefan was telling us about the Czech 5 days ARDF championships earlier this year. There are 5 full days of ARDF: 2 days (2m/80m) of a mix of ARDF and orienteering where you have to find normal controls as well as radio controls (encourages good map work !). We’ll have to try this at a Metro I think as an interesting varient. 2 days (2m/80m) of normal ARDF which is also part of the Czech qualification rounds, and a final day of foxoring (see DARC website for full details), where competitors orienteer to a 200m circle on the map. Once within this circle they are assured they can hear a very low powered transmitter which is the control point (not necessarily IN the circle). Tricky huh ?
Anyway, that’s enough for today (whatever “today” means… I’ve lost track).
Hunt 1 Report: The evening started at 8:11pm Train mobile from Glen Waverley Train Station. However we were soon informed that several team’s were still shopping. So we paused temporarily at Mount Waverley then continued again on the next train at 8:32pm. We departed the train at East Malvern at 8:38pm and walked North along the bike track (Where 3JMD found us), through the Golf course then West along side the northern bank of the creek, we went to ground here. Soon to be greeted by 3TJN then VT and ZPF. BLN were very close, however was unprepared to cross the creek. Adam
Hunt 4 Report: YQN put this fox suspended in a bare tree next to a bushy tree in a “hidden” reserve between the Sprinvale Rd Freeway exit and new housing developments in the England Rd valley. TJN used to use this as a cycling short cut on the way to work, but didn’t realise the fence around the housing area had become more significant since. Access was easiest off the side of the freeway exit, but most teams were unlikely to be approaching from there anyway. The thin/thick tree ruse worked far better than we could have hoped with all teams spending time in the bushy tree. Some spending much time in even more remote trees (what were you doing, Geoff?). 1st was Adam YDF who was under pressure as other teams closed in. Second was Geoff VR for TVB team (finally), 3rd was a VT who was actually there before Geoff (don’t you hate that!) and 4th OW who fell for the tree thing in the most spectacular way. BLN had some battery issues I think. Cheers, Bruce
Hunt 5 Report: The 5th hunt of the evening was run by the VT team. After running in a straight line for a while we decided to pop into the grounds of Monash Uni for a spot of hiding. We found a smallish road leading close to the buildings and hid the fox in a small garden area. TVB was first in a after a bit of cinfuaion found the transmitter, YDF was next to arrive but with a bit of “leading the hounds astray” was seen to looking in the wrong place up close to the building finally they were off in the right direction and found the thing at the same time as YQN. OW poped along a few minutes latter and swooped on the fox – the other teams were close but time beat them. Over to someone else – VR/TVB, ZPF, OW or BLN?? 73 Greg VK3VT
Hounds gathered at the carpark for the Ferntree Gully Library at 8pm. Five teams participated in the evening. Due to some late arrivals, the hunts got under way about 8.30pm.
The first hunt was three-legged. The first location was a works depot in Park Ridge Estate, on Dandelion Drive. The transmitter was located between the depot fence and the neighbouring house’s fences. First in to this location was VR, with ZPF, TXO, BLN and finally PW. Location two was in a drain under Stud Rd Rowville. This location was using a low powered fox and this proved hard to find (ably assisted by some other signal, in Upwey, on 144.250). Only two hunters found this fox (VR first and BLN second). Location three was North from location one, on a bike track entered from Bryden Drive Knoxfield. VR was first in here, followed by BLN and TXO. Eventually time ran out and the hunt was over. The only interesting event at this location was the rather bemused bicyclist who was surprised to see three cars parked beside the track. I think that the hunters were also surprised to see someone riding about on such a windy and bitterly cold night.
The second hunt began after a short wait for YLE to locate the second fox and take fox and keeper to their next point. Location one was behind the VicRoads works depot between the Monash Freeway and Ferntree Gully Road. This proved easier to find than I had expected and we soon encountered ZPF, PW, BLN, VR and TXO in order. Most teams took the direct route out and headed in the direction the fox entered by. I’m sure that this would prove to be the largest number of vehicles seen to exit from a freeway entrance (legal in this case, which is a change). Location two was in the Monash Gallery area (don’t know exactly as I just told Jack to go in there and hide), at Wheeler’s Hill. Order of arrival here was VR, ZPF, BLN, TXO and PW. With numerous hints about where the third fox was located, it wasn’t long before Tarron saw teams. The fox was hiding near a walkway over the Monash Freeway, running parallel with Wellington Road, at the point where Wellington Road crosses over the freeway. It was quite convenient that this part of Wellington Road does not have barriers between the two traffic directions as many vehicles took the most direct route towards the signal. PW found him first, followed by VR, BLN, TXO and ZPF.
