The Illawarra Upper Escarpment Trail - #14 Balgownie, New South Wales, Australia
By paulyman, snorris on 13-Dec-13. Waypoint GC4VCVW

Wet log in a snake den. TFTC

Find# 11423Nice easy find as cache was out in the open.We had a free day to create some "Smileys".Maintenance was carried out where logsheets were mush, missing or caches damaged. TFTC paulyman, snorris 28 June 2024

Log not signage

Found it, again log not signable

Team Groodle found it. Next.

1046 for the tribeFinding the remaining Illawarra Upper Escarpment Trail caches today after previously finding most of them a year or two back. Last time some desperately needed maintenance and so we came prepared to do a little today. It is a lovely trail which deserves to be preserved, not enough power trails in the Illawarra!Think we gave this one a new logbook and ziplock bag. As others have said snake territory so watch your little ones.... find the sheet metal. The stump component of the clue is rather useless and will lead to you chasing red herrings. Thanks for the cache!

O

cool

Such a beautiful walk and great part of the world. Tftc

Couldn’t find way to overgrown.

Done

To much bushes

Dense snake country bush. Couldn’t find it

#8428 (6 of 10 today)

And again the calendar gods decree I made some finds today... OK, December hasn't been a great caching month for me, erm historically speaking.

Decided that today was the perfect opportunity to finish off *The Illawarra Upper Escarpment Trail*. Also thought that another cache near it should also be visited. And then after grabbing petrol, a fina1 cache to make it a round ten finds.

Even managed to avenge a previous DNF!
###END OF CUT AND PASTE SECTION###
How do I get to GZ? Was hoping for a trail, but a hike through the undergrowth seemed the only way to go.

Got to GZ and spotted a possible hidey hole - for both cache and slithery things - and quickly spotted the prize.
Removed it using my hiking pole - just in case.

Put my ink on the log, replaced, and out of there.
Back on the trail spotted two leeches on my pants - luckily removed them before either had a chance to bite.
Quick check - no that's it.

And on to the next one.

SLTNLN
TFTC

CarefulOf snakes If it’s hot. Great spot

Scary spot!

Actually in sheeting

Found it

No stump, no pen... look inside

No stump, but find the metal and you'll find the cache. Cant sign it though. Again, needs maintenance

Caching in our local LGA for excercise very early to avoid others. Found today with Beckatoza and have photo proof however did not open or sign the cache for heath reasons. TFTC Cache is damaged and not where the hint said.

Found with C0mpmatt. Cache was open and not where the hint said. A bit of bush bashing required. Follow the animal path for some ease.

Found with our geodaughter and geoboyfriend

Watch out for snakes!

Definitely took the long way to this one!

Found it. Was not under the log. But still easy to find.

Series log: We did a reccy here in March 2020 when we picked up #01 of the series planning to return at Easter time. One thing led the another and we decided to take the trail on today. Weather was great, we saw lots of creatures and and flowers, fabulous views and really good exercise with limited muggles on the track. Took us four hours with finding and signing geocaches, admiring the scenery and stopping for water breaks. Will target Toona Ciliata on a separate visit.
*********************************************
Cache log: Found safe and dry but wondering how this material got here. SL TFTC Cheers... Gaztek

Thanks for the detour. Love the camouflage....

Find no. 14 tftc

Quick find thanks

Another quick find out here this afternoon. Nice and comfortable home for a cache, and maybe a Joe Blake in summer, TNLN thanks.

OCW the Bebes and Everest High. Could not find the stump but took a closer look at the sheeting. Tftc

OCW PelDroedGwin & EverestHigh

A grey and windy day for the escarpment trail.

Not sure what happened to the stump but this is a nice hidey spot

Tftc

How's the serenity? Not! OCW The Bebes and PelDroedGwin. TFTC paulyman

Fun geocache!!! TFTC

found it thanks for it. I found it.

TFTC

Out with Princess1488 to try our luck
She found this one! Leaves our tally to 8 all
Thanks!

Found on our new year adventures

#TeamWalker

Good spot

Of the beaten track for this one

TYFTF

T- Thanks for the cache.
E- Excellent workout.
A- Amazing scenery.
M- Managed to persevere.

