To the Max! (part four)
Nov. 24th, 2008 05:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hnpccSaturday was my fourth Urban Max, this time back up in Sydney. This time I paired up with my brother, as my partner from last year is currently 37 weeks pregnant. When we first arranged to compete I asked Stu what he knew about Sydney and got the response:
"Well, I'm reading Leviathan..."
Hm, could be interesting given my equally as good knowledge of Sydney and (in particular) its' bus system. Somewhat optimistically I entered us as a racing team, meaning we needed to complete all checkpoints.
The second intimation that this might have been a bad idea came when I got the final instructions for the race, and learned that we'd be starting from Paddington Town Hall.
"Where's that?!" Fortunately they'd also supplied a map and Saturday morning saw us both walking from where we were staying in Darlinghurst down to what turned out to be the next suburb along, Paddington. On arrival we noticed that there were a lot of teams. Approximately 400 as it turned out. At 8.45 all 800 of us in the hall quietened down to listen to the pre-race briefing. Already by that stage two teams had misplaced their control card, which needed to be clipped at all checkpoints. Heh.
After the usual spiel about racing carefully and remembering that we were, in fact, in a normally functioning city who were unaware that we were racing around them - so please cross roads carefully! - all the teams were divided, with one member moving to the right of the hall, and the other member moving to the left. I was already on the right so stayed put while Stu moved.
"OK, can we have a bit of a gap between you... oh hang on, you're going to hate me. Everyone move back in to fill in the gap and smile at the photographer."
A brief pause while the photos were taken.
"OK, can the people on the left form four lines and collect one envelope from the marshals."
We shuffled along, ending up with a sealed A4 manila envelope. A lot of attempted squinting at the clue sheet through the envelope ensued.
"No one open your envelopes yet! We're all going to open them at the same time to make it fair!"
"Oooh!" said the woman next to me, "it's just like The Amazing Race!"
"OK, we'll count down to opening. You'll notice that they're easy rip envelopes so you can open them quickly. OK, in one, two, now!"
A large ripping sound and a surge of people as everyone attempted to simultaneously open their envelope, read their clues and find their partners. Fortunately Stu had remained where I'd last seen him, so we managed to find each other in the throng quite quickly and pull open our clue.
Much to my surprise (especially after last year) there were some clues I knew immediately. We rapidly skim read the sheet, then phoned our backup google crew, which consisted of Leonie and Joe, and started reading clues we were unsure of out to them.
Meanwhile we started heading off down Oxford St to find a newsagent - then realised it might be easier to actually go to one of the checkpoints we knew first (which conveniently happened to be close by) while we waited for answers:
Checkpoint 5:Travel to Sydney's red light district and located the famous establishment where it is not uncommon to have bourbon with your steak. Once there, search the street where your team must locate the "OzHarvest" van and donate a minimum of two canned food products to the needy citizens of Sydney. A race marshal will verify your donation.
Back to Darlinghurst through a brief shower we headed, specifically to the Bourbon and Beefsteak Pub in Kings Cross. En route we went via Coles, who were having a "5 cans of tuna for $6!" special - so that's what was donated when we found the bright yellow OzHarvest van sitting opposite the pub. Control card marked and it was time for a quick discussion. We could head into the city - but there was a direct bus from here to the furthest point out, which would mean we could get that done first.
So we ran for and caught the bus to our second checkpoint:
Checkpoint 12: Make your way to Rose Bay Park and locate the Urban Max crew at he water's edge. Good timing will help you cruise this checkpoint.
The bus ride seemed to take an awfully long time, as we picked up at least another 5 teams en route. Eventually though we arrived at Rose Bay Park (Ok, one stop past it, but who's counting!) and all piled off the bus to head down to the water. Where there were kayaks. And a queue. As the last team arriving from the busload we were behind two other teams waiting. While we were waiting the marshal explained the course to us:
"You need to go around that buoy, then around that buoy, then around that buoy, then back. OK?" All in a strong South African accent, and with 'buoy' pronounced 'boo-ey'. Which made me laugh, not least because the only other person I've heard pronounce it like that is Jeff Probst, and he's American.
