Blog

29th June 2008

Hosted by 3 groups from the YQN team

1. Mark VK3ZNN, Ian VK3YQN & Amy
2. Bruce VK3TJN & Suzanne
3. Neale & Johanna

Started at Safeway Carpark, corner of Burwood & Stephenson’s Roads.

6 teams braved the cold night: VT, BLN, YDF, TXO, HRL, OW

All hunts were on 2m and all but the supper hunt were multi-leg events.

Hunt 1A run by Ian, Mark & Amy

This was positioned in bushes just beyond a lookout tower at the top of a hill behind (South of) the Nunawading waste recycle centre. It was designed to be fairly easy to find the first leg. Adam was first on the scene and found the gaffer tape fox in bushes but we were fairly well hidden and he got quite anxious when we didn�t respond immediately to him calling out his call-sign (although we did note the time).

Several minutes passed before TXO arrived on the scene running within 3 metres of the fox but straight past it and onward to the lookout which is obviously where it was … not! Climbing up to the lookout and then then looking all around it, then falling over on the way down due to the very slippery ramp and eventually finding it several minutes after arriving, just after Doug (VT) and Marta (BLN) found it at the 10 minute mark. Roger (HRL/MZ) arrived 3 minutes later.

When we told all the runners the 2nd leg frequency, we made a point of saying they should retune their sniffers as they might be able to hear it from where they were, knowing full well everyone definitely would hear it from that location. What we didn’t tell them was that even in broad daylight Mark couldn’t find a way through to the 2nd leg location, despite being able to see it from the lookout. This was due to a creek and very thick, impenetrable blackberries.

We tripped across Ewen(OW) heading up the hill after we�d packed up the fox and were heading down.

Hunt 1B run by Bruce & Suzanne

This fox was located down the end of a road that is shown on the Melways (South of fox 1A, on the other side of the creek), but that the locals appear to have done their best to erase from existence. Suzanne and Bruce awaited the hounds in a ‘possibly’ leech infected swamp, but was in reality probably just a bit damp from the recent rains.

The trick was that this hunt was only about 300m from the previous fox; that is, in a direct line, but that ignores the impassable river, not to mention real live swampy swamps (probably with more than imagined leeches) and enough blackberries to make even a YDF team member have 2nd thoughts.

Nevertheless, very soon we heard the unmistakable wail of a sniffer over the bird and frog noises. Unfortunately for Marta of the BLN team, it was the wrong side of the various nasty sharp and wet barriers. Still, we heard her give very explicit directions to her team, and any other team who happened to be listening, as to exactly where the fox was, so we expected their arrival in the not too distant.

It was, however, Adam from the YDF team who belonged to the bouncing light we’d observed gradually heading our way (it seemed across a farmer’s paddock, but we’ll ignore that). Gary for TXO was a few minutes, followed by Roger from the “more callsigns than can comfortably fit in a sentence” team (we’ll call it MZ for now).

The VT team was also close by but didn’t have time to run down the road before time was up. Dunno where the BLN team went despite the very explicit directions.

Further note on this location from Suzanne – hiding spot was definitely a potential leech zone! – squelchy, decaying, frog ridden spot. Just waiting for the leeches to inch their way along the dripping branches and drop down my neck. Put my hood up and tucked my pants into my socks just to make sure 🙂

The first hunt had more of a devastating effect on the teams than we�d anticipated and resulted in the BLN team in particular tossing in the towel on several of the remaining hunts.

Hunt 2a run Neale & Johanna

Arriving at our spot, we parked our car in a Baptist church’s car park. Another man parked nearby was curious as to our activities, but after a brief explanation seemed to decide we were mostly harmless, if a tad eccentric.

We sat and waited and waited at what we guessed was about halfway along the reserve until YDF-team drove up past us where they shouldn’t have been able to drive, realised their mistake and drove back to find us easily. We were then left in isolation to wait again until a couple of runners came up either side of the 10 minute mark. VT arrived 5 minutes after YDF, TXO, HRL and OW didn�t finish and BLN gave up.

Hunt 2B run by Ian, Mark & Amy

This was located in the old, abandoned Monash Secondary College. We positioned ourselves between a couple of building and waited.

First on the scene was Adam (YDF). He hunted around for a while before realising it was right in front of his nose, literally, poised inside an old tyre mounted at the top of a metal post about 1.5m off the ground (some sort of strange planter or bird bath?).

Next was Roger(HRL) 7 minutes later who spent quite a bit of time searching in the greenery that had grown over the fairly high cyclone fence that separated us from where we’d hidden the fox. Eventually we took pity on him and suggested he try his luck walking around and checking on the other side. 30 seconds later he was followed by Marta(BLN) and then Doug(VT). Ewen(OW) arrived overtime followed by Gary(TXO).

Hunt 2C run by Bruce & Suzanne

This spot was near where Bruce works. It was intended to be really close to leg 2B, almost a sniffer hunt. Bruce had checked out the location as he sometimes rides along that creek to get into work the back way, but as it turns out on the night we elected to go the other side of the creek. This gave a really big tree to hide in, but slightly easier access options.

Putting the fox up high often causes confusion for sniffing with Adam and Darian from YDF took quite some time to locate the fox-box, despite being first on the scene. Though first in, their leg time was significantly worse than some other teams who came in more directly without a few km detour southwards. This leg ruined YDF�s so far “perfect” score for the night!

All teams got in on this leg, which was good as we were starting to wonder if we’d somehow made the hunts too hard (is that possible ?).

Hunt 4a run by Neale & Johanna

This location, behind the substation in Waverley Road was found by Ian’s son Scott and has been known as the “Scott spot” for some months while we found a sequence of locations that suited its inclusion.

As expected, all teams found this fairly quickly and straightforwardly, including MZ who found it twice, under different call-signs just to confuse us. Most cars came up the access track to the freeway roadworks, dropped their runners and in some cases left them behind as they made their way to the next leg.

YDF was first in (again – this is getting very predicable). Poor Marta of BLN was 2nd in but looked decidedly worse for wear as she asked wearily “How many legs is this one?”. TXO and HRL/MZ were next followed a couple minutes later by VT, then OW.

Hunt 4B run by Bruce & Suzanne

Suzanne had sussed out this spot near Gardiners Creek on her lunchtime walk, as well as being quite familiar with the area after having set a street-O there recently. This fox spot was deliberately chosen for its confusing elements, although deceptively simple – some tree roots to hide it in, down a not very visible embankment next to the river, so that hounds could be unsure which side it was on… as they were – Adam, Douggie and Gary didn’t notice us sniggering in the trees up the hill as they ran down one side of the creek (where it was), then took off over the bridge and spent some time checking out the rocks on the other side, before coming back again and wandering around the embankment… he, he

On arrival it didn’t seem a difficult spot, perhaps too easy ? Anyway, we placed the fox amongst the roots of a tree next to the creek and had to go some way away to remain hidden.

Just as well we did, because very soon, Adam (for YDF) was on the scene, rushing right past us, down to the waters edge. Then, to our surprise, back up again. Where was he going ?? Yep, over the bridge not too far off and over the other side of the creek. Then, scrambling down the steep bank down to the water’s edge. Damm…not that side after all ! Back up the steep bank, back around over the bridge, and finally zigzagging back to the tree and in.

Marta (for BLN) made much quicker work of it, almost disdainfully knocking it off in a few seconds. Roger for MZ also made reasonably quick work of it. Douggie (for VT) also did the Adam style antics, checking out ‘both the wrong sides first. Ewen (for OW) joined Doug on the fruitless search of the steep bank on the other side. Ewen worked it out and was rapidly closing on the rooty tree when Adam (loud OW Adam, not 29yo YDF Adam) spotted us trying to be insignificant well away from the fox. “Ewen” he urgently calls, and goes and almost physically drags Ewen away from his nearly found quarry. We greet Adam and Ewen cordially, and then the penny drops that we are not actually at the fox, so back to the creek again. Meantime Douggie has stopped faffing around and has located the fox.

Gary for TXO finds it a few minutes later, so a full compliment again, which is good news, because we feared that may not be the case for the final leg of this hunt….

Hunt 4C run by Ian, Mark & Amy

This was planned to be the most challenging leg and certainly very different to the rest of the night’s hunts.

A very large (in excess of 2m diameter) drain had been found, hidden behind bushes with the top of it at ground height. We didn’t know until part way through the night if it would be appropriate (i.e. safe) to use it we’d been sitting on this one for many months. As it turned out it was perfect weather for it – too dry and it fills with fumes from people’s grey water illegally flowing into the storm water system. Too wet and it is dangerous, although a torrent sufficient to fill it would flood most of the surrounding suburb. The occasional light drizzle meant we had a steady trickle of water about 1cm deep which had washed away any gunge and there was no perceivable smell in there at all.

Ian and Amy positioned themselves about 100m up the drain, past a slight bend about 50m in and about 2m past another bend in a side drain only about 1.5m long due to it having been filled in. That put us almost directly under a 3″ thick steel and concrete cover with a few slots in it.

As expected (we’d previously tested this with Bruce sniffing around the area), hounds found there way to the drain cover in the middle of a dead end road on the other side of the freeway and railway line from the only access point. To give teams any hope of finding us, we’d positioned Mark up there to give them guidance to the other side of the freeway. Adam was first on the scene and cleverly counted his steps to the pedestrian underpass and then paced them out on the other side and then looked around for the entrance. It wasn’t long before we heard his musical testing out the drain’s echo properties all the way up it. Despite the length of the drain, Bruce had reported he could easily hear us talking from its entrance so we were careful to keep quiet.

It was amusing to occasionally see beams of torch light break the darkness of the tunnel from 3m above us, like a scene from a sci-fi film with aliens bright lights outside the door.

We heard David(BLN) above the drain cover declaring he’d given up on this one as well. Doug(VT) was the next one to break the silence of the drain followed some time later by Gary(TXO) and Roger(HRL/MZ). OW decided not to risk entering a drain.

We found out later that at least one resident had been concerned about all the strange goings on at the end of his usually quiet street and called the police. They arrived and were told there were teams hunting a hidden transmitter that was located on the other side of the freeway and had obviously got their bearings a bit confused. They decided they had better things to do with hteir time and left. Fortunately they were not told that the fox was located 3m below them and fortunately we were still sitting quietly in darkness; it might’ve been a little different if voices on beams of light appeared from out of the middle of the road!!

Hunt 5 run by Neale & Johanna

This was the supper hunt and was started 2 minutes before the midnight no-go zone, with Neale only realising he was meant to be setting this foxhole about 30 min previously. With no clues as to the location except an ambiguous map reference, he successfully found a suitably challenging place halfway up a bank of Gardiner’s creek, complete with plenty of high fences on both sides to provide lots of reflections and a nearby stormwater drain to provoke memories of the previous hunt. All but the last team scaled the 2m fence on the wrong side of the creek (there was an open gate in the fence further up you could drive a truck through … on the fox side of the creek) and braved the steep banks to find us on the other side. The hound from the last team had more fun, though, after repeated crossings of the bridge 100m downstream he scaled the fence and ran past the fox, realised his mistake and descended part of the bank to find the drain. His first response – “Oohhh, not this again….” and to head up it. Fortunately he quickly realised his mistake, and found the fox nearby, just outside the time limit.

First in was YDF, followed 5 minutes later by OW, with the other teams scoring 10 (BLN had skipped this hunt completely and headed straight to supper).

Conclusion

Supper was held at Bruce’s place in Ashwood.

There was a rumour about a certain team cable-tying a gate closed after them but even if this was true and we’d penalised them heavily, they’d still have taken out the night.

Final scores

Team	Score	Place
YDF	13	1
HRL/MZ	53	2
VT	66	3
BLN	67	4
OW	67	4
TXO	72	5

Congratulations to the YDF team who were 1st in on the 1st leg of every hunt and would have had a perfect score other than their second leg times in 2 of the events.

Brought to you by the VK3YQN team

Firstly, a welcome to novice YQN foxhunt setters Mark and Suzanne. Anyone who has run a foxhunt knows how consists of short periods of manic intense activity to keep ahead of the hounds and periods of boring waiting around for ther 1^st team to find you !

Hunt 1

This was a two legged hunt, both on 2m. All multi-legged hunts were scored on leg time, effectively forming seperate hunts without the need to re-group. It sometimes produces some unexpected results not immediately evident at the time.

The 1^st leg was near the Eastern Freeway in a bushy part of Yarra bend Park near Dights Falls 2D C5 with Mark & Suzanne & a bottle of red wine. Leader was YDF followed 4 minutes later by VT and OW. The 2^nd leg was Bruce hidden in a tricky to locate drain reservation the other side of the Yarra near River Retreat (those houses must be worth a bit!) at 2D K8. OW took the least time to the 2^nd leg (and was 1^st on the scene, despite some slow sniffing work), followed by BLN (leg start time taken from when 1^st fox turned off), and just before the gong VR. The 2^nd leg was out of 15.

Hunt 2

A close staged 3 legged hunt. Originally the fox had plans to have 10m as the middle leg, but as VR found themselves without a sniffer, and the 10m leg was essentially a sniffer hunt only, we swapped it around so 10m was the 3^rd leg to allow them, to at least score well on the 1^st two legs and then go for coffee. 45E2

Leg 1 was Neale (with helpers) between the freeway sound barrier and a cyclone fence. Access was meant to be via a hole in the fence the fox had found, but as it turned out all teams ended up climbing the fence. 1^st in were YDF and TXO, followed within 6 minutes by all others. Leg 2 was Bruce “up the creek” outside Hays paddock 45 J2. Again this presented no difficulty for Adam of YDF. On leg time David of BLN was 2^nd. All teams found this fox within 9 minutes.

The 3^rd leg was meant ro be a simple 10m sniffer hunt, but the weak signal from Mark JMD’s 10m fox resulted in teams thinking it was a long way off North of the freeway, and it took some time for them to finally return. It was in fact just behind the lake in Hays Paddock 45 J1 (one square away from Bruce). YDF was 1^st back from the wilds, with OW doing it 5 minutes longer on leg time. BLN and VR both did in fact find the fox, but their leg times took them way over any time we could score sensibly, so we limited the damage to 10. TXO was apparently nearby too but we had to call it a day finally. VR team decided to call it a night at this point for unknown reasons.

Hunt 3

The original plan was this would be a single leg hunt, but due to the re-arrangement of the previous hunt for VR, we inserted an extra leg to give time for Mark to get to his proper location.

Therefore the 1^st leg was Bruce with the fox buried in some creeper on the bank of the old outer-circle railway cutting 46 A9. Winner was BLN for a change, followed very shortly by YDF, then TXO. After watching the sniffing antics of the OW odd couple Ewen & Clifford, OW finally gets a 7 (with Cliffoird standing on top of the fox declaring “it’s all around I just can’t make any sense of it”).

2^nd leg was Mark who was chased into his location by both Adam and David. Therefore YDF and BLN score well. TXO does well on leg time and OW takes way too long despite eventually nabbing Mark. 61 B12

Supper Hunt

There is time for just 1 more hunt, so Bruce is located on the bank of a creek near High St. Again YDF is 1^st and BLN is 2^nd. OW and TXO draw on 4.

Supper

A great supper put on by Mary Banks, added to by that yumscious flourless chocolate cake from Suzanne. The following scores were announced. Well done to YDF for owning the evening.

Team	YDF	BLN	OW	TXO	VR
1A	0	10dnf	5	10dnf	4
1B	15dnf	10	0	15dnf	14
2A	0	6	6	1	5
2B	0	2	4	8	5
2C	0	1024	5	10dnf	1026
3A	1	0	7	3	10dnf
3B	0	1	1011	4	10dnf
4	0	1	4	4	10dnf
Total	16	40	41	55	69
Place	1	2	3	4	5

We were originally scheduled to run the March hunt but this was cancelled due to lack of teams, despite moving the date forward a week to suit a number of teams.

The hunt started from the Pinewood Shopping Centre carpark in good weather.

Despite Bruce (TJN) racing out to the first hiding spot so we could commence shortly after the 8pm starting time, the VT team was running late and arrived at the start around 8:20 without their gear set up. They very quickly mounted everything and by soon after 8:25 we had 6 teams (YDF, BLN, VT, VR, TXO, HRL) ready to go.

For the first hunt Bruce was located in Norton’s park, which should be familiar to street orienteers.
The lower power used had a few teams overestimating the distance.
BLN was first to find him, followed within a minute by YDF and HRL.
Yes, Roger (HRL) had quickly formed a team only a couple of days before, comprising him and a couple of inexperienced friends and he borrowed some of Bruce’s gear on the way to the start location. His success in finding the first fox within a minute of the first team was excellent but unfortunately this success was not to last the entire evening.
TXO and VR arrived 4 minutes later. VT arrived too late and scored the maximum 10 points – this was caused by hasty gear assembly and not observing their “green to green” policy of antenna mounting – yes, you guessed it the yagi was put on backwards. Greg picked up on this eventually when the signal seemed to get weaker and weaker the “closer” they got to the fox.

The next hunt was two-legged with the first leg on 70cm. At the start Gary (TXO) reported that he didn’t have any 70cm gear (no receiver, beam or sniffer). Fortunately Bruce had brought a 70cm sniffer with him that Gary picked up from him at the first fox location so his team would be able to follow another hound into the area and then use Bruce’s sniffer to compete independently. Well, that was the theory – unfortunately Bruce’s 70cm sniffer was found to be faulty.

The first leg was located at the end of a road behind a very large, deep and dangerous quarry.
This excellent spot was discovered by Steve when sightseeing in March (when we were originally to be fox). The bush covered peak could only be accessed via a 500m long track bounded by high cyclone fences on both sides for the entire length of the track. The hunt start was a little delayed when Bruce discovered that since last month a boom gate had been installed at the start of the track (just for vehicles, pedestrians fine) so the fox had to walk in too. A piece of dodgy coax (possibly aggravated by the walk in), and a question mark battery meant that the 70cm wasn’t as good as it might have been. The HRL team was by far first in the area, and had even dropped off Roger with a sniffer as BLN called numerous times from various locations, and VR called from Mt Dandenong claiming everyone else was with them (oh really ?).
Despite the early presence of HRL, the YDF team found us shortly after (must have used that transmat beam on Mt Dandenong). BLN checked all sides of the quarry, but had problems hearing the fox. We were still some distance above the quarry though. TXO found the fox despite us lending them a non-functional sniffer (sorry guys! – another thing to fix, grrr).
4 of the 6 teams (YDF first, then HRL, VT, TXO) found Bruce, with BLN finding him 3 minutes after the time limit and VR giving up and going to have a coffee muttering something about the quarry being private land (except the fox wasn’t in there).

The second leg was on 2m located in bushland where Ian (YQN) and Peter were sitting at a picnic table at the top of a hill with lights in the distance visible through the full 360 degrees. First in was Adam (YDF) followed 2 minutes later by Doug (VT team) and then 7 minutes later Gary TXO and shortly afterwards Marta of the BLN team. HRL didn’t find it and the VR team were still off somewhere consuming caffeine.

The fox team had given up on having Steve with us for the night due to him being overseas but were surprised to find him turn up during hunt 2 having come straight from the airport to join us for the rest of the evening.
The hunt was scored on the time difference between the legs and was won by YDF followed closely by VT, then a fair margin to the other teams.

Hunt 3 was supposed to be another 70cm/2m 2-legged event but due to problems with the signal in the previous hunt (and also that dodgy sniffer) we decided to make it 2 x 2m. The VR team returned to the event after a bex and a good lie down.

The first leg was run by Bruce who was located up a tree atop a hill (revenge on Marta) in Wellington Chase park. First in was Adam for YDF who took only a few passes under the tree before looking up followed by VR within a minute of them (the caffeine obviously worked). Next to arrive was Gary (TXO) who spend agonising minutes passing back and forth under the fox, occasionally disappearing off into the forest. David for BLN team saw me as soon as he approached. Under the tree (again) was Gary, and behind David were 2 runners from other teams. Despite Bruce desperately trying to communicate to David quietly that he was in, he insisted on blowing his advantage by loudly demanding a reply. He got it, and all 4 teams got the same score, including Gary who’d spent an embarrassing 8 minutes searching below. All teams found this fox.

For the second leg Peter & Ian were located behind an industrial area. We had expected that some teams might try and find a way through to the rear down factory drive-ways or other suspect means (i.e. via private property) before they found where we had managed to drive in.
We didn’t however expect anyone to come in from the north which turned out to be quite amusing for Ian to watch from his hiding spot on top of a very large dirt mound as in order to get in that way hounds would have to cross a 3m or so wide creek.
Several teams tried this with VT runners in particular running up and down the edge of the creek for ages trying to find a way across (unsuccessfully).
The fox wasn’t particularly well hidden – just sitting on the ground. Despite this, it was amusing to watch from a distance as several runners each took a couple of minutes to find it, walked past it within 50cm several times, one even shining their torch onto it multiple times as they past it before finally finding it.
First in was John (BLN) followed by Tim (YDF team) then a gap to Geoff and Ian (VR team). Ian was the exception to all the other runners – he came up the mound, walked in a direct line towards the fox and found it instantly. Right on the 20 minute time limit was VT and HRL – Roger was exhausted and couldn’t run up the mound despite the looming time limit, having been dropped off over a kilometre away. The distance he’d run was evident by the fact that it took his team mates around 10 minutes to drive to the meeting spot after it was announced.
This hunt was scored as a mixture of the time into the first hunt and the differential time into the second fox. This resulted in the hunt being won by YDF, followed by VR, BLN, TXO, then VT and HRL.

The sudden unexpected presence of Steve was a bonus because he was able to run the supper hunt. To get it underway quickly, Bruce ran a fox from his car as he drove home and then Steve’s weaker signal took over once he was in position. Steve was hidden in a large cage full of tyres near an Australia Post processing centre. This quite good location was found by Bruce that evening on his way home from work. First in was YDF followed by 3 minutes later by BLN, VR, HRL and VT within seconds of one another, with TXO at the 10 minute mark.

Last time we were fox, the night progressed much faster than expected and we had to introduce another spontaneous hunt to fill in the time. This time we took no chances with running out of locations and that planning coupled with the late start & 70cm issues meant we ended up with 5 unused locations – almost enough for another entire evening. At least planning next time will be easier!

Supper was held at Bruce’s place in Ashwood.

Overall scores and placings were:

Team	Score	Place
YDF	2	1
BLN	27	2
VR	34	3
VT	35	4
TXO	40	5
HRL	41	6

Congratulations to the YDF team – that was huge winning margin.

VK3YDF and team ran the final foxhunt for 2006 in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne on a lovely Summer night. Five teams assembled at Blackburn Railway Carpark at 8pm and the first hunt started shortly after.

Adam made good use of a small area between a carpark and office shop front to hide himself and a fox.

The second hunt was a 2 leg affair that saw teams challenged by closed roads due to rail and roadworks at Laburnum train station. Hounds (after 10minutes) found their ways up onto the platform where they found Bryan and Darian and some random drunk guy. (yep, you guessed it, a lot of teams thought it was the bum).. Teams then flew off in search of the second leg that was found by a drain reserve not far from Canterbury Road Blackburn Road Cnr’s.

We thought we’d throw a bit of everything in, so this time we employed the 10minute drive off rule and drove ourselves to a laneway between houses and vacant land in Mont Albert. Teams disappeared as quickly as they arrived owing mostly to the fact that this too was a 2 legged hunt. The teams next found themselves at the big bustop carpark near Doncaster Road.

Next up was another single legger to a large open canal drain near Bulleen road and an impromptu hunt the foxhunting Fox were Adam sneakily followed more than one team around.. (to the confusement of all)..

An adjurnment allowed for cold drinks to be served. Teams were soon off again for the final hunt for the night a 3 TX hidden in reserves that adjoined the Yarra in the Bulleen / Templestowe area. Hounds found Adam and Darrian on an Island, Steve in a carpark that was sort of locked (VT?), and Bryan near the Bike track (yes, with a bike)..

All teams and hounds arrived at the Supper location by 11.30pm where BBQ and Supper was provided (thanks Dianne).

Results:

		BLN	MZ	YQN	OW	VT
Start		10	3	2	4	0
Hunt 1	0	10	4	1	1
Hunt 2a	1	0	6	2	1
hunt 2b	1	2	5	0	1
Hunt 2 Tot	2	2	11	2	2
Hunt 3a	1	0	2	4	5
Hunt 3b	7	8	0	6	4
Hunt 3 Tot	8	8	2	10	9
Hunt 4	1	0	4	8	2
Hunt 5a	1	1	0	5	5
Hunt 5b	2	2	0	9	6
Hunt 5c	0	6	6	9	8
Hunt 5 Tot	3	9	6	23	19
						
Total		24	32	29	48	33

To the teams/people that I don’t see tonight, Merry Christmas / Happy New Year from all of us in the VK3YDF Foxhunting Team.

Bryan, Steve, Dianne, Darrian and Adam

The hounds met at the Pinewood Shopping Centre and were set off from there by Neale Banks (thanks for helping out Neale).

The night was run by Ian VK3YQN, Bruce VK3TJN, Roger VK3HRL and Peter and consisted of a mixture of single and two-leg hunts with a 70cm leg thrown in as well.

Hunt 1 Leg A
We were worried that the 70cm signal on this first hunt of the night might be a bit weak way back at the Pinewood start location, but it turned out the hounds had a good signal all the way. The fox used was Ian MZ’s 70cm intermittent unit that put out a good signal on the 3 element beam in the tree beside the creek, at the back of Greaves Reserve, Noble Park.  All hounds had difficulty with overloaded 70cm sniffers and a fair delay till they looked upwards into the tree. VK3YDF took the longest time dithering around, but BLN and MZ teams were also experienced considerable frustration. MZ was in first followed 3 minutes later by YDF and OW with BLN arriving 6 minutes after them.

Hunt 1 Leg B
This 2m fox-or transmitter was located by Peter a short run from the first leg (provided you knew where the bridge was) in a drain pipe on the Eastlink construction area.  First in was MZ followed by YDF, OW and finally BLN with similar timing to the first leg.

Hunt 2 Leg A
Ian (and his brother John) hid this transmitter in bushes at the East side of the lake in Karkarook park.  First on the scene was Adam YDF followed a minute later by Geoff and BLN 3 minutes after that.  OW arrived 4 minutes after that.

Hunt 2 Leg B
Though physically not more than 300m from the 1st leg location, this 2nd leg was meant to be a real bastard. Shortly after we heard that teams were in on the 1st leg, we could here car doors slamming in the industrial estate off Warrigal Road….so near, yet simply no access in from there, except perhaps over nasty looking security fences with alarm systems. The BLN team happened to know someone who knew someone who’s dog knew about the spot we were hidden, but they were the last to find their way in from the South, off the end of Henry St. YDF was first, followed by MZ with OW narrowly beating BLN for third place.
Most took some time to actually find the fox hidden under some discarded polystyrene foam halfway up (down ?) a steep embankment.
Somehow the MZ team got a runner in from the North, through the trotting track, even though we thought we’d discounted this possibility pretty thoroughly in our explorations the weekend prior. Something mumbled about “easy to squeeze past gates”….hmmm, well we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
We’d considered hiding the fox within the ex-tip right beside our secluded laneway, but thought that this might create too many objections about not-particularly-accessible-property, despite the nice hole in the fence nearby. As it turns out one runner (another MZ one I think!) did come into our location via the tip….more mumblings about “no fences the way I came”, where we knew this to be patently impossible.

Hunt 3
Peter was located in the “Urban Forest” off Waverley Road.  This was a fairly easy location and not surprisingly all teams arrived within 3 minutes of one another – YDF then MZ and OW together and finally BLN.

Hunt4 Leg A
Bruce dropped Roger out of the car near Darling Station on his way to supper for a spontaneously created extra leg on this hunt to pad the night out to the correct length due to the hounds finding some of the trickier spots faster than anticipated.
Roger was on foot on the east side of Monash Fwy near Darling Railway Station transmitting intermittently on the T7H.  Most teams were observed before alighting from their vehicles so Roger took every opportunity to confuse them. The YDF team’s beam-swinger seemed to stop the beam at 12 o’clock every time, and as Roger was at his 3 o’clock he would transmit until he saw the beam start to turn, then turn off as the beam went past 1 o’clock. Nasty! MZ saw him before he could hide properly and were in first, followed by BLN, YDF and eventually OW.

Hunt4 Leg B
The fox was located up an embankment on the side of the Anniversary Trail near Winton Rd. Easiest entry was via a lane near the corner of Nicholas street. Having arrived at the spot and turned on the transmitter Ian realised he probably should have the clipboard to record the score and, given that the first team had just found Roger, thought he could make a quick dash to the car and back before hounds arrived.  Unfortunately just as he was locking the car, the MZ car arrived so he ran back, managing to get ahead of Geoff and out of site up the embankment before runners came after him.  First in was Geoff followed very quickly by 3 other MZ runners coming from different directions.  A couple minutes later Adam YDF arrived followed by BLN another 2 minutes after him. OW arrived just over time.

Hunt 5
This was the supper hunt and was handled by Peter.  It was located in the new estate on the site of the old Arnott Factory near a fence at the end of a drain extending beyond the west end of Cox Lane.
The location was found by Bruce when creating the “Hashwood” map.  Similarly to Hunt 3 all teams found this within 3 minutes of each other with MZ first, followed by OW, YDF and finally BLN.

Final scores are slightly different from those announced on the night due to double checking however the placings are unaltered:
 1st MZ 6 pts
 2nd YDF 8 pts
 3rd OW 18 pts
 4th BLN 27 pts

Cheers,

Ian

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