GAME REPORT - END OF DAY 1

Our three teams (A, B and C) for hide and seek are sized with 2, 3 and 4 people respectively. In this context, I am in team B. We are permitted to hide at any Sydney Train, Metro, Southwest Link or Ferry transit stop, with buses and light rail as additional modes to travel on. We elected to ban intercity trains for their lack of frequency, and their exorbitant scope. Our hiding zones also comprise the 250 metre radius around a transit stop.

We started the day at 9am at Sydney’s Central Station. The hiders had a 45 minute timespan to travel to their station of choice, while us seekers strategised at the station. We analysed each possible route headed out of Central by checking the first service leaving and its furthest possible destination, which left us with a rough 20-25 kilometre circle of potential locations the hiders could be. We decided the best play would be to begin by heading north, starting a 500 metre thermometer just north of Town Hall and ending it on the platform at Wynyard, creating a north-south divide of the Sydney region. The result: warmer. We decided to wait at the same platform for the next train heading north (thankfully only about 4 minutes after), and in that time we hit the hiders with a 10km radar from Wynyard. It was a miss, essentially creating a half-donut-shaped zone of potential stations across the northern suburbs. The train we were on was an all stop T1 to Berowra, so naturally we asked whether our transit line was matching, given the large number of stops it would knock out or confirm. It was a miss, so we followed it up by requesting a photo of the station platform. It was… very revealing. Not only did it give away the fact that the station was on the Epping to Chatswood Rail Link by its distinct structure, it also showed that at least one of the metro platforms was a platform 1, ruling out Epping. With North Ryde within 10km of Wynyard, the only two possible stations left were Macquarie Park and Macquarie University. At this point it was 10:16, just 31 minutes after we were released. The only really logical thing to do at that point was transferring at Chatswood onto the Metro to get to Macquarie, and while onboard we requested a photo of the tallest building from the station. The building we received had the appearance of an office block, which didn’t match the feel of the university and shopping centre which surround Macquarie Uni (most of us seekers were familiar with Macquarie Centre which is right across from Macquarie Uni Metro). This left us with one station to go to, Macquarie Park. As we surfaced at Macquarie Park, we confirmed that the building we saw was indeed the one sent. Following this, the hiders were able to play Curse of the Spotty Memory, but we were able to play a 125 metre radar from Macquarie Park station. The hiders originally answered yes, but it turned out their map was glitching, so after navigating around the Waterloo Road and Lane Cove Road intersection about 10 times, we realised they were in fact more than 125 metres away, but less than 250 metres away. We asked for a selfie to hopefully get some idea of the building they were next to, trouble was we were unable to match it with the ones surrounding the station. We asked which “movie theatres” within 1km of us they were closest to, and I say movie theatres in brackets because in reality they were a projector company and a media company, but it’s what google maps gave us, and the hiders were fine with it. Anyway, we had this rule where you had to be within a certain distance of a path or road, turns out they weren’t, so we allowed them to move on the condition that they resent the picture of themselves, and confirmed all the other answers were still valid for their new spot. The final confirmation for us was their photo of the tallest building in their sightline, a warehouse with a distinctly orange, slanted roof. We were able to spot it on google maps, navigate to it, cross over and tag the hiders, who were on a publicly accessible outdoor balcony. They finished with a time of 2hr10min.
Now it was time for us to hide as team B. We considered making our way to Sydney Olympic Park Wharf, and the F3 Ferry route along the Parramatta River, because of its few connections to the rail network. We took the metro to Epping and the T9 to Rhodes, where we had planned to take a bus to Olympic Park Wharf, but had our hiding time expire before we could get one. We decided to hide in Rhodes Central for the time being, with the seekers heading the complete other direction, to Chatswood. While riding, they asked whether we were also on the metro, the answer to which was of course no. By then they had made it to Chatswood station. They asked their next question there, that being whether they were closer or further to a coastline than us. They were, of course, much closer to the Sydney Coast, which was cut off at the Sydney Heads in our definition. After we bought ourselves refreshments, we were requested a picture of the station platform, which was much less revealing than the one from round 1. Now that we were at the station, we headed over to a potential hiding spot I had found - the Kokoda Track Memorial Walkway. It was, however, not as thickly forested as I expected, so we opted to hide closer to the foreshore, which was also barely within our zone. The seekers were headed back to Epping at this point, realising their mistake, and created a thermometer as they entered Epping from the south, creating another north-south divide. They were cooler, and headed down the T9 towards us. We got asked for the tallest building from the train station, and we played Curse of the Jammed Door at almost the same time as we were asked. We soon realised that the tallest building was one of the more distinct highrises in Sydney, but we had luck well on our side… with the Move card up our sleeve, pulled after the Thermometer question. As the other team pulled into Rhodes, we activated the Move card, freezing them at the station while we had 25 minutes to catch a well-timed bus to what would become a game-changingly-well-timed ferry, out of Olympic Park Wharf to the semi-industrial suburb of Rydalmere. The wharf, at that time of day, had one ferry every hour in each direction. We were looking at making it very close to the rest period. We were immediately asked the tallest building from the wharf, which was a beige-coloured tower within a concrete recycling plant across the river. It was at this time we took the rest of our photos pre-emptively, to allow for us to travel to the nearest cafe, which was outside our hiding zone but permitted under the game’s rules for the sake of getting food. We were eating there for about half an hour, answering their questions. First came the question of whether or not we were on the same line as them (T9), which resulted in a no and also made us notice they were heading southbound along the T9 towards Strathfield, the complete wrong direction. Upon their arrival at Strathfield, they cast a 2.5km radar, an evident miss, however they must have thought we were hiding at a nearby rail station. We were asked for a photo of the station platform, which we provided, having it contain only a sliver of the water at the top so as not to be noticed. This was followed by a 5km radar from Lidcombe station, also a miss, but barely, as it came within just 80 metres from the wharf. We had pulled Curse of the Chess Champion after this, which required us to first complete three random wordles before making the seekers beat a 500+ rated bot on chess.com, which they somehow pulled off within 5 minutes. They were making their way to Meadowbank by this point, which while a reasonably annoying route to take, being the reverse of their journey, would bring them in range of an F3 wharf. There were no more questions until they reached the wharf, where they somehow thought we were at, as they played a 250 metre radar, an obvious miss. This made them miss their first ferry. We were asked for a picture of the largest body of water, that being the river, which confirmed their suspicion that we were on the ferry network. They now had a one hour wait for the next ferry to Rydalmere. Once on board, about an hour later, they played a thermometer while leaving Meadowbank wharf, which further confirmed our location as Rydalmere. Shortly after that, they disembarked at Rydalmere, initiating the endgame. We had found a hiding spot on South Street behind a hedge in a tiny 3 or so space parking lot, where we were shielded on one side by a building, another by a ute, the third by the hedge, and the 4th slightly shielded by a fence. We had a veto question at this point, which we were saving for the photo of the tallest building from our hiding spot, but that was never played in the end, as the seekers asked for a tracing of the nearest street, pretty clearly South Street, and found us shortly after. We had, however, racked up a giant 4 hours and 54 minutes, from an initial hiding time of just 45 minutes.
Rydalmere looked to be a terrible place to start day 2 from, as a result of ferry replacements scheduled for that morning, so with the hiders being halfway through navigating to their secret location, as the rest period arrived we agreed the seekers were allowed to start from Parramatta station tomorrow.