Hunt three was to return the hunters to the Dandenongs. The first location was next to the National Park on Hansen Rd, Boronia. First here was TXO, followed by VR, ZPF and BLN. A while later, PW team members ran up a fire track (AKA Nyora Avenue). They had left their vehicle further down the track instead of risking losing all low-hanging body parts on the very broken-up road surface. Location two was up the walking track from this point (about three hundred metres – approximately as Tarron had been walking for quite a while before asking “Can I stop yet?”). Although not first in the area, VR followed the best path of attack and continued up what looked like someone’s driveway, but was actually a narrow road (AKA Firetrack). They never came back down that way, so it must go somewhere. Next in to location two was TXO followed by BLN, ZPF and PW. At this point, the first fox foolishly offered to take the PW team down the road to their car (and promptly forgot about the fox – sorry Bryan).
Location three was in Gilmour Park, off Glenfern Road, Upwey. Jack was given precise instructions of “go to the park and hide”, so he drove down there, turned around in the entrance road and got bogged. The hunters seemed to be fooled by this stunt as Jack reported many vehicles stopping up on the hill and not coming down. Eventually he was found by VR, ZPF, TXO and PW. David, of the BLN team had obviously decided to prove that Bryan YNG had still had some hand in the hunt organisation and found blackberries (although they had not been planned to be involved in this month’s hunt). It must be said that to do this, he had to take a run down a rather daunting hillside slope at high speed. Eventually he found the fox and appeared not too worse for wear despite his trials.
The supper hunt was delayed when I noticed that I had one less fox transmitter than expected and so we dropped a good location (don’t worry, you’ll see it next time) in favour of rushing back for the fox, turning it on and just driving towards the hunters. A quick turn off Forest Road Ferntree Gully left us sitting beside the now regenerating quarry. First in was BLN, followed ZPF, VR, PW (all almost at the same time) and finally TXO. It will probably be a while before those people who parked their cars in what they thought was a secluded and quiet spot for a bout of “intense discussion” will come back to Ferntree Gully.
Thanks to Tarran and Jack WWW for their help as fox keepers for the evening.
Friday the 20th July saw the Melbourne monthly foxhunt run. The Weather was cool with no wind and occasional misty rain. The start was the 24Hr carpark at Braeside park which was walking distance from the supper location so as teams could leave cars at supper while they were hunting.
The first hunt started at 8:15 and was only 800m away behind a factory in Braeside. There was plenty of signal which appeared to confuse a few teams as only 2 out of 5 got in on the hunt. YDF was first followed 5 minutes later by PW.
The second hunt was a two legged beastie with the first leg run by Geoff and John. The fox was in a dead end street near the Frankston Fwy which caused many a team to go past and have to work there way back through side streets. The second leg was in Langwarrin on top of some old cricket nets at the back of a park. More than half the teams didn’t manage to look up and spent several minutes chasing reflections off the wire fence. Scoring for this hunt was done on placing’s with YDF coming first followed by BLN and PW
The 3rd event was quite some distance south to get the hounds into virgin territory. The fox said he had used both tanks of the Prado to get there but I’m sure the spinning of the wheels on the slippery track had something to do with it. The 160W linear was used (backed off to 100W by the voltage drop) to get enough signal to the hounds. First to the fox was YDF who managed to put the gate back so as it looked closed and locked. this didn’t fool ZPF though who came second with BLN taking 3rd.
The next event was in a court on a hill in Frankston. This split the teams up a little with YDF first and YQN and PW 5 minutes later. I think this is where BLN may have had gear problems as they somehow managed to end up in Frankston.