When we finally got our kayak, we hopped in and started off. And then discovered that neither of us is very good at kayaking when we promptly crashed into another team's kayak. By dint of extreme paddling we made it round the course, only crashing into one other team and being crashed into by another team en route. Fortunately we managed to avoid the moored boats and the buoys. We hopped out again, both wet and with aching stomach muscles. Looking at our watches we realised that we could walk around to the Rose Bay Ferry terminal and catch the 10.58 ferry across to Circular Quay. (Leonie and Joe had given us the times - I rang them from the bus before we got there.) As a bonus, it was likely that the ferry terminal would have public toilets. So off we headed. Just as the ferry was pulling in to the terminal, and after we'd waited about 10 minutes with only us there another four teams came sprinting across from the kayaking and joined us for the lovely and relaxing 17 minute cruise to Circular Quay.
We used the time to plan our route (again). Already two hours into the race and we still needed another 12 checkpoints! After a bit of discussion we decided to go directly to checkpoint 11, which closed at 12pm.
Checkpoint 11: The building was designed for QANTAS by Joseland & Gilling architects and was completed in 1982. Today, "The Centre" is used for commercial offices and is 182m and 42 levels high. Locate the gym inside the building and be the "First" to test your "Fitness".
This was one of the ones that Leonie and Joe had gotten back to us quickly with - it was the Fitness First gym in the Suncorp Centre. We arrived to find about 10 teams milling about outside.
"They're not letting anyone in just at the moment" said the marshal. "Maybe you should do another one and come back in a bit."
So off we headed to the nearby
Checkpoint 9: This park was named after the Commander of British Forces in Australia 1848-1853 (General). From 1933 onwards the park has been closely associated with public transport in the area. This includes a Station and Bus Terminus.
Again, L&J had come back with the relevant information and we arrived at Wynyard Park to find a large number of teams gathered around a table. On the table were cut up pieces of a grain energy bar.
"You need to identify 5 ingredients in the bar!"
I looked at the table, where the box was lying, with all five ingredients conveniently listed on it. I was still chewing though when Stu started listing the ingredients to the marshal, so I fished out our control card and presented it for stamping. Back down to the Suncorp Centre. The number of teams had grown substantially, and we were now about team number 20 standing in an orderly queue outside. A couple of teams came out and the first two or so teams entered the building. We shuffled forward. And waited. And waited.
30 minutes later, when the queue had grown to roughly 80 teams and the checkpoint was about to close, the marshal announced that everyone would be given the checkpoint at the end as there were too many people to get through. The crowd scattered. So, with three hours of the race left, we headed off to try and bag a number of checkpoints as quickly as we could. Running, we headed to:
Checkpoint 6: Find the site of Australia's first fortified position, constructed in 1788 to protect the cove from foreign invaders. Five cannon are all that remain from the former Battery. Seek shelter and you will find the location of checkpoint 6.
Again, L&J had produced the goods on this one. Both Stu and I suspected, but weren't sure that it was was Dawes Point Park, underneath the Harbour Bridge. When we arrived we discovered that pretty much every team that had been waiting at the Fitness First checkpoint had had the same idea and there was a long queue. So we stood for another 20 minutes and admired the bright sunny view of the Harbour and the Opera House. When we finally made it to the checkpoint we were given an MP3 player and a sheet of paper - for this checkpoint we needed to listen to songs and identify which films they came from. Stu listened, I wrote. We were up to song 6/12 ("What's Bohemian Rhapsody again?" "Wayne's World") when the marshal told us we only needed 4 and stamped our card. The sheet said we needed 8, but the long line of teams waiting might have changed that a bit.
Off we ran to the next point:
Checkpoint 1: Built in 1816, Cadman's Cottage is one of Sydney's earliest surviving buildings. It was designed to accommodate the Government Coxswain - the officer responsible for government boats, their operations and crews. Locate the building to complete this checkpoint.
Finally, a pursuit rather than an activity checkpoint! I actually knew where Cadman's cottage was, having walked past it the day before. After a slight miscalculation of where we were in The Rocks (we were avoiding George St due to the markets being in full swing), we clipped the card and jogged off to the next point.
Checkpoint 2: The attached photo shows the view from checkpoint 2. The walkway shares its name with a famous Socceroos player.