R- Really late start.
O- Only 50% Torch battery left.
C- Coordinates spot on.
K- Kangaroos spotted.
I- It is unfinished business.
T- Team Rockit.

Meowth: That's right.

Good coordinates. Log is damp. Don’t look for stump.

Found during the 2019 Gong Mega signed the cache DSD thanks for the cache and the adventure

We’ve walked through the nice bush land today and were able to find all caches of this nice series
The first 3 caches had wet log books
Thank you for the nice cacher tour
Team sissifalke

This trail looked very inviting whilst staying in Wollongong for the Oz Geomuster 2019 event, so myself and DSD found a timeslot within the weekend to tackle this series and the two bonus caches to qualify for the challenge which had more than a year of unloved on it!

Really enjoyed the terrain and walk on this series, this sort of rainforest surroundings we can't get back in Canberra so it was nice for a change as all ACT bush looks the same!

Every cache was found, two of them needed maintenance very badly which I have logged, and one of them had innacurate coords which already has numerous logs saying so.

Thanks paulyman for this trail, we enjoyed the walk and caches

Found while attending Oz Geo Muster 2019. TFTC.

Meeting up with a group of fellow cachers this morning who were all keen to hit the Illawarra series after the St Arnaud 4 month to the Mega lead up event. A great time was had with pprass, gearguru, maccamob, Alansee, Phetlern, The Morris, Riddell, McLookers, geono, Noikmeister and DogboyOz as we enjoyed the walk through this picturesque location, locating all the caches and signing as OMG (OZGeomuster Mega Gang).
Thanks paulyman, snorris for the series placements.

I departed Seattle on Tuesday evening to begin an eight day adventure in both Australia and New Zealand. I flew to Los Angeles and then on to Sydney landing early on Thursday morning. I am here for the OZGeomuster 2019 "The Gong" Mega event down in Wollongong as a Lackey geocaching ambassador. I will be spending the next four and a half days down in the Wollongong area, geocaching with a lot of the locals. Then I will return to Sydney and fly over "the Ditch" to Wellington where I will spend two days before returning to Sydney for the long flight back to the "States" and finally home to Seattle.

Day three of my eight day adventure and today I started out by attending the event in Appin for the St Arnaud Mega event. It was at that event that I met up with pprass who organized this Illawarra Upper Escarpment trail hike along with maccamob, Alansee, Phetlern, The Morris, Riddell, McLookers, The Tritonz, Noikmeister and DogboyOz. We all caravanned to the trail head and started the hike on this over cast but rain free day.

This was the fifteenth cache we found on this trek and WOW did this hide give us fits. We searched and searched and searched as we all kept looking at the hint and previous logs hoping that it they would give us a clue as to where this elusive cache was hiding. After several minutes of searching and trying to figure out where this stump was in relationship to the metal object, I finally stumbled upon this caches hiding spot. We signed the log as OMG (OZGeomuster Mega Gang) and replaced the cache before continuing on down the trail. Thank You paulyman & snorris for hiding and maintaining this cache for us to find on this excellent trail system.

11:53
Just back in Australia and a quick trip to Appin to log the Mega so as to continue our run of having attended every Mega held in Australia.

Invited to accompany a group on a morning walk as we visited caches in this series. Group included 'Alansee', 'The Morris', 'Pprass', 'McLookers', 'maccamab', The Tritonz, 'Geono', 'noikmeister', 'DogboyOz', 'gearguru' and 'Riddell'. Log signed as 'OMG'

Thanks to 'paulyman' for placing this cache.
24835

Did this walk as part of a group today. It was most enjoyable with great views and lovely forest. And no rain!

We spent some time searching for something resembling the first part of the hint but there didn't seem to be anything like that near the second part. We spread out, roamed about, rechecked places... Just as some of us were beginning to throw up our hands, gearguru calls out 'found it'. He definitely earned his passage in the group with that find. [^] TFTC paulyman.

We flew to Sydney from Bendigo on the new direct flights, hired a car and drove down to Wollongong to attend the muster.

Today Mr Morris joined with a group of others to walk the escarpment. Log was signed as OMG (Oz Geomuster Gang).
Thanks for contributing to the fun paulyman

Found at 11:53:30 AM: GAFF5 in the company of maccamob, gearguru, Alansee, Phetlern, The Morris, Riddell, McLookers, Geono, The Tritonz, Noikmeister and DogboyOz
This cache took ages to find as it was just lying in a tuft of grass and it was right near where we first looked
Thanks paulyman

We embarked upon a massive search that was yielding very little until gearguru found the cache very close to where the hint indicated.

In the area for the OzGeoMuster, this was a lovely trail to be conquered as part of a group. Pprass assembled a fantastic gang: gearguru, maccamob, Alansee, The Tritonz, Geono, noikmeister, DogboyOz, The Morris, Phetlern, Riddell and myself. We saw a wide variation in foliage and terrain, there were amazing views. Thanks paulyman and snorris, I loved the expedition.

Found at 11:53:00 AM with DogBoyOz

Stopped here on the way to the OzGeomuster and met a party of cachers to do this trail. I have had this series on my RADAR for a while. Logged as OMG or Oz Muster Group. Iron sheeting, yes. Stump no.

Thanks paulyman

Found by Mary and David at 11:55. Teamed with pprass, gearguru, Alansee, Phetlern, The Morris, Riddell, McLookers, The Tritonz, Noikmeister and DogboyOz, today to do the The Illawarra Upper Escarpment Trail. Signed as OMG (Oz Geomuster Gang). The weather was overcast, but happily there was no rain. An enjoyable, scenic walk, made even better by the illustrious company. Our thanks to paulyman.

Went on a walk with a few other people and found the whole series. TFTC!

That was a very tuft one too find.
Found by Team OMG!
A bit of a difficult hide.
TFTC

Looked for a long time but then found it just before giving up!

Wow, this was very hard to find! We sort of broke the stump a bit

Little bit of searching with no reward, stopped to think about it and it was right there!!! Tftc

On our last day in Australia it was time for a nice trail. Thanks for showing this beautiful place, we have seen a lot of wildlife (and bikers as well). Greetings from the Netherlands

Log was very wet and probably needs replacing. TFTC!!!

woop woop. 14/14. great fun day.

Out chasing turtles

Bit damp but ok. Nice morning for a cache/jog!

Found with the family

We have travelled down from Sydney’s Northern Beaches to the Wollongong area for the April school holidays, camping in our Jayco Swan Outback camper trailer at the Corrimal Beach Tourist Park. Today (ANZAC Day) we were off to do some more of the Illawarra Upper Escarpment Cache Trail, which we had started on our day of arrival in the area, and then to do a variety of cache types in & around Stuart Park in North Wollongong. This was our 10th find of the day, and 102nd find of the holiday.

Needed to do a little bit of bush bashing to get to this one, but once at GZ it was a quick find. TNLNSL, and then replaced as found. TFTC paulyman, snorris.

Find #2512

Good hint on this one can spot the hint and head in the right direction.

Easy find really thanks

Team MavEtJu suggested that today would be a good day for our attempt at the escarpment series. He'd been here in Dec 2014 so although there were some vague suggestions on where a few caches might be, we still had to find them all in our own right. The sky was thankfully overcast so it made for easy walking for most of the loop.
The map seemed to indicate a path here but there was no real clear way so we did our best to work our way through the long grass. Found what the hint referred to but it was MrSmash who made the final claim on this one. Yet another interesting environment we've been through on our journey.
Thanks paulyman and snorris.

Found with ziggiau and dingoman007 after tramping through the long grass.

Found with ziggiau and MrSmash

Quick find. TFTC.

OCW Pumba2015. Been wanting to do this series for quite sometime but finding the right time to do it was the issue. Pulled up in the car park near the entrance to the walk and we set off.
The walk itself is very easy to do. Surprisingly enough, most of the walk appears to be following an old creek bed - given the way in which the rock formations and path is constructed. We took our time to complete the series. From start to finish was about 3.5hrs.
Nearly all the logs are very soggy but we were still able to sign our names. Hints provided for each cache are fairly spot on and the co-ords are reasonably accurate (within about 5m). TFTC series paulyman and snorris! Sorry for the generic logs!

OCW Stumbles Mate. Would like to point out that's not a stump. I would have DNF'd this cache if it wasn't for kicking the hiding spot in frustration. Tftc

thanks!

Got it

Found on a rainy day with one of my Ventures. TFTC

Tftc

Thanks for the hint. I wasn't keen to poke my arm under that thing!

TFTC, I logged all these on another phone they must not have carried over on my lights in

Great hint!

The hint is pretty straight forward TFTC

Tftc. Bush bash to this one

This one had us stumped for a bit but soon came up smiling. TFTC

Thankyou for the cache

Day out caching with cullum 68 thanks for the cache

T.I.U.E.T. - #1 was my 600th cache, so I thought I would celebrate this milestone & Australia Day by doing this series.
Starting fairly early (8.30) I made my way around the escarpment on a not to hot, overcast day. A very nice walk, only saw 1 cyclist & only heard 2 people (near Broker's Nose)
I did find Toona ciliate, GCYTEY, back on 14/March-2015, with Hillster, & finally got around to do the rest of this series today.
TFTC PM & SN.

Had a chance to take the big kids out on a geocaching adventure, decided a local power-trail would be just the right amount of fun (or punishment) they could endure.

On a day filled with creeks, hills, falls, amazing views, friendly walkers, crazy parking, poo (koala, wombat, human ), adventure, leeches, blisters, weird noises in the bush, fights over who had the best walking stick and walking the wrong way too many times (kids had gps) we ended up with 18 caches.

This geocache is as advertised.

Tftc

We enjoyed this Trail immensely. After spending a couple of days in Sydney over Christmas, it was time to head home to Canberra. We had not intended to do this walk, however since we had our walking shoes with us, we had decided to stop and see if we could complete the series. All in all it was a beautiful walk. We found all of the caches in the series although we could not log the final "mystery" cache as there is still one requirement we need to meet in order to log this one. Thanks for placing this series in such a beautiful area. We have driven past here many times over many years and did not know there was a walking track right here.
Thanks
Domsky

A great series of caches with some fantastic views along the way. TFTC

A great series of caches with some fantastic views along the way. TFTC

Set off with Brewmaker from southern Sydney on a cloudy day, heading for the Illawarra Upper Escarpment Trail series and nearby caches. Unfortunately by the time we reached the carpark near the first cache it was raining. Luckily I brought some extra wet weather gear, so made a quick clothes change. This is a good trail, not always flat and easy (and it took a bit longer than expected), but it takes you to some interesting places. We were sometimes walking in rain, which wasn't the best, and it would have been much nicer on a sunny day. Great to come to a new area. A quick find thanks to the hint. Signed the log, returned the cache, and then onto the next one. #275. TFT trail

OCW Mikev1 in an effort to do this trail along the escarpment. As we arrived the rain began to fall, and although I didn't bring any wet weather gear, we headed off. We thoroughly enjoyed the walk through this bush setting, as the terrain and vegetation changed so many times from #1 to #17. An interesting trail along the escarpment. Thanks for bringing me to a place I didn't know about before today.

Found quickly thanks to the hint and the fact that it was exposed. Replaced after signing, just a bit more hidden with some natural camo. TFTC.

Apologies for the generic log. Found on a gorgeous geo-day with Happy_Uke and Nacki22 (see more detailed log by Nacki22 below). TFTC

After an unintentional hiatus from geocaching due to winter, decided to get back in the swing of things with a geowalk. HappyUke, Halcyon123 and I decided to tackle the Illawarra Upper Escarpment trail - quite a big commitment for nature/exercise phobic me
Had a lovely day though - even if there was a bit too much uphill!!

Nearly missed the smaller trail.... and then it didn't head where we wanted A bit too much bushbashing at this stage of the day, but pushed on and got there in the end. Were a bit scared of what might have been hiding under the sheeting, so steered clear. TFTC!