The 5th event was again near the Frankston Freeway and once again you needed to come of the Freeway early to get in quickly. This was a hunt the car and sniff the hidden fox hunt. YDF had no problems with this being a good 6 minutes ahead of PW and ZPF teams.
The fox became slack on the supper hunt and ran the event from the car under a street light in a new housing estate. This was an easy hunt to get the teams to supper early with YDF just beating YQN, ZPF and PW on one point.
Somehow YDF managed to get a perfect score of 0 to come first for the night, well ahead of PW on 24 and ZPF on 34. YQN had a lapse in form without TJN and managed 4th place on 42 points just ahead of BLN without XAJ on 44. The YDF team have somehow manipulated the competition so as that when they are away next month ARDFing the will still score 3 point to the overall by being fox for the night.
The weather was not quite as expected for the 15 June hunt, and most of the locations that had been reachable in a Falcon wagon a fortnight ago were, sadly, now 4WD prospects. However, this did not deter six teams from competing in the VK3YQN hunt. At the starting point in Lytton St Carlton were VK3s HBD, BQZ, TVB, PW and YDF. VK3BLN arrived after the start, as is now the norm.
The first hunt was a two-legged event, the first leg being stationary in-vehicle and under the control of Graham VK3KOA in the car park at Ross Straw Field, 29C12. The YQN Pajero sat nearby as a decoy. VK3YDF was first, followed closely by TVB and HBD. PW, BQZ and BLN arrived after 10 minutes had been called. BLN would have been recompiling something at that time.
The second leg, run by Bruce VK3TJN, was in the vacant land to the north of the railway yard 41C3. Some teams who may have expected a typical train-spotting YQN event were surprised to find that the fox team was too far from the tracks to record locomotive numbers or count axles. Anyway (sweaty palms and panting), TVB were in six minutes before YDF. PW and HBD also got in, but their leg times were 14 and 24 minutes slower than TVB and therefore counted for nothing. No sign of BQZ or BLN.
The second event was another two-legged hunt. Roger VK3HRL had found a picturesque spot just south-east of the long railway bridge crossing the Maribyrnong. Entry was through a small park off Sterling Drive Avondale Heights, 27B2. A vertically-polarised beam was hung in a tree, with the fox and operator (and sightseers) concealed in the thorns nearby. The expected feast of passing trains was a disappointing trickle. Oh well. Anyway, PW found the fox first (after a lot of stuffing about), followed four minutes later by Adam YDF, Mark of the TVB team on 7, BLN 8 and HBD 9. BQZ didn’t get in. Well done to the runner who patiently waited for the grain train (headed by three EL-class GE 4000 hp units – quite rare to see three together like that) before crossing the main line.
The second leg, under the control of Peter, was in the bush adjacent to the west bank of the Maribyrnong under the E.J. Whitten Bridge 26J2. David VK3XAJ from the BLN team sort of stumbled across ! Peter two minutes before BLN had found the first leg. What a dilemma. No negative scores though. Fortunately no-one else found Peter or we could have had a scoring bloodbath on our hands.
By this time we were running a bit late, and VK3TVB had disappeared for some impromptu vehicle cleaning. Something about a dead animal unleashed in the Prado. So the third hunt was run as a “Find as many foxes you can in 40 minutes” event. Hounds were not told how many foxes were operating on the two frequencies of 145.300 MHz and 145.500 MHz. As it happened, four foxes were up. No-one found all of them. This event was scored like ARDF – number of foxes, then the time taken. VK3PW took the honours (3 foxes), followed by TVB, YDF, BQZ (2 each), BLN (1) and HBD (none). The foxes were located at 39F5, 39K11, 39F9 and 360F5.
The supper hunt was a mud-bash. It wasn’t like that when we planned it… Bruce VK3TJN placed the fox just south of Skeleton Creek Tarneit 202K4, on the north side of a new housing development. VK3TVB was first, followed by PW, YDF, BLN and BQZ, while HBD didn’t get in.
Supper was held at Roger’s QTHR in Hoppers Crossing, and this time the wife and children stayed asleep and the dog didn’t get food poisoning. Hurrah! Scores:
Hunt 1a 1b 2a 2b 3 4 Total Place
Hound
VK3HBD 2 10 9 10 10 10 51 6 Started well. Don't give up!