This one had caused quite a bit of phoning back and forth between ourselves and L&J. The photo showed a view looking across to the Harbour Bridge, with a Cruise ship and a ferry terminal in the line of sight. Unfortunately we'd gotten a bit hung up on the 'Socceroos' part of the clue, and L&J had been looking for the "Warren Walkway". It wasn't until I read the clue out and described the photo that Leonie realised that it must have been taken from the Cahill expressway. For some reason I don't look at freeway names when I'm in a running/public transport race! We managed to miss the entrance to the walkway from the Rocks side, so jogged across Circular Quay (again) to the lift at the far end. Once there, a helpful team informed us that only lift two was working, so we took that up to the expressway footpath, found the clippers and started heading back towards the next checkpoint:
Checkpoint 8: Find the location of the Monet and Impressionist Exhibition for a name dropping experience.
This was at the NSW Art Gallery, as confirmed by L&J, and was another activity checkpoint. This time we needed to find four answers:
1. What colour coat is Barry Humphrey's wearing in his portrait as Dame Edna Everage?
2. What wood was the Japanese Buddha made of?
3. What animal was in amongst the kneeling servants in the painting "The Queen of Sheba"?
4. Who painted "Head of a Peasant" in 1889?
There was also a note that no running was permitted in the gallery. Walking very, very quickly past the queue of art lovers lining up for the Monet exhibition we headed towards an exhibition of Buddhas on the first level.
"No, no, it's downstairs!" said a Gallery attendant (who must have been saying that a lot that day). We thanked her and headed down the escalator to find that the Buddha had been made of nutmeg.
Back up the stairs and into the first gallery we saw, where another attendant came over.
"Dame Edna? Next gallery. What else do you need? The Queen of Sheba's right at the back of the opposite gallery. There's a lot of lions in it, don't know if that's right. Not sure where the other painting is, but it's Van Gogh."
We scooted into the correct gallery and found that the Dame was wearing a very bright pink coat. Across the hall and right up the back to find the Queen of Sheba's servants had a monkey with them. As we were heading out we found a third attendant, who helpfully pointed us in the direction of the "Head of a Peasant" - which was in fact a Van Gogh.
Outside we started off for another time-sensitive checkpoint which was closing in half an hour:
Checkpoint 3: Locate the Kingpin in the Harbourside Shopping Centre where you have to "bag out" or "convert" to complete the checkpoint.
En route we noticed a few teams heading into St Mary's Cathedral, which we were fairly certain wasn't one of the checkpoints! We would have run down Market St, but the sheer volume of Christmas shoppers made that impractical, so we ran across the Pyrmont bridge to Harbourside Shopping Centre in Darling Harbour (again, confirmed by L&J) then through it to Kingpin Bowling. Once inside we discovered that again we needed one of us to get a strike or a spare.
Stu grabbed a ball and sent it down. 9 pins toppled.
"You've got another shot!" I said.
Stu grabbed another ball, and felled the remaining pin.
"How good was that?!"
We hurried out of the fastest-completed checkpoint we'd had all day. Seriously, we spent more time asking at the front desk where to go than we did doing the actual checkpoint.
Deciding to catch the light rail to our next checkpoint we headed to the nearest stop, which fortuitously happened to be right outside the door we exited the shopping centre through. Time was starting to be an issue - an hour and 20 minutes left and still 5 checkpoints left. 4 of which were activity checkpoints. Hm. Could we make it? We were determined to try.
Checkpoint 7: It is Australian's only hostel located in a railway station where you can stay in one of the funky railway carriages on the former Platform Zero - or one of the comfy rooms in the historic 1904 main building. Locate the hostel where flagging down a patron might just come in handy.
This would be the Railway Square YHA, conveniently located (and confirmed again by L&J) to be next to Central Station. The light rail dropped us at Central together with another team, who we followed across to the YHA. Inside we found 20 flags that we needed to identify the countries of. I read, Stu wrote. We took the list out.
"That one's wrong." Damn, I'd said 'Norway'. Stu looked at me, glanced inside. "It's Thailand. Why did I listen to you?" "It was next to a Swedish flag!"
Card stamped, we headed back into Central station. This was partly because we'd been in search of the roaming checkpoint the entire time and were hoping that Central station would have what we needed.
Checkpoint 14: To complete this checkpoint, you have to bring a printed photo of your team to the finish.
We were looking for one of those coin-operated photo booths. None there. And the chemist, which we hoped might have had a passport photo machine, was shut. Oh well, on to the next one.
Checkpoint 4: The park is a popular venue for indigenous political and cultural events - it is adjacent to the former home ground ot he South Sydney Rabbitohs. Locate the park for a test of your Sydney knowledge.
Again, this location was confirmed to be Redfern Oval by L&J. After some scrambling around to find the right street to catch the bus from we successfully caught a bus and made it to the oval with still 30 minutes before the end of the race. If we could complete this quickly we could still make it to our last two activity checkpoints (just).
Unfortunately this was where we came completely unstuck. The checkpoint was a general knowledge crossword, again with the "aid" of a Lonely Planet Sydney City guide. Some questions we found quite quickly, e.g. "Who designed the Sydney Opera House?"; "What is the name of the Town Hall room with the 8000 pipe organ?"; "Which Kings Cross theatre company did Cate Blanchett start out in?". And then you had the others. The one that really stumped us, and which we were still trying to find at 2.55pm when the rain hit and the marshals took pity on us was "Where is Sydney's life size chess board located?" We still don't know (we probably should have rung L&J to be honest!), but they stamped our card anyway and we started the long haul back to Paddington Town Hall to hand in our bibs and card.
Which turned out to be a longer-than-necessary haul, not least because we went back into the city and out, rather than taking a bus across. Of course, that would have required knowing that there was a bus to take, which we didn't.
We arrived back at 3.30pmish, just as everyone else was leaving the hall. Still, we managed to get a beer and a sandwich, hand our card in (despite a last minute panic when Stu was convinced we'd lost it between the Redfern and Paddington!) and sit down. 20 or so minutes later as we were leaving we saw another team coming in after us.
The 3 checkpoints we missed were the photo one - a surprisingly high number of teams got that one. I've no idea how - I did have a mobile capable of taking photos but I've no idea how to get them off there and we didn't find any photo-booths anywhere. Later that night of course we found a multitude of passport photo taking chemists, *sigh*.
Checkpoint 10 was a URL, which L&J described as being a map of Moore Park, with a circle in the section between South Dowling St, Anzac Pde and Cleveland St.
Checkpoint 13: Built in the late 1800s at a cost of 15,000 pounds. It opened in 1891 and still stands as a hugely impressive example of European architecture in Sydney. Its' clock tower stands at 32 metres high, and sitting as it does on the ridge of Oxford Street, dominates the Paddington skyline. Step inside the limelight for your one minute of fame.
This was our start/end point, the Paddington Town Hall, where karaoke had been set up. Unfortunately they were packing up by the time we got back.
"Damn" said Stu, who'd just come back from three weeks in Japan, "I'd been practising that too!"
The biggest difference between this Urban Max and the previous three ones I've done was the number of activity checkpoints and the number of teams. Which kind of fed off each other a bit - we guessed we'd spent about an hour out of the 6 total just waiting to do checkpoints, which kind of made it hard. Last year's Sydney Urban Max had fewer activity checkpoints (8 activity, 1 Roaming, 1 Mystery and 3 Pursuit compared to 11 Activity, 2 Pursuit, 1 Roaming this year - 7 activity, 1 mystery, 3 pursuit in Melbourne last year, 8 activity, 1 Mystery, 1 Roaming and 3 Pursuit this year) and more of the activity ones were ones similar to the Art Gallery, where a number of teams could do them simultaneously rather than having to wait. Even with the limited numbers ones in Melbourne, the difference in the number of teams (77 this year versus 400 in Sydney) meant that there was very little waiting time.
The major disappointment for me actually came today when I found that we weren't on the results listings, despite having returned. Neither were another 42 teams though, so we definitely weren't alone! (Actually we knew that - there were at least another 5 teams who got the mercy finish at Redfern.) And I'm definitely impressed that the leading team finished in 3 hours 55 minutes and 40 seconds - they must have run the entire way. And known where they were going, of course!
Still, we had fun, we saw a lot of Sydney and if I can ever manage to get a damn bus map[1] for Sydney we're in with a chance. Next year!
Edit: and again, a map of where we actually went. We could probably have cut a km or so off if we'd managed to go across to Moore Park instead of back into the city!
[1] I tried this year and the guy gave me two timetables. Which turned out to be helpful, but not what I actually wanted.
"Well, I'm reading Leviathan..."
