E.M.U. 4: Geometric Power Anglesea, Victoria, Australia
By Mr Emu on 13-Feb-09. Waypoint GC1K2YV

I was originally planning to "Temporarily Disable" the caches in this series while I reconfigured each of the first four puzzles (E.M.U.s 0, 1, 2 & 3 were confirmed as within the boundaries of the Great Otway National Park) and moved the caches to acceptable nearby locations. As it turns out I've spent (wasted!) the last week of my holidays trying to do just that, but am not at all satisfied with the results. In many cases the point of the cache was a unique viewpoint that I wanted to share - not something that is easily substituted. The puzzle workarounds were starting to look a bit ridiculous, and although E.M.U.s 4, 5 & 6 were in the Anglesea Heath and could have stayed, the series is pretty-much "broken". I don't even want to talk about the cursed E.M.U. 7 !

I am very sorry to disappoint the cachers who had recently convinced me to keep this well-appreciated series alive. I tried, but after the last week's effort I've decided that it's time to retire this specific series. Don't worry, the unique containers will be cleaned and freshened-up. You never know when the "caching muse" will strike!

Thanks to all of the cachers who attempted the puzzles and made the trek to the caches. I really appreciated all of the generous comments in your logs.

*** If there are any cachers who found at least three (3) caches in this series and have not yet claimed their "pathtag bonus", please get in contact with me as soon as possible with your preferred mailing address. (Now that I've got the logbooks in hand, don't worry if you can't find the "verification codes" - I can verify claims.) ***


*One final comment: in the process of collecting all of the containers today I was once again disappointed to see all the signs from our fellow citizens who don't adhere to Parks Victoria rules e.g. multiple well-worn (and illegal) mountain bike single-track created in National Park, people walking German Shepherd dogs off-leash in bushland in National Park (where on-leash is acceptable), rubbish strewn through carparks and bushland etc. My faith-in-humanity meter is lying idle on the "0" mark at the moment...

At least I got some good exercise. Those caches weigh almost 7kg, and I think I covered quite a few km of bush tracks.

07 January 2011 17:10:00

This was an interesting one that I would have probably not completed in the time before the cache was archived if it was'nt for your help Mr Emu.

As always a clever puzzle that got me to a great location.

This was certaibnly a relief to get to after my last walking effort.

I virtually drove to GZ, signed the log and was off.

TFTC

Woohoo ! Cache #150, #3 for the day and the final one in the series for us !

A hint from themd while swapping Gnomes and caching stories yesterday had confirmed what I had sort of thought was the process. I duly worked everything out, feeling somewhat smug, to be shattered when Evince gave me the bad news that I was wrong. While waiting for the 10 minutes to pass, I checked my workings and everything looked plausible. The I realised what I had done...I had changed the N to S on the Evince boxes, but had forgeotten to change the W to E ! Evince was quite happy once I had done that !

A bit of local knowledge helped here, having driven the final track a few times in the Cruiser, so I knew that with the dry conditions, it would present no great problem for the lower-slung Peugeot and I was right. A short time later, the cache was in hand and logs were signed. We grabbed the Sylvester, which will make a fine TB I think and since we're beach people, the Hot-Wheels beach-buggy was too good to resist.

I've thoroughly enjoyed this series, even if I have had to bug people for assistance with the puzzles. Thanks very much for all the effort you have put in Mr Emu and you've set a benchmark for others to live up to. This series had gotten me out walking to places I doubt I'd have been otherwise and which may now become regular haunts.

Thanks for another great dayout Mr Emu, and also your help on solving this one.....
cheers
TNLN
TFTC

02/01/2011 13:04 Found: #167 #7/23 Huge (for me) cache day with lochb and PrincessDiala. Picked up the hint in the cartoon and then had to find a way to plot the 6 points. I finally managed to get it to work via gccalc and Google Earth. This track looked like it would be wicked in the wet but lucky for us it was dry. One of the closest caches from Mr EMU so far. Thanks Mr EMU for the cache series and intriguing puzzles.

As I had already found E.M.U. 3 my next find would be this cache.
Far too many numbers for my liking, with no knowledge of how to solve it - hmm..
One of the last two that I needed to solve before I had the complete series.
I really needed a big push to get me started on this one - many thanks Mr Emu! ..and then I was off and racing to the Evince green light!
We were hesitant about driving here, but landau351 made the move, and we followed hoping that we wouldn't get stuck, thankfully we didn't the track was dry!
The short walk was made down the hill to find the well camoflaged container.
Thanks Mr Emu for the puzzle, the guidance, and the cache!

Found today in the company of two others from the Vic puzzle solvers group - PrincessDiala and Landau351, before this series is being archived.

A geometrical puzzle! "Easy", I thought. But I had not taken into account the many different things you can do with the given information! The centroid wasn't it. Ignoring the fact that the earth is round placed GZ somewhere close to Wagga Wagga. After a hint from Mr Emu, I was able to find the solution using a web tool, confirmed by some trusty trigonometry.

We followed Landay351 into what looked like a 4WD track, but turned out to be AWD accessible. Cache was found quickly.

TFTC and the puzzle, I enjoyed both very much!

We had to get a subtle poke for this one - that poke gave us the precision we needed to get coords that evince liked (that you Mr Emu!). Thankfully the car park was dry, and thankfully no downwards descent was required (that would've been murder coming back up!). Third one down for the series today. TFTC Mr Emu.

Thank You Mr Emu. Sensational Again.......

A quick note for anybody who may be interested in attempting the E.M.U. series. I have altered my recent archiving plans (at request) so that all eight of these caches (#'s 0-7) will remain active up to - and including - Saturday 08 January 2011. After that date, I have no option but to archive the caches permanently.

* I am quite happy to provide guidance/hints for those that need help, but you will still need to do some work (and walking!) in the end.

Heard that these are going to go off line and having solved the series a couple of months back did not want to miss out on the find. Excellent Series and am sad to see Mr Emu pulling the pin on these ones. Thanks for all your hard work Mr Emu. Great job and these will be missed.

Although this puzzle cache has been enjoyed by geocachers for almost 2 years, I have considered the environmental impact of it's placement in light of the "Leave No Trace" ethic, and decided that it's due for retirement.

Collection and Archiving of this cache is planned within the next month.

Suscoe arrived this afternoon after many many many hours over many many many weeks recalculating this challenge.
Finally in desperation a call Bushfire to check our calculations and thinking.
We were on the right track but we were also on the wrong side of the tracks.
The line of that song came to mind "so close, so close and yet so far!!!!!!"
The cache was soon found and we signed the log with great relief.
Took soldier left Archer.
Thank you Mr Emu for a wonderful series of caches.
Our brains are all the better for these puzzles.

2010-07-03 11:31 After a nudge in the right direction from Mr E.M.U. I had this puzzle solved. We headed here after E.M.U. 3 and parked on a suitable spot on the side of the road as the car-park was sloppy. We enjoyed the views and the walk in. Have to tell my brother about the tracks in this area. Took Tinker Bell TB. Thanks for bringing us here Mr Emu.

After all the hard work put in mainly by Alsume and EuDes, it was great to get this one done at 12:55pm and the first occasion where those with 4x4 transport started to flex their wheels tempting the geoSube . Dropped in the Tinkerbell TB for good luck. Another vote of thanks Mr Emu.

Found with EuDes and Asume.
Thank-you for the late nights and finally a wonderful day day on the surf-coast and beyonds.
A Fantastic cache series.

We found this to be the hardest puzzle - the answer just would not become obvious no matter how we mainpulated the information. With our deadline fast approaching and this the last puzzle to solve, Eudes sought a clue and got just enough from some very kind caching colleagues for the Eureka moment to occur 2 days before our deadline. Another amazing location was logged at 12:55pm and maintained the high standard of the series.
No swaps but took 2 TBs to help them along.
thanks Mr Emu - lost a fair bit of sleep over this one!

And so on to what was our nemesis puzzle in this series. We had found an answer which, when we did some unexplainable manipulation of the coordinates, put us in an area where we sort of wanted to be but no way could we get the thumbs up from Evince . With our multi-team attack date fast approaching, it was time to swallow our pride and seek some advice from "the community". It turned out that we had only done one-third of the work needed . After I had upped that to ½ (it was actually two-thirds but we won't quibble), I still couldn't see the answer but when I read out what I had to Alsume, he cried "bingo" and not long after, we had the coordinates for all 7 in this series (and I had a little egg on my face ). (Thanks to the community, you all know who you are .)

We arrived at GZ today for a nice easy find of yet another of these masterpieces of cache construction at 12:55. The timing was pretty good too as it was just starting to rain and we had already agreed that Anglesea was looking good for a lunch break after we had nabbed this one .

TNLNSL. Thanks Mr Emu.

Find # 3141 and 8th of the day at 11:48 am. Accompanied by Feathertop on our Great Ocean Road Trip Almost made this a drive-by, TNLN, left my mark in the log, Thanx MrEmu....

I couldn't get this one to work on my own and once again the caching community resources were employed to get me over the line.
After a series of hot walks it was nice to be able to drive within striking distance of this one, complete our mission as arranged and return to the comfort of the airconned platoon before forging a path to cache number 5.
Thanks.
TNLN

This was cache # 27 of 43 for the day, on our tour of Geelong and the Surf Coast. We continued on in the search tank until this one was pick up on the long range scanner, it was not long and we swooped it for the pickup. My thanks to Mr Emu for the cache.

Found while out with Acts2YouthGroup on a good day for caching. Another puzzle I had had to have some help on on another morning! Once at GZ we were momentarily distracted by the view but came back to it after an easy find. Thanks Mr Emu.

Found with bucketeer
TFTC

I parked this puzzle for several months and had a flash of inspiration when I revisited it, and got a good way to solving it, before hitting brick wall and contacting Mr Emu for a prod (or two) to get me to the finish line. So obvious when looking back!

Day 2 on the trail of the missing Experimental Military Units and the day started well with much easier access to Unit No4 which was recovered @ 0937 hours in lovely serine spot
Thanks again to Mr Emu for this great series.


[This entry was edited by bucketeer on Friday, December 25, 2009 at 9:15:58 PM.]

12:30
It took the initiative of ppras to mobilise the forces of maccamob and Phetlern to launch the offensive. Knowing that is was six months since the demise of the navy vessel; we assumed we would be searching for the fused hard rocky masses of the former robots. Phetlern could not have joined the hunt without the invaluable contribution of CDNB as their brains trust.
This puzzle again took us back to our school days, but we quickly had the information on where we should be looking. Once in the area it became obvious why this robot had headed here and nearly achived its mission. Another hard rocky mass recovered.

TNLN .. SL .. TFTH Mr Emu.

Rated: for Overall Experience

Found by Mary & David at 1230, in company with pprass and Phetlern. Needed a nudge for this puzzle. We'd tried all sorts of ways to manipulate the numbers except the right one. After E.M.U.s 2 & 3, the cache itself was a drive-by. Just a few steps from the track and there was yet another of these amazing works of cache art. Wonderful wildflowers too. Once more, our thanks to Mr Emu.

Found at 12.30pm GAFF1 in the company of maccamob and Phetlern.

After a couple of tough walks in slippery conditions, we were looking forward to a relative "drive-by"!

We found a good spot to stop at and were wondering why the heath was out so early (thanks Mary for the ID!) Another fantastic camo job.

We needed just a word or two to get us started on this puzzle, but that is all it took - well done Mr Emu on what looks like an original idea.

After searching the bush and finding the previous E.M.U.'s, my personal geometric power was getting pretty low, so a stop in nearby Anglesea for some energy was called for before searching for U.M.U. 4.
A quick drive out of town and a short walk soon had #4 in hand. A search of the horizon confirmed our next stop - more U.M.U.'s!

Found this one in the failing light with saraci.jaee and RSF1010+SGGK. Lovely walk through this area, and the last of the puzzles to be solved by us. Loving the series,
Indiana08

woowee, what a drive luckily RSF1010+SGGK had 4WD, and after a short walk cache was in hand, tftc

Found in the dark with Indiana08 and saraci.jaee. This was definitely the most difficult and most fun puzzle to solve in this series. The combined brain power of Indiana08 and RSF 1010 was required to get to the bottom of it! (The other puzzles in this series were independently solved by each of the two.)
Thank you for the sleepless nights!
TNLN

11:06 Found on our Touring Tassie and Beyond 2009 Trip!

I think that all I can say is make sure that you double check what you write down as the answer before you leave home, as once you are out in the field it becomes harder to figure out what on earth you have done. This cache should have been a nice straight forward walk, but it turned into the hardest of them all as A had written down one number wrong, which resulted in a lot of walking, and a bit of silence in the car.

We got there in the end, and thankfully neither of us slipped in the now very wet clay, whilst going up and down the wrong hills. At the end of it all A did have the right answer, and she walked away with a smile on her face, and a hungry belly.

Another great cache. We didn't drive all the way to GZ due to the road conditions, but were able to drive to within 200m or so

TNLNSL

11:06 Found on our Touring Tassie and Beyond 2009 Trip!

Gee you wouldn't want to drive those roads We were glad that we didn't have to venture too far down the hill, as the rain was threatening and we still had plenty of caches to find in the series.

A had the puzzles solved before we left home, and we were determined to finish the series, but in the end we fell one short. Another well constructed puzzle that took us to a place that we never would have gone if it weren't for this.

TNLNSL

Another puzzle that was right up my alley. I tried one theory that was sound but not correct, so went with a less likely idea and it turned out right! Wow, I thought, that must have taken some preparation, but then I re-read the clues and realised the additional notes meant it wasn't as unlikely as I had thought, but still very clever!

This cache was also the easiest for me to get to today, much to my relief after the many kilometres spent getting to E.M.U. #2 and #3. I paused to take in the views and was on my way again.

Cheers,

R - B

Found in the company of Bushfire, VKC1SR and Suitman. This had me stumped for a bit and was the last E.M.U. to fall. Bushfire gave me some details on it and then I was kicking myself as all the information was sitting in front of me all the time. Doh!

Took yet another wombat and left a mondo.

Thanks Mr. Emu!

Another one bites the dust! Bites? Did someone mention lunch? Lets get this one and then head in to Anglesea for something warm ... mmm food ... oh, yeah the cache was good too! Located at 1320Hrs whilst I was thinking of rations... VKC1SR, Pteranodon, Bushfire & Suitman all reverted to 4wd mode here ... Great series of caches Mr. Emu!

Well a team assault was in order for these tricky puzzle caches. Headed off with Bushfire, Suitman and Pteranodon.
A nice easy find at 1320. Loved the container. Will log thoughts in E.M.U. 7
This was the 2nd hardest puzzle for me, was on the right path just using the wrong method. Snakecatcher assured me I was on the right theory and suggested I try another method.
TNLN

Dropping in Bobby coin as this is more than a fair cache Guv!

Well what an experience this has been...
After braving thunderstorms and sweltering days we can finally say we have done it! It has taken over a week to finally get all the puzzles done, i do think that most of the puzzle difficulty could be risen by 1 star as they were very hard especially this one and signal frequency.
Never the less have enjoyed the hunt and have driven 2 wheel drive cars to each of the caches. Note, at this cache if you want to have a look at how steep the edge is don't do it while in your '93 holden station wagon, once the nose goes over the edge (as ours did) you are committed all the way to the bottom. Dont think it was ever designed for that!
All in all thanks Mr. Emu for many sleepless nights and hard hours googleing.
And a big thanks to RHPS who helped me along too!

A caching series i will definitely never forget!
Congrats to the guys who bet us, JUST....... soooo close. I'm crying a little on the inside.
TFTC's

I can't believe we finally found it, it has taken PacketStorm4 and me many sleepless nights trying to figure them all out and also many trips down to anglesea. we were able to get FTF on a few of the caches which we are very proud of but we just missed out by an hour or two finding them all before Bushfires crew but it was very enjoyable, challanging and just plain awesome Thanks Mr Emu for a Great Series of caches

This EMU #4 cache was under attack from Pteranodon, VKC1SR, Bushfire and the Suitman in a combined attack. We found it at 13.20 ( Just deleted the log that I had written must be the wine that I have broken out to celebrate finding all of these devious caches that I have been writing up and just checked the inbox and there are 31 items there). Mr Emu will have fun reading them all tonight. Adrian made this a drive by as we left our vehicle and went in his as it has four wheel drive capabilities and made it with no problems. Once again a great container and camo as future finders will find out, could not believe how heavy they are and I think will survive a fire if they are put to the test which I hope they are not. Now that’s made you think hasn’t it. It is into Anglesea for lunch now and then onto the three remaining three caches to finish this great series. I found this to be the second hardest one to solve but then none of them are easy. NI-NO Thanks for another great caching experience.Noticed that there are only two previous finders in the log book so there are now more including the Red Ant.

YES got it!!
up in the morning going to work with it on my mind got a call from snakecather with an ider "what do you think" yep i like it i say turn the car round and back home to do some math and called Mr Emu to see if i was on the right track yes we where more math in to evince and come up with (go for a walk) so we did got out there and FTF i have one more to go so not many hints ok but there is a fer degree of difficulty.

TFTC
TOOK 1 path tag
LEFT 10 euro

Found with Geewok, this one had as going, tried everything then it came to me. Called Geewok, What do you think? Sounds good. Another FTF Enjoying these Caches
Thanks Mr Emu.
NINO

Only one unfound left? I wonder if I can sneak down on the long weekend.....

Ooh I hate to do this. Momentarily disabling while I adjust the artwork!

Please note that the "Signal Drift" for EAST should read "ADD .028", (and not .026). Evince won't work out otherwise. Sorry

Image adjusted. Apologies if this inconvenienced anyone.

Published