VK3TVB 1 0 7 10 2 0 20 1 Penalty pending for complaint re scoring system
VK3BQZ 10 10 10 10 6 3 49 5 Thanks for coming Dennis.
VK3PW 10 10 0 10 0 1 31 3 Consistency - not.
VK3YDF 0 6 4 10 4 2 26 2 If you people spend any more time at the airport you'll have to pay cab charges
VK3BLN 10 10 8 0 8 3 39 4 No David, we won't express scores as complex numbers.
Here are the official results for the May hunt as organised by the VK3HBD team :
Seven teams lined up at the start to begin hunting. The first fox was turned on at 8:10pm. As this fox was on a bike several teams got caught out by dropping runners at the wrong end of the bike path, the fox averaged 11 km/h along the bike track. Four out of the 7 teams managed to run him down. These were YDF,VR,YQN and TXO. BLI found their car had a leaking fuel line and retired from any more hunts.
Hunt 2 This fox was on foot heading south towards the final destination: Heathmont railway station, (starting from Ringwood railway station) The fox didn’t quite make it! Stopping along the way in a side street before being found by YQN first, TXO second and then four teams all getting in at the same time,VR, PW,YDF,BLN.
Hunt 3 had the fox in a rubbish bin located at Joan Park football ground. YQN found this one first followed by YDF,VR,TXO BLN and finally PW.
Hunt 4 was the straw breaker or better still the leg burner, the fox was put at the top of a very large hill. It was decided that this hunt would be scored as usual, ie the timed system instead of the position system, which was used for all the other hunts. This was to reward the teams that worked harder to get up the hill faster. VR was first in and reaped the biggest reward, BLN was next then TXO, no other teams got in and therefore scored 10.
Hunt 5 saw the fox located behind Scoresby Primary School in a small park. BLI was back in action with a new car but didn’t manage to locate this fox. YQN came in first, then YDF,BLN,PW,VR and finally TXO.
Hunt 6 was the supper hunt with the fox located behind a kindergarten in Boronia. All seven teams managed to find this fox. First was YQN then VR,PW,YDF,BLI,BLN and finally TXO.
Supper was held at HBD’s house in Bayswater, which included a BBQ, coffee snacks etc. So the places for the evening ended up being
1st VR 16 points
2nd YQN 17 points
3rd YDF 22 points
4th TXO 32 points
5th BLN 33 points
6th PW 36 points
7th BLI 55 points
Well done to the BLI team to get back into the hunts after finding a leaking fuel line.
Hunting commenced outside the old pentridge prison in Coburg.
The first hunt saw the hounds heading towards the Western Ring Road. Tom had ridden his bike some distance into the wilderness and it took the hounds a long time to run the distance to him, first to find him was Adam from the YDF team. VR and BLN also found him. Melway 15B11
Second hunt saw Doug VK3JDO out near the Airport – the VT team has used spots around here a few times in the past and PW was first to find Doug on the road near the control tower – the road in in nowhere near the airport! YQN and HBD were close behind and BLN a few minutes back. Melway 5 C 11 (Approx)
Around this time the drought that Melbourne had been experiencing decided to break and rain began falling with very strong winds!
Hunt three was near a creek and the Western Ring Road and had Greg VK3VT at the end of a Horn Street Melway 7J8. First to find him was BLN with HBD second and number of teams a minute latter.
Hunt 4 began and then the rain really got heavy! As a fox person I found it hard enough to drive it must have been hell with the window down!. Tom and Chris VK3CHR were in the maze of back streets in the Mill/Blossom Park area and once again BLN was the first to find them. Melway 10 D 7 Jubilee Cres.
Due to the rain the fox decided to cut the next planned hunt and so supper was put on to heat while the hounds went in search of the final fox. Chris had parked in a court at the back of Greensbrough and was to be in a park but the rain kept him in the car! YQN was first to find him with VR next and the YDF and BLN. Melway 11C10 Tathra Court.
Supper was held at Greg VK3VT’s home and the hounds did their usual efficient job of leaving little to tidy up! All agreed it had been the wettest hunt in memory and I can say I was glad to be fox rather than having the water pouring in to the car!