Hm, could be interesting given my equally as good knowledge of Sydney and (in particular) its' bus system. Somewhat optimistically I entered us as a racing team, meaning we needed to complete all checkpoints.
The second intimation that this might have been a bad idea came when I got the final instructions for the race, and learned that we'd be starting from Paddington Town Hall.
"Where's that?!" Fortunately they'd also supplied a map and Saturday morning saw us both walking from where we were staying in Darlinghurst down to what turned out to be the next suburb along, Paddington. On arrival we noticed that there were a lot of teams. Approximately 400 as it turned out. At 8.45 all 800 of us in the hall quietened down to listen to the pre-race briefing. Already by that stage two teams had misplaced their control card, which needed to be clipped at all checkpoints. Heh.
After the usual spiel about racing carefully and remembering that we were, in fact, in a normally functioning city who were unaware that we were racing around them - so please cross roads carefully! - all the teams were divided, with one member moving to the right of the hall, and the other member moving to the left. I was already on the right so stayed put while Stu moved.
"OK, can we have a bit of a gap between you... oh hang on, you're going to hate me. Everyone move back in to fill in the gap and smile at the photographer."
A brief pause while the photos were taken.
"OK, can the people on the left form four lines and collect one envelope from the marshals."
We shuffled along, ending up with a sealed A4 manila envelope. A lot of attempted squinting at the clue sheet through the envelope ensued.
"No one open your envelopes yet! We're all going to open them at the same time to make it fair!"
"Oooh!" said the woman next to me, "it's just like The Amazing Race!"
"OK, we'll count down to opening. You'll notice that they're easy rip envelopes so you can open them quickly. OK, in one, two, now!"
A large ripping sound and a surge of people as everyone attempted to simultaneously open their envelope, read their clues and find their partners. Fortunately Stu had remained where I'd last seen him, so we managed to find each other in the throng quite quickly and pull open our clue.
Much to my surprise (especially after last year) there were some clues I knew immediately. We rapidly skim read the sheet, then phoned our backup google crew, which consisted of Leonie and Joe, and started reading clues we were unsure of out to them.
Meanwhile we started heading off down Oxford St to find a newsagent - then realised it might be easier to actually go to one of the checkpoints we knew first (which conveniently happened to be close by) while we waited for answers:
Checkpoint 5:Travel to Sydney's red light district and located the famous establishment where it is not uncommon to have bourbon with your steak. Once there, search the street where your team must locate the "OzHarvest" van and donate a minimum of two canned food products to the needy citizens of Sydney. A race marshal will verify your donation.
Back to Darlinghurst through a brief shower we headed, specifically to the Bourbon and Beefsteak Pub in Kings Cross. En route we went via Coles, who were having a "5 cans of tuna for $6!" special - so that's what was donated when we found the bright yellow OzHarvest van sitting opposite the pub. Control card marked and it was time for a quick discussion. We could head into the city - but there was a direct bus from here to the furthest point out, which would mean we could get that done first.
So we ran for and caught the bus to our second checkpoint:
Checkpoint 12: Make your way to Rose Bay Park and locate the Urban Max crew at he water's edge. Good timing will help you cruise this checkpoint.
The bus ride seemed to take an awfully long time, as we picked up at least another 5 teams en route. Eventually though we arrived at Rose Bay Park (Ok, one stop past it, but who's counting!) and all piled off the bus to head down to the water. Where there were kayaks. And a queue. As the last team arriving from the busload we were behind two other teams waiting. While we were waiting the marshal explained the course to us:
"You need to go around that buoy, then around that buoy, then around that buoy, then back. OK?" All in a strong South African accent, and with 'buoy' pronounced 'boo-ey'. Which made me laugh, not least because the only other person I've heard pronounce it like that is Jeff Probst, and he's American.
When we finally got our kayak, we hopped in and started off. And then discovered that neither of us is very good at kayaking when we promptly crashed into another team's kayak. By dint of extreme paddling we made it round the course, only crashing into one other team and being crashed into by another team en route. Fortunately we managed to avoid the moored boats and the buoys. We hopped out again, both wet and with aching stomach muscles. Looking at our watches we realised that we could walk around to the Rose Bay Ferry terminal and catch the 10.58 ferry across to Circular Quay. (Leonie and Joe had given us the times - I rang them from the bus before we got there.) As a bonus, it was likely that the ferry terminal would have public toilets. So off we headed. Just as the ferry was pulling in to the terminal, and after we'd waited about 10 minutes with only us there another four teams came sprinting across from the kayaking and joined us for the lovely and relaxing 17 minute cruise to Circular Quay.
