Gooch's Track #2 Springwood, New South Wales, Australia
By pandsa on 24-Jan-11. Waypoint GC2MVQE

Thankyou. A beautiful walk and scramble up from the creek

Came back for another day of Faulconbridge finds before it gets too wet. A perfect bush cache in that you do need to make some decent effort. FP indeed. Added my nametag to the log, 14 months since last discovery. TFTC

I was up early so decided to walk the streets for some exercise. Yet as I approached the bus stop on the Faulconbridge side I thought... maybe I could cut through the bush on Gooch's Track back to Birdwood Gully and conveniently look for this cache! I had been keen to walk Gooch's track for many years and with no kids in tow, thought it was a great opportunity.

Looking at the bus stop, I didn't see any obvious path, but upon searching a faint path appeared and soon turned into a better path which improved as I further descended. The light levels was quite low being early and overcast, which added to the atmosphere.

At the creek I found the scenery quite impressive.... then realised the cache was on the other side where I was. Bit of a scramble and search and found (glad there was a pen too)!
After that it was a fairly quick trip to Birdwood Gully and to finish off my walk. TFTC and the history behind this track.

OCW @Moon Explorers and @Hiker_Barbie11. Such a beautiful area. TFTC!

[@Hiker_Barbie11](http://coord.info/PR14DFRX) found this one. TFTC!

Exploring the tracks in Birdwood Gully with [@Moon Explorers](http://coord.info/PR8VBKW) and [@Wandering_Wombat](http://coord.info/PR8VJR2). TFTC!

Mr T headed out from home for a bush walk, as part of his SES fitness training. With lockdown, they can't group train, but still need to keep fit! Today he decided to walk in Birdwood Gully, and do some of the caches along the way. TFTC

Down , down, down the hill and a left turn and up another hill a bit and there it was all smiles. TYFTC

Found 15/08/21

Did a great swap! Thanks to the previous person who left a map of Frankfurt! Kids loved it.

Another great cache in an awesome part of the world. Thanks

Lovely area!! Made for lockdown... tftc. Cache is in good condition ??

Tftc - found with team trashy

děkuji za log keše

What a beautiful area have not been here before. A very tricky hide which took us some time to find. Signed and replaced. The cache is in good condition.TFTC

This was a touch one with steep climbs and many possible locations. Satisfying find!

Checked. Still in good condition. Bring a pen the ones there don’t work.

Good find

No leach activity at this time of year and what a great series of tracks are down in this area. Cache took some finding but only because of gps creep. Once it settled I had no trouble, particularly when I spotted a toy car nearby (obviously a forgotten swap). Performed signing duties and returned cache with toy inside and headed off to explore some more before dark came. TFTC

Nice walk down from sports ground. Nice and cool and shady along creek. Very scenic little area. Quick find of cache, which is all good. The walk back up to the sports ground was tough. Tftc

On holiday over from England visiting my son and grandchildren. Not sure I like all this poking about in rock crevices, but I have a stick to protect me from the wildlife! Tricky find as was too low in the glen.

Nice hide TFTC

Tftc - started at THP planning to get all caches below - nice walk although got turned arkound when the track disappeared on gnocchi’s trail, ended up bush bashing up the hill only to find the trail again.

#3763 (5 of 11 today)

Today is another day I need to target in my quest to have five finds on every calendar day by the end of this year (being one find for each year I'll have cached).
Now I only need two finds today, but as I have often done, I decided to hit this day hard.

Went for eleven caches around Springwood (the lair of **Wayward Woman** and **bikerbuddy** which should mean quality caches) and found all eleven - HUZZAH!
###END OF CUT AND PASTE SECTION###
Walked back to the creek crossing, then back up to this one.
The steep slope next to the track played havoc with the iPhone when near GZ. Going to have to use my geosenses...

Tried a few of the obvious spots. Nope. Noticed a bit of a geotrail, so decided to follow it. Ended up a lot higher than I expected (short term exertion required that did nothing to help my cough), and spotted the hide on looking around without too much difficulty.

Completed signing duties and replaced.

OK, do I continue up this track for *#1* or head straight back to *Human trek port*?
Decided on the latter due mainly to the charge left on the iPhone - a lot lower than I expected by this point - and my external battery was cleverly left back in *The Hademobile*.

So descended back to the track, including an embarrassing slide on an easy slope. Sigh.

SLTNLN
TFTC

Found

Headed up to Springwood on the train for a half day of caching on local trails. It wasn't too hot thanks to heavy cloud cover and the occasional sprinkle, and I managed to find all the caches I sought with minimal trouble. As always, thanks to all COs for placing and maintaining their caches and contributing to another adventure!

This one was a quick find just a scurry up the hillside from the trail. All is in good condition, TFTC!

