Law’s Blog

The Bell City Chase Victoria, May 7, 2005

My Officemates found out that the Bell City Chase is happening in Victoria. This race was part scavengers hunt part obstacle course. They said that it was like the amazing race and that we should join. So we joined. Our team was the QA POWERBALLS made up of me and Doug Chase as the participants and the rest of the QA team as the command center.

The Race is on. Registration started at 8:30 am. We got to the Delta Ocean Point Hotel and got our kit. The Kit was made up of the official Bell City Chase T-Shirt and out race bib that we had to ware at all times. We also got a bus pass, McDonalds food coupon, motrin (which will come in handy later on), some informative brochure.

The race time was almost there. There were about 100 teams there. The MC Started to talk and give out pointers. And we are off.

The first part of the race is a scavenger’s hunt. We had to get the list of stuff in 2 locations either at the tennis court of the hotel or at the via terminal. We decided to go to the tennis court as it was the closer of the two. We had to get 10 things from the 15 listed. I can’t remember everything on the list, but I can remember what we got:

1. A yellow rubber duck - Was at the fountain of the hotel in front.
2. A lock hair - My hair was cut by Doug
3. A business card with an area code other than 250 - We went to a hotel downtown and just started asking people for business card
4. A photocopy of a hand - at the above hotel, we asked of we can use the photo copy machine.
5. A McDonalds Vinegar packet - We went to McDonald’s by View and Douglas.
6. A Bus Transfer ticket - There was a bus parked in front of The Bay center and we just asked one.
7. A shoelace - It did not say a full shoelace so Doug cut his shoe lace.
8. A live animal - There was a pet store by the View street parkade. We bought the cheapest one.
9. A Green Onion - This was a clue from the email update. So we already have this handy.
10. The first available west jet direct flight from Victoria to Alberta - We called out command center for them to get the time and phone us back

Some stuff that we did not get
See weed, A coin from 1980, A sleeman’s Coaster

We then went back to the hotel to get our stuff check and get the obstacle course portion of it. We finished this portion just before 11 am. May be 10:45 or something like that.

We got the course route. There were 12 marks and we had to complete 10 by 4 pm. We decided to do that pop quiz first. There were 15 questions but we had to answer only 10. We tried to answer as much as we can by calling command center and asking a passer by. We were there for around 15 minutes when we decided that we are wasting time. So an idea was to fax out the form to our command center and they answer it for us.

So on to the next challenge. We decided to do the close challenges first. The thing that we did was Say Cheese. It was located at 910 goverment street. Doug was so sure where it was so I trusted him. So when we got to goverment street we turned right. After a few minutes of running we found out that we were going on the wrong directions so we turned around and ran the other way. We got to 910 govermenent.

The challenge was to take pictures using a camera phone. there were 5 scenes that we had to shoot.

1. Both team member with someone in uniform - There was a bear with a uniform in front of a store there.
2. A team member on a 5 person pyramid, There were other teams there looking for a pyramid so we joined in.
3. A team member piggy backing a stranger with a hat. - From the team that we met above, Doug carried one form the there team.3
4. Both team member on a bike at the same time. - There were bikes parked there and both Doug and I jumped on it and we had someone take our picture.
5. A Team member with a fist - We went in a gift shop and we found a fish.

On to our second challenge that was also in the same point. Our task was to sell 5 Support the kids help phone bracelets for $20.00. This was a bit hard as well since they were other teams ahead of us so most of the people in the area already was sold so we had to go a bit further to sell all the bracelets. Was not that bad but we got it done.

On to the third challenge. Our command center advised us to go to the wax museum since it was close by. We did not understand the clue since it was in French. But our command center translated it for us. Our tas was to find a live person among the wax. It was bit of hard to find that person. Most of the team were looking at this one display so that is where I looked as well. It was in the Battle of Canada display. The person was lying down pretending to be the dead. He had is arm stretched at one point. Then when i returned to the display again he had is arm curled up so that is when I knew where it was.

Next stop was the Bay fire station. We had to take a bus from downtown to Douglas and Bay. The task was we had to retrieve a fire hose from the tower. Get a nozzle from this freezing water 10 ft deep. Then Connect the Nozzle to the hose. Connect the hose to the Fire truck and turn the water on And hit a jug about 100 meters away. Roll the hose up and put it back in the tower. Put the Nozzle back in the water. So I was hose guy and Doug was the Nozzle guy. The tower was 3 flights up. And the hose was wet and heavy. And according to Doug the water was freezing. It was physical and hard on the body.

4 down 6 to go. On the 5th one which was in crystal pools. It was a few blocks away so we walked up to it. Getting there we were instructed at the front door to just wear shorts and shower off and go to the shallow end of the pool. When we got to the shallow end of the pool we were instructed that we had to swim to the deep end and we had to bring a bowling ball from the deep end to the shallow end without lifting the ball from the pool floor. I had a problem with this as I can’t swim well in deep water. So I was not able to help Doug in the deep end. According to Doug that the there was a steep slope going to the shallow end where the ball keeps rolling down. That was the biggest challenge. Was he got that ball to the shallow end I was able to help him roll the ball on to the finish.

We were now on the way to UVIC where there were 3 challenges close by. So we hoped on # 6 bus and got down on the Hillside and had to wait for the number 4 bus. We had to wait for about 15 minutes until the bus came. By this time we got the answers for the pop quiz from the command central. Our plan was to go to the 2 uvic challenges (the orienteering and the Bike/run) but some girls on the bus said that mt tolmie was on the way so we decided to go to mt  tolmie first and skip the orienteering. We got of the bus and walked/run to mt tolmie. It was a long walk uphill to mt tolmie. IT took us around 15 minutes before getting to the top of the hill. When we got on top the task was we had 5 tries to shoot a pop can down with the paint ball gun. If you miss you get shot on the behind by your partner with the paintball gun. Doug was first and he was able to shoot a can in 3 tries. Then it was my turn. I think all my shots were off. I did not get a can down. So I had to get my ass shot. It stung for a while but I tried to contain the pain.

Now on to the next one. We were thinking of going to the Stewart building for the biking/running event. Walking down the hill we saw a bell city chase Volvo car so we hitched a ride from him. Good Thing?? I don’t know! We asked to be dropped at the Stewart complex but instead we got dropped at the student union building. So we had to walk to the Stewart building. And another bad luck. We could not seem to find the Stewart building by foot. We asked a couple of people and they pointed us to the wrong directions. So we wasted a couple of minutes going around. When we got to the Stewart building the task was each member has to go on an exercise equipment and complete the required distance. I chose to go do the bike for 3.1 miles while Doug went on the treadmill for 1 mile.

Then off to the government house where there were 2 events. It is getting pretty late. It was around 3 pm. and the bus ride was around 20 minutes. So we got to the government house at around 3:20. We submitted our pop quiz result. No problem 8th task done. On to the ninth task. It was to pick a number from 1 to 6.  And Each number had a special drink to it. We herd from the bus that number 3 was pancake batter, syrup and bacon bits. So that was what Doug got. I got number 1. It was lemon concentrate, vinegar and green olives. It was horrible. I had to use the mouth wash to numb out my taste buds.

So that was 9 tasks completed. It was already almost 4 pm so we decided to check in the finish line as it was about to close. We had to wait for the bus. So we finally got to the finish at around quarter past 4 and they were already tearing down the finish line. But we were still able to check in. The results are in. We were 87th team to finish out of 92.

This was such a fun event to join. Can’t wait for next year’s event! BooooYaaaaa!