We used the time to plan our route (again). Already two hours into the race and we still needed another 12 checkpoints! After a bit of discussion we decided to go directly to checkpoint 11, which closed at 12pm.
Checkpoint 11: The building was designed for QANTAS by Joseland & Gilling architects and was completed in 1982. Today, "The Centre" is used for commercial offices and is 182m and 42 levels high. Locate the gym inside the building and be the "First" to test your "Fitness".
This was one of the ones that Leonie and Joe had gotten back to us quickly with - it was the Fitness First gym in the Suncorp Centre. We arrived to find about 10 teams milling about outside.
"They're not letting anyone in just at the moment" said the marshal. "Maybe you should do another one and come back in a bit."
So off we headed to the nearby
Checkpoint 9: This park was named after the Commander of British Forces in Australia 1848-1853 (General). From 1933 onwards the park has been closely associated with public transport in the area. This includes a Station and Bus Terminus.
Again, L&J had come back with the relevant information and we arrived at Wynyard Park to find a large number of teams gathered around a table. On the table were cut up pieces of a grain energy bar.
"You need to identify 5 ingredients in the bar!"
I looked at the table, where the box was lying, with all five ingredients conveniently listed on it. I was still chewing though when Stu started listing the ingredients to the marshal, so I fished out our control card and presented it for stamping. Back down to the Suncorp Centre. The number of teams had grown substantially, and we were now about team number 20 standing in an orderly queue outside. A couple of teams came out and the first two or so teams entered the building. We shuffled forward. And waited. And waited.
30 minutes later, when the queue had grown to roughly 80 teams and the checkpoint was about to close, the marshal announced that everyone would be given the checkpoint at the end as there were too many people to get through. The crowd scattered. So, with three hours of the race left, we headed off to try and bag a number of checkpoints as quickly as we could. Running, we headed to:
Checkpoint 6: Find the site of Australia's first fortified position, constructed in 1788 to protect the cove from foreign invaders. Five cannon are all that remain from the former Battery. Seek shelter and you will find the location of checkpoint 6.
Again, L&J had produced the goods on this one. Both Stu and I suspected, but weren't sure that it was was Dawes Point Park, underneath the Harbour Bridge. When we arrived we discovered that pretty much every team that had been waiting at the Fitness First checkpoint had had the same idea and there was a long queue. So we stood for another 20 minutes and admired the bright sunny view of the Harbour and the Opera House. When we finally made it to the checkpoint we were given an MP3 player and a sheet of paper - for this checkpoint we needed to listen to songs and identify which films they came from. Stu listened, I wrote. We were up to song 6/12 ("What's Bohemian Rhapsody again?" "Wayne's World") when the marshal told us we only needed 4 and stamped our card. The sheet said we needed 8, but the long line of teams waiting might have changed that a bit.
Off we ran to the next point:
Checkpoint 1: Built in 1816, Cadman's Cottage is one of Sydney's earliest surviving buildings. It was designed to accommodate the Government Coxswain - the officer responsible for government boats, their operations and crews. Locate the building to complete this checkpoint.
Finally, a pursuit rather than an activity checkpoint! I actually knew where Cadman's cottage was, having walked past it the day before. After a slight miscalculation of where we were in The Rocks (we were avoiding George St due to the markets being in full swing), we clipped the card and jogged off to the next point.
Checkpoint 2: The attached photo shows the view from checkpoint 2. The walkway shares its name with a famous Socceroos player.
This one had caused quite a bit of phoning back and forth between ourselves and L&J. The photo showed a view looking across to the Harbour Bridge, with a Cruise ship and a ferry terminal in the line of sight. Unfortunately we'd gotten a bit hung up on the 'Socceroos' part of the clue, and L&J had been looking for the "Warren Walkway". It wasn't until I read the clue out and described the photo that Leonie realised that it must have been taken from the Cahill expressway. For some reason I don't look at freeway names when I'm in a running/public transport race! We managed to miss the entrance to the walkway from the Rocks side, so jogged across Circular Quay (again) to the lift at the far end. Once there, a helpful team informed us that only lift two was working, so we took that up to the expressway footpath, found the clippers and started heading back towards the next checkpoint:
Checkpoint 8: Find the location of the Monet and Impressionist Exhibition for a name dropping experience.
This was at the NSW Art Gallery, as confirmed by L&J, and was another activity checkpoint. This time we needed to find four answers:
1. What colour coat is Barry Humphrey's wearing in his portrait as Dame Edna Everage?
2. What wood was the Japanese Buddha made of?
3. What animal was in amongst the kneeling servants in the painting "The Queen of Sheba"?
4. Who painted "Head of a Peasant" in 1889?
There was also a note that no running was permitted in the gallery. Walking very, very quickly past the queue of art lovers lining up for the Monet exhibition we headed towards an exhibition of Buddhas on the first level.
"No, no, it's downstairs!" said a Gallery attendant (who must have been saying that a lot that day). We thanked her and headed down the escalator to find that the Buddha had been made of nutmeg.
Back up the stairs and into the first gallery we saw, where another attendant came over.
"Dame Edna? Next gallery. What else do you need? The Queen of Sheba's right at the back of the opposite gallery. There's a lot of lions in it, don't know if that's right. Not sure where the other painting is, but it's Van Gogh."
We scooted into the correct gallery and found that the Dame was wearing a very bright pink coat. Across the hall and right up the back to find the Queen of Sheba's servants had a monkey with them. As we were heading out we found a third attendant, who helpfully pointed us in the direction of the "Head of a Peasant" - which was in fact a Van Gogh.
Outside we started off for another time-sensitive checkpoint which was closing in half an hour:
Checkpoint 3: Locate the Kingpin in the Harbourside Shopping Centre where you have to "bag out" or "convert" to complete the checkpoint.
En route we noticed a few teams heading into St Mary's Cathedral, which we were fairly certain wasn't one of the checkpoints! We would have run down Market St, but the sheer volume of Christmas shoppers made that impractical, so we ran across the Pyrmont bridge to Harbourside Shopping Centre in Darling Harbour (again, confirmed by L&J) then through it to Kingpin Bowling. Once inside we discovered that again we needed one of us to get a strike or a spare.
Stu grabbed a ball and sent it down. 9 pins toppled.
"You've got another shot!" I said.
Stu grabbed another ball, and felled the remaining pin.
"How good was that?!"
We hurried out of the fastest-completed checkpoint we'd had all day. Seriously, we spent more time asking at the front desk where to go than we did doing the actual checkpoint.
Deciding to catch the light rail to our next checkpoint we headed to the nearest stop, which fortuitously happened to be right outside the door we exited the shopping centre through. Time was starting to be an issue - an hour and 20 minutes left and still 5 checkpoints left. 4 of which were activity checkpoints. Hm. Could we make it? We were determined to try.
Checkpoint 7: It is Australian's only hostel located in a railway station where you can stay in one of the funky railway carriages on the former Platform Zero - or one of the comfy rooms in the historic 1904 main building. Locate the hostel where flagging down a patron might just come in handy.
This would be the Railway Square YHA, conveniently located (and confirmed again by L&J) to be next to Central Station. The light rail dropped us at Central together with another team, who we followed across to the YHA. Inside we found 20 flags that we needed to identify the countries of. I read, Stu wrote. We took the list out.
"That one's wrong." Damn, I'd said 'Norway'. Stu looked at me, glanced inside. "It's Thailand. Why did I listen to you?" "It was next to a Swedish flag!"
Card stamped, we headed back into Central station. This was partly because we'd been in search of the roaming checkpoint the entire time and were hoping that Central station would have what we needed.
Checkpoint 14: To complete this checkpoint, you have to bring a printed photo of your team to the finish.
We were looking for one of those coin-operated photo booths. None there. And the chemist, which we hoped might have had a passport photo machine, was shut. Oh well, on to the next one.
Checkpoint 4: The park is a popular venue for indigenous political and cultural events - it is adjacent to the former home ground ot he South Sydney Rabbitohs. Locate the park for a test of your Sydney knowledge.
Again, this location was confirmed to be Redfern Oval by L&J. After some scrambling around to find the right street to catch the bus from we successfully caught a bus and made it to the oval with still 30 minutes before the end of the race. If we could complete this quickly we could still make it to our last two activity checkpoints (just).
Unfortunately this was where we came completely unstuck. The checkpoint was a general knowledge crossword, again with the "aid" of a Lonely Planet Sydney City guide. Some questions we found quite quickly, e.g. "Who designed the Sydney Opera House?"; "What is the name of the Town Hall room with the 8000 pipe organ?"; "Which Kings Cross theatre company did Cate Blanchett start out in?". And then you had the others. The one that really stumped us, and which we were still trying to find at 2.55pm when the rain hit and the marshals took pity on us was "Where is Sydney's life size chess board located?" We still don't know (we probably should have rung L&J to be honest!), but they stamped our card anyway and we started the long haul back to Paddington Town Hall to hand in our bibs and card.
Which turned out to be a longer-than-necessary haul, not least because we went back into the city and out, rather than taking a bus across. Of course, that would have required knowing that there was a bus to take, which we didn't.
We arrived back at 3.30pmish, just as everyone else was leaving the hall. Still, we managed to get a beer and a sandwich, hand our card in (despite a last minute panic when Stu was convinced we'd lost it between the Redfern and Paddington!) and sit down. 20 or so minutes later as we were leaving we saw another team coming in after us.
The 3 checkpoints we missed were the photo one - a surprisingly high number of teams got that one. I've no idea how - I did have a mobile capable of taking photos but I've no idea how to get them off there and we didn't find any photo-booths anywhere. Later that night of course we found a multitude of passport photo taking chemists, *sigh*.
Checkpoint 10 was a URL, which L&J described as being a map of Moore Park, with a circle in the section between South Dowling St, Anzac Pde and Cleveland St.
Checkpoint 13: Built in the late 1800s at a cost of 15,000 pounds. It opened in 1891 and still stands as a hugely impressive example of European architecture in Sydney. Its' clock tower stands at 32 metres high, and sitting as it does on the ridge of Oxford Street, dominates the Paddington skyline. Step inside the limelight for your one minute of fame.
This was our start/end point, the Paddington Town Hall, where karaoke had been set up. Unfortunately they were packing up by the time we got back.
"Damn" said Stu, who'd just come back from three weeks in Japan, "I'd been practising that too!"
The biggest difference between this Urban Max and the previous three ones I've done was the number of activity checkpoints and the number of teams. Which kind of fed off each other a bit - we guessed we'd spent about an hour out of the 6 total just waiting to do checkpoints, which kind of made it hard. Last year's Sydney Urban Max had fewer activity checkpoints (8 activity, 1 Roaming, 1 Mystery and 3 Pursuit compared to 11 Activity, 2 Pursuit, 1 Roaming this year - 7 activity, 1 mystery, 3 pursuit in Melbourne last year, 8 activity, 1 Mystery, 1 Roaming and 3 Pursuit this year) and more of the activity ones were ones similar to the Art Gallery, where a number of teams could do them simultaneously rather than having to wait. Even with the limited numbers ones in Melbourne, the difference in the number of teams (77 this year versus 400 in Sydney) meant that there was very little waiting time.
The major disappointment for me actually came today when I found that we weren't on the results listings, despite having returned. Neither were another 42 teams though, so we definitely weren't alone! (Actually we knew that - there were at least another 5 teams who got the mercy finish at Redfern.) And I'm definitely impressed that the leading team finished in 3 hours 55 minutes and 40 seconds - they must have run the entire way. And known where they were going, of course!
Still, we had fun, we saw a lot of Sydney and if I can ever manage to get a damn bus map[1] for Sydney we're in with a chance. Next year!
Edit: and again, a map of where we actually went. We could probably have cut a km or so off if we'd managed to go across to Moore Park instead of back into the city!
[1] I tried this year and the guy gave me two timetables. Which turned out to be helpful, but not what I actually wanted.
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Date: 2008-11-24 12:50 pm (UTC)What, how do you pronounce it, then? I've never heard it any other way, but then again I've only heard it pronounced by Americans. And maybe on an episode of Keeping Up Appearances, but as I recall it was pronounced that way there too.
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Date: 2008-11-25 02:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-25 10:29 am (UTC)I still do a mental double take at Boo-ey - honestly, it's just a silly pronunciation!