We walked up from the Birdwood Gully Track along a well defined track. Very scenic. Surprised that this is the first find in 10 months. TFTC

We are half way up a steep embankment

'Track' was a bit misleading as we didn't see one at all... more like Gooch's Bush Bash!!! But a very fairly rated terrain 3 in fact. Geokid was the more tenacious and insisted we find the hide at all costs! TFTC

I had found Gooches Track 1 a while back, (mind that i didn't find a track there). It was time to find the other one. I ventured freon the bus seat, and didn't actually find a track until half way to gz. From there it was a nice and shady walk.
I spotted the obvious cache tell, bit didn't spot the cache until checking other places first. Strange that it hasn't been found for so long. It is a nice place to visit.
Thanks for the cache.

Found with Jimmy. Lovely cool spot TFTC

I found it

Cool

Another good one pandsa! TFTC

C

Pretty hard but help from bennymyboy

I found it with lobsterknees

Fhnvhj

Great spot! Thanks

Found with tsettree at 1420.

Great little track in an awesome spot!

TftC

Thanks for bringing us here. We came
in via the track from Tom Hunter park and it was well defined all the way to the cache. The children loved the cool and
shady walk along the creek. Tftc

Found this one while trying to find #1.
It still remains a mystery for now

Walking through the bush here we were a bit unsure whether the hazard reduction fires had destroyed the 2 gooch's track caches but this one was safe and well.

An easy find after initially going too high. Rather wet today, was here I saw my first leach, but, thankfully, I remained leach bite free all morning.

Added a couple of tracks in the area to OSM. Might making accessing this area quicker.

Cheers

Pretty quick find. TFTC.

Nice warm winters day this morning. Went back and retraced my first steps on this track to Gooch's Track #1 and ventured further down. Eventually joined the creek and still lost the track at one point but joined up to the track again. Once near ground zero I realised it was not down in the obvious spot too. Was soon near GZ and just overlooked the obvious. Looked for quite a while and then went back to my initial spot and the cache was in hand. When returning I noticed there is now an alternative track to the top ridge that has been recently made. It was a quick way of getting out directly up to the ridge where it joined an upper firetrail to the end of Walkin Wombat Way. I notice this firetrail is closed of to the public though. Took TB. TFTC.

2nd for the day TFTC

Very muddy climb down to #2 after we discovered the actual track we missed on #1. Beautiful spot thanks for bringing us here TNLN

After doing Gooch's track #1 we had time for #2. The walk in to this Cache got even more prettier as we headed for GZ. Took some time to locate the cache as the GPS couldn't get a good fix on GZ until I spotted thing not natural with the scene. Ah ha Cache! TFTCM
Cheers
dkmacca

I wasn't too thrilled with #1 but was very happy once I continued on. The path was a bit hard to follow in places but I just kept following the creek line and had a really nice walk through beautiful and varied terrain. This is a great spot. I reckon th best acces woul be via the birdsong gully side, I have not yet done the complete path from that direction but hope to soon enough.

Thanks for showing me this lovely spot pandsa!

Left a TB

The track from Gooch's Track #1 was easier to follow after than before. Some lovely creeks surrounds can be seen along the track as the creek follows you. GZ was nearing as you past some cool rock formations along the track. GZ was soon reached and after a quick scroll of the area, I went for a possible location for the cache. It wasn't to be but all I needed was to look the other side of this feature to spot the cache. Nice Hide. Beautiful area. TNLN SL TFTC.

I came in from #1, down the winding track, along the creek bed, and up to GZ. A simple find in the end. No leeches today, as I had soaked my socks in a salt solution, and rubbed my shoes and ankles with vapor rub.
Thanks once again pandsa.

Happy birthday wife!! Wife 12/29 me 17/29

Too long have we deferred going for a stroll along these tracks to pick up the caches down here. It truly is an excellent walk down to and along the creek valleys following the well maintained paths. Quite cool this morning once you dropped down into the shady valley bottoms but very pleasant walking nevertheless. We missed the first cache first time around but that's another story so carried on to this one which we soon located in it's rocky alcove. A nice locale indeed. Made no swaps however picked up the Mattika TB, dropping off the Flo Le Viking TB.

Took geo pup off to hunt this one down on a fine Saturday afternoon. There were quite a few folk out and about around the various trails and little Rocky was able to meet three fellow four legged friends. Dropped off a TB and completed log duties before heading off to another nearby cache before the sun disappeared. TFTH pandsa.

I normally cache with my family, and from all of the previous logs, I wasn't too keen to take my children to find this one. Today I left them all safely at home with their father and set off to find these by myself.

I decided on a different approach to previous finders, and left my car at Lucinda Avenue and started off along the Birdswood Gully track. This is a beautiful track to walk, and a very clearly marked one for most of the way. The only problem I had following this track was at around S 33 41.494 E 150 33.868 where the more obvious track crosses over the creek with some nice stepping stones & heads off towards Madeline Glen. The track I needed to follow was less clear, but went off to the left. Once across the creek it was easy to pick up the track again.

Eventually I reached the point where this track intersects with Gooch's Track & started making my way to GZ, much encouraged by the pink orienteering tape I was starting to spot. Found the cache easily enough, in an obvious looking spot.

Thanks for this one, it was a good walk up until this point. Then I set off towards #1 ...

This was a small physical challenge, but the tape mad it easy to follow except where the tree has fallen over the track near the start.

The GZ was soon reached despite the poor coverage and the cache was quickly found.

T: I want to find the Cache Geocoin

TFTC.

I enjoyed this till getting home and spotting the leech's tell tale signs!?!

pjmpjm and I followed the track from number 1 cache, it was fairly easy to follow, specially if you follow the pink tape, we lost the track for short period, but that was our fault for not paying attention, on the way back no problems the tapes will show you the way along this very pleasant track. Still I would not recommend this during or after rain and not at night otherwise a lovely walk.
Found GZ to be accurate and the cache in great condition, as this was sprung on me at the last minute I had no swaps, TNLN signed log.
Thank you for this great cache, I would not have gone there without it and that would have been my loss.

Joint 2TF with rogerw3 after a 1km trek though some challenging though not at all impossible terrain. The GPSr told us that we'd parked on Chapman Parade (as per the CO's suggestion) only 725 metres from GZ, but the actual walk into the bush and down into the beautiful gully was a lot longer.

We started with a find at 'Gooch's Track #1' and then continued onwards, following a (usually) rather faint track that was marked at intervals with bright fluorescent tape. On the way in towards GZ we lost the tapes and bush bashed on at least two occasions. (However, on the way back from the find, we discovered that we could always see at least one tape ahead of us, and so fairly easily maintained our place on the trail.)

Gooch's Track isn't an altogether easy one, sometimes slippery, and is often quite hard to see without the marking tapes, but it's a reasonable one most of the time and leads down into some very beautiful bushland. The section alongside the creek might be a bit challenging after a lot of rain, but today there was very little water.

At GZ we found the published coordinates to be accurate and the cache was in a likely but well-hidden spot. Cache container was in good shape and the log book was dry. There were lots of nice swaps. I took the 'Bilby' TB and left the 'I Want To Find the Cache' GC. SL.

Walking back -- largely uphill -- to the waiting GeoBuru2 via 'Gooch's Track #1' we discovered that there really were regular marking tapes all the way to within about a hundred metres of Chapman Parade. Twice it was hard to see the next one, when it was very short or wrapped around a branch, but obviously we'd missed out on many of them while heading toward GZ, making the trek more difficult than it had to be.

Finally, as we left the bush near a private home, a woman called out to us from her veranda and asked if we'd 'found it.' We chatted with her for a minute and it was clear that a number of geocachers have been visiting this area recently. However, if they were looking for the two pandsa caches, they didn't leave any DNFs!

So many thanks to the CO pandsa, not only for placing the cache, but for taking care to make a very obscure track easier to follow. It led us to a great place and we had a fun adventure!

Returning from the 'Lapstone Layers' Earthcache, together with my visiting son, we decided to make a quick stop at Watkin Wombat Way in Faulconbridge, hoping to pick up a fire trail clearly visible on Google Maps that would serve as a short cut to this cache.

At the end of the Way, we hopped the fence, found the fire trail and were quickly soaked as the light rain became heavy rain.

At the end of the fire trail, we bush bashed onwards to within 55 metres of the cache, which appeared to be located at the bottom of a nearly sheer cliff.

Heading back the way we came, we briefly re-visited a precipitous track downwards marked haphazardly with tape, including one with the words 'DANGER' on it.

As the heavy rain continued, we decided to call it a day. This odd and steep track may well lead down to the bottom of the cliff, or this whole approach to Gooch's Track #2 may be totally wrong.

We made no attempt to scout a way to Gooch's Track #1.

Will have to follow these caches up again on a day with better weather, and perhaps from the routes noted in the CO's description.

Decided that a 'Note' was more appropriate than a 'DNF' under the circumstances . . .

FTF
After spending far too long at "Gooch's Track #1", I pressed on to find this one. I found the track easier to follow just after the first cache location, but I soon lost it as I headed to the creek. After that, there was a lot of bush bashing again, until I realised I needed to be on the the other side of the creek. I got across and once again found a clearly defined track that took me to the cache location. Found the cache easily. I left the TB that was in the cache there for the next finder. A very pretty and tranquil place. Thanks for taking me there.

Published

placed in this cache Bill the Bilby to start his journey.