DM #86 - Melba Kalorama, Victoria, Australia
By ahomburg on 28-Jun-14. Waypoint GC57TTX

Out on a mountain bike ride today attempting some of these caches. After trampling into the bush from the trail had a search around and decided to look at spoiler pic. After a while more searching still couldnt find what was in the pic and the cache. Will be back another day to look again.

Am determined to redeem my last 3 DNFs on this epic series. I had renewed confidence as this cache had been found by a couple of others last month. It's definitely a lot more overgrown since the spoiler pic was taken. I finally point the matching object and unearthed the cache. Yes! Only one more to go . . .

OMG it is only now that I read the cache page again [@Tiz13](https://coord.info/PR1CHGJH)!!!!We just knew it was out here. That's all. OMG. We looked at the spoiler pic and still struggled. Tiz finally found a match and it was happy days from there.Thanks ahomburg!

Do Snips and Co and Tiz13 love the Dandy's Do we love leeches Did we choke ourselves spraying Deet on each other to ward the above away Did Tiz13 constantly complain and curse about the GPS being out So why were we back???? Well we were back for more punishment...more ahomburg bushbashing...more nature...more caching shenanigans and more laughing as Tiz13 fell and bounced and we sweated our way up and down the hills.. with the aim to tick a few more of these DM caches off our list...I was starting to think we both had rocks in our heads searching for this cache...throw out the GPS, that's wrong... throw out the Geo senses ....keep looking for that damn rock...(see spoiler photo) I did wonder if a tree had smashed down ontop of it...as I trudged up and down left and right....trying to spot that damn rock....Again, we almost gave upmand again, the Geo Gods must have had pity on us as upon my last search on the way out, I found that damn rock...it took Snips proding thou to unearth the cache.. Do we love it when team work prevails in finding the cache

After 20 minutes of searching I couldn't resist the urge to peak at the spoiler photo. Well that looks familiar! I now knew exactly where to head and soon had the cache signed and returned. After hacking my way out to the trail I felt something tingling on the corner of my mouth and licked then almost ate a leech that has somehow attached itself to my lip and was having a good feed. There was no-one around so I stripped down to my jocks and found a few more, fortunately not in any other unfortunate places. Cue the scene from 'Stand by Me'. Henceforth, this cache will be known to me as DM #86 Leechville.

I had a couple of hours today to jump on the bike and head into Silvan for the first time in ages.
A perfect day for riding and caching.
This was the first find of the day, using the spoiler, as my GPS was jumpier than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
The container was full of water, but the log was dry in it's bag. After signing, I dried the container and the outside of the bag, and removed the sopping wet desiccant pouch.
Well tucked away this one is,bit still took a few minutes, even with the spoiler.
TFTC and the chance to cache the hills ahomburg

Puzzle solved , cache found and log signed with dalerious .

We loved the concept of this puzzle, and I was the lucky one to put my paws on the cache first. There were so many places where it could have been placed . Cache found in good condition.

We had only one day to spare for caching this weekend as we are preparing for our trip to Tassie next week.
We had a full on week at work and we were looking for somewhere to stretch our legs. We started the Dandenong Meander caches a few months ago, and enjoyed them so much. We finished off the top sector today, and hopefully we will grab the 4 lower caches, 2 of which were missing last time we attempted them, next weekend on our way home from 2 planned events. Fingers crossed anyway as the last 4 require a substantial walk due to road closures.

Thank you for an awesome series ahomburg . We definitely appreciated the complexity of the puzzles and the chosen area to hide the caches; the only downside are the Leeches. The blighters love taking a bite out of me!

Found it!

The perfect amount of difficulty for a lazy Friday walk

Geo dogs had a great time

TFTC.

Second time’s a charm!

Attempted this cache back in 2021 but we got a little leech and withdrew before the losing too much blood.

Dad was solo this morning and the little blighters hadn’t woken yet, or maybe I was just lucky! Quick find and away to finish my little jaunt. TFTC and awesome series!

Found 8:45 am
At long last the "AH" geoart is now completed, enjoyed the unique style of hide this one took with details used on the page to locate. As mention by others its now less obvious but still very doable. Saw a wombat on the walk into GZ which is rare. A very pleasant morning.

Day 583 of ...
TFTC ahomburg

*Found on the 30 Dec 2021 @ 1:12 pm.*
*Cache find # 12210.*

This one is a bit hard to spot from the posted with the tree down obscuring your view a bit but after a few minutes of wandering around I managed to find the right spot and the cache was uncovered, now to find my way out.

**Thanks to ahomburg for placing this cache.**

Zeus went to ride Temple of Zoom and went for a wander to find this cache. No luck. Couldn't find anything that matched the hint pic. Am going to PAF some previous finders and see if I can get some tips for next time . . .

ANZAC day and what better way to celebrate what our ANZAC's have done for us, than to go and enjoy the Australian nature that they have fought to save.

After 30 minutes searching I was still having no luck with this one. Then while sending out a PAF, I heard the 2nd biker come at the bottom of the Temple Of Zoom. There must be a dam hard section right at the bottom.
Then the PAF replied to me and with there tip I was able to find the item in the hint after another 10 minutes. Boy there is a lot of growth that has happened as I couldn't see anything from the GZ.

Thanks for the cache A Homburg
Hunter

16:04
You can sit in front of the computer as long as you like, trying to solve cