Pjamesk hosted the Hunt and Munch 2012 event on Saturday, and we had a blast. The morning started out a bit stressful for me. I had to wake up extra early to pump in time to get to the start of the race, and when I went to download the waypoint coordinates the file kept throwing up corruption errors. Not being able to quickly find the error by looking at the gpx file, I wound up copying and pasting coordinates from the file to GSAK, then loading them into the GPSr. Naomi was joining us, and instead of being able to hit the road when she arrived she looked after Eskil while I ran around the house frantically being frantic. Finally we were headed to the start of the race.
Race briefings had already started when we arrived at Long Beach in Sandy Bay, our starting point. However since we’ve done this event two or three times in the past we were fine. While individual team briefings happened, Scott took Eskil for his first play on the swings (very popular) and to pretend to be a koala (not so popular). Eventually we had our briefing and were on the road!
The rally is timed. We received an individual team, during which we were giving the questions that needed to be answered at the waypoints, bonus tasks to be completed and items to be collected, and completed a short trivia quiz. We were off by 10:45 and had two hours to get to Tolosa Park. I had followed the rules and not looked up the location of any waypoints ahead of time, so as I wasn’t oriented yet I just navigated us to the first waypoint. We collected the required info and a few items off our list of things, then headed for the next waypoint. We were now in the neighbourhood of the university, so getting a complete stranger to don a fake nose (well, actually one of Eskil’s toys – we weren’t that organised) was easy. Also a photo of Scott and Naomi on an overpass. I was beginning to get an idea of where we should head for some higher point waypoint questions, but on the way we went to Battery Point and the Regatta Grounds. After this is was the Eastern shore for higher points. You also get points for gathering bags of rubbish, and at one point I saw a huge pile of bags tossed to the side of the road. But 1) how disgusting and 2) we have a pram in the back of the car, so didn’t suggest we grab them. If we had cared about winning this would have been a bad move; the DDTs picked up this rubbish and wound up winning first prize! We had teams before and behind us when we were on the Eastern shore, but then we came across the Bowen Bridge and headed home for some things we needed to collect (photo of a goat – from one of Eskil’s word books, something sticky – marmalade, a hat, etc). We hit Bay for a pine cone, then did a couple more waypoints before heading for Tolosa. At 10 points deducted for each minute you are late, it is a better idea to arrive early than to gather another 5 point waypoint!
We arrived 5 minutes before our check-in time at the Doing the Right Thing CITO event location. After checking in, we were FINALLY able to eat breakfast! Eskil behaved really well for the rally. He slept for at least half of it, and Scott changed his nappy once during it. It was fantastic having Naomi with us not just because she has a twisted sense of humour, but also as she was the team scribe and told us what items to look out for as well as looked after Eskil in the back seat. I hope we can team up again next year!
(If I get a chance I’ll add a route map later – but right now Eskil is waking up!!)
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