Pubgaine 2026

This gives us 4 hours to hit as many pubs as possible. How do we get points? Different pubs have different no. of points, depending on how difficult they are to get to. For example, pubs in Marrickville will score higher than those in Glebe, which are much closer to the starting point at Victoria Park. Drinks also give extra points, and that's the strategy teams with good alcohol (or wallet- drinks are expensive) tolerance are aiming for. 

There are also other ways to gain extra points, but they are quite trivial (and easy as well, almost everyone got them):

1. Your Team is comprised of members from two or more clubs +50

2. At least one member of the team is wearing merch from any of the participating clubs +30

3. Wearing a harness & helmet +5 per item per person

4. Bonus +50 if the team stays tied in (Via PAS/Safety sling or Rope)*

5. Ok signal (fist on head) a bartender after they tell you how much the drink costs +10 (Limit of two attempts, Photo/Video Evidence required)

6. Slip any climbing slang into your drink order (Bomber, Chossy etc, Limit of two attempts) +10

*Teams can take them off upon request by bar staff

Map Legend:
Green: 10 points
Yellow: 20 points
Orange: 30 points
Dark red: 40 points

Earth icon: Victoria Park, our spawn point

The pub locations on the map are approximate locations

I met Rishi and Harry who are ready to get to the throne. Both of them have been to all the pubs in Inner West, and a pubfinding game wouldn't present too much of a challenge to them. They teamed up with Stefan, Katya and Sofia, forming a team-ful of SUBW people. Reading the list of pubs, they could already spot a strategy- many of the pubs are very close to each other, and they sort of form clusters. For example, in Newtown there are at least 6 pubs that are minutes from each other, and can be quickly ticked off. 

They have devised a strategy where they would walk towards Newtown and tick off the pubs along the way. From Newtown, they would take the train to somewhere else and get the pubs with higher points. Quite a solid strategy coming from someone experienced. 

Forming teams for me was a bit last-minute. I saw a group of UNSW people and decided to crash into them. At least this guaranteed us interclub team points. I was wearing a SUBW T-shirt and most of them were wearing UNSWOC T-shirts = more extra points! The strategy with our team? Aim for the furthest pubs for the highest points. We'd hope to be quick with walking and bar-hopping, trying to cover as much distance within 4 hours. 

At 6pm sharp, a loud whistle blast was sounded and all teams took off. The group of UTS trip leaders took off leading the way while we followed, all running towards Cleveland St intersection. Competitive pubcrawl also means a decent amount of smart jaywalking, observing the signals and crossing when it's safe. Lights soon turned green as we headed down Cleveland St towards our first pub of the day: The Rose Hotel. 

There was a bit of queue at the bar as multiple teams were getting their drinks. We got our first drink, shared it amongst everyone, left the pub and took off. 

This is when teams parted ways and we started going our own direction. The plan was to take bus 470 to the high-value pubs at Annadale. We ticked off another pub as well while waiting for the bus- Landsdowne Hotel right at the City Rd-Broadway intersection. We ordered Guiness which took a long time to get ready, waiting for the foam to sink in. The live music was also extremely noisy. Few minutes later the beer was ready, we finished it and left that annoying place. 

A 470 bus pulled into Victoria Park bus stop, where we began our ride to Annadale. Unlike other Parramatta Rd bus routes, this route takes the inner streets which made it a lot slower. This is probably hence why pubs in Annadale are more high-value than those in Leichhardt on Parramatta Rd. A 438x/461x bus would only take 15-20 minutes without traffic, while 470 took a bit longer. While on the bus Tracy added a Sydney Uni Speleological Society pin to her T-shirt, making it a club merch. The new pins look really cute with a smiley bat. 

We got off at Annadale and that's our third pub - the Victoria Hotel. 

We went jogging down Johnston St to Empire Hotel, right at the intersection with Parramatta Rd. The uphill run is a reminder that I should join the run club.

Walking up Parramatta Rd by about 800m we've crossed from Annadale to Leichhardt. It's a really unpleasant stroad to be on with noisy traffic zooming through by the side. One day I saw this Reddit post where people were seeking suggestions on the worst places in Australia such that their relatives would stop travelling over, and this section of Parramatta Rd is amongst the top choices. 

Jack and I ran up, leading the way and ended up running past the pub we were heading to. I looked at the map and was like oops... it was one block down the hill. And there we were at Crowbar Sydney. At each pub, we would take turns to order a drink and share the drink between five of us.

Next stop was at Parramatta Rd/Norton St intersection. Now we're officially in Leichhardt. The entire pub was Guinness themed- that must be an Irish pub! It was indeed Norton's Irish Pub, and I guess this means we should get a Guinness.

Heading up Norton St, through the crossing in front of Coles, got us to The Barrel Room. It's a really cool place- well decorated, casual vibes, good spot for a date. This was my turn, so I was in charge of ordering drinks. The selection on tap was really limited, so I went with some tropical stuff- it tasted horrendous, ewwww... Each pub we would get a table, take a picture as part of the game, share the drink and leave straight after. The entire process doesn't take more than 2 minutes, and in residential areas where pub crawl isn't as much of a thing, it does feel quite funny. As we were leaving we heard people going "did they just get in"- at least it's proof that we're really efficient with drinking. 

One good thing about residential areas is that pubs don't have long queues, and we wouldn't be wasting too much time. For me, it's also exciting to be coming back, haven't been to Leichhardt for a long time since moving out of Inner West. There's been a few new Chinese restaurants, yet the vibe remained mostly the same. The abandoned Indian restaurant continues to be abandoned- I used to work there when it was Milkrun's grocery delivery depot, and Milkrun kept a lot of the old deco to stay discreet. Milkrun collapsed as it rightfully should- these VC capital ventures aren't very sustainable, and these black box shops in the middle of a main street can feel very unwelcoming. 

Heading up Norton St we saw Leichhardt Town Hall and the public school. Next pub is The Royal Leichhardt at Carlisle St. I still remember this street as there's a cafe that I go to really often, so often that the owner recognises me and my favourite order. Tip for those living on campus: Leichhardt is a really good spot to get groceries as it's 10mins from Camperdown by bus and a lot quieter than Coles in Broadway SC. 

Tracy was slightly unwell but recovered as we stepped out of the pub. Coming down Norton St I ran ahead to activate the pedestrian crossing- it can be a really long wait. 

Heading down Railway St, Petersham was just about 8 mins of fast walking. Next stop is White Cockatoo Hotel right next to the station. It's a really nice pub, something that I might come back to again. The building looks cool, it's got friendly neighbourhood pub vibes, and I really like the design of their logo (haha). 

From there, we crossed over the railway at Petersham Station, heading towards the two pubs on Livingstone Rd. Jack found a Lime helmet and decided to put it on his head. Unfortunately, that doesn't give extra points as everyone needs to have one (nice try still). Our plan was to potentially hit the pubs at Marrickville as well, but with the train line still under conversion to metro (urgh Transport for NSW) and that area relying heavily on replacement buses, it's probably a risky move time-wise, as we might not make it back in time. 

That was two hours gone, two hours left. We saw Petersham Reservoir, a large concrete mushroom, as we turned right on Livingstone Rd. Is it an eyesore? Not really. 

We went into Livingstone Hotel and were ID-ed before we got in. I showed my licence through the Vicroads app and the security was very hesitant. Pretty sure interstate licences are accepted so yeah, I don't know where he did his RSA. 

Down the other side was Public House. It's a really great place for pub nights- getting out of our usual Flodge or Royal Hotel. Don't think residential pubs will be happy with pub nights tho- we take up a lot of space and don't spend much. 

From there we walked towards Stanmore Station for the Salisbury Hotel, on the north side of the station. It's my turn, and I got Brookvale Union's Ginger Beer. Ginger beer + ice + long workout with lots of running = the best combo. While we're ordering one drink per pub, all these drinks are shared across everyone and there's a decent time gap between drinks. That means we weren't as hammered as we thought we'd be and could still power through the streets as if we haven't had anything. 

Back to Stanmore Station we got on the train for one stop to Newtown, where the cluster is. We had about an hour left by this stage, and the plan is to get through as much in this cluster while slowly heading back to Victoria Park. First stop in Newtown- Town Hall Hotel, or the Townie. We ran into this challenge with the security staff- if we won rock-paper-scissors, they'll spare us from the rigorous ID process. Jack won the game for us, saving us time from showing IDs. 

From there, we essentially ticked off most of the pubs in the clusters. We first headed down Princes Hwy towards St Peters, as the Union Hotel was, for some reason, a 40-point pub while the others were only 20 points. We got Mountain Culture's Status Quo for this drink, constantly ranked the best beer. They didn't enjoy it as much as I do, but that's fine- one day they'll get there. 

We checked off a few pubs around St Peters as well, before walking back to Newtown. In here we discovered the biggest obstacle to efficient pubcrawl- it isn't walking speed, it isn't teamwork, but the tedious ID-ing we get before entering every pub. I wasn't expecting this and Vicroads app has been annoyingly slow for the day, taking half a minute to load the ID. Vicroads app has this convenient feature of showing that yes this person is over 18, but the RSA-compliant security guards seem not to appreciate that too much. Others all had physical IDs and didn't have the same issue. 

Most of the excitement from a game like this comes from that nothing is predictable, and you're constantly hit with challenges and dynamics of modern societies, and that's all a test of how you'd react (and a bit of a gamble). 

Back to Newtown, we ticked off as much as we could, using the remaining 30 minutes. The Bank, Kelly's On King, Mary's Newtown, and finishing with The Newtown Hotel and Marly just by Missenden Rd. My favourite out of these is Mary's- I've honestly never been and it's a really cool place. We had devil's juice, which tasted horrendous. 

That left us with about 15 minutes spare, even enough time to catch a bus back to Victoria Park. We got to where we started with 5 minutes to spare, where we took a picture for the Best Picture award.

Rishi's group arrived into Victoria Park right at the 10pm mark, marking the end of the competition. Points were counted, and we got 880 points from 20 pubs + 1 drink per pub + some of the bonus point items. Rishi's group went to 13 pubs, heading towards The Rocks after the Newtown cluster. They've been to some really nice pubs such as Captain Cook Hotel, and had a proper meal in between (hence not getting as many pubs in). Still, our goal is to have a good time, and I'm sure we all did. 

This is what the final route looked like. Purple: walking/running, Orange: public transport.

And then... time for the awards! We did go to the most pubs out of all groups, averaging almost 1 pub per km travelled, but unfortunately, we were a few points from the group with the most points. The winning UTS group focused instead of no. of drinks, and all ended up very hammered on the floor. They were also roped up using some rope offcuts, which I thought was cringe, but at least that gave them points. 

We had a short ceremony with the winning team receiving their grand prize- a $10 Ultralight Gear voucher! Hooray!! They also got a photo-op with a trophy, modified from a go-kart trophy Kieran won in a work event. 

We won second place- good work from everyone! It's a fun event, I enjoyed going back to the Inner West spots I haven't been since ages ago, we had good teamwork and good communication, and we were really efficient- something canyoning trip leaders are good at. Pubgaine is fun- if we do it once a year. It does hurt our wallets quite considerably, given how drinks have become really expensive, the same price as a proper meal. One recommendation for next time: when a team captures evidence of another team jaywalking, 10 points will be transferred from that team to the reporting team. Should add a bit of dynamics and curb the near-misses with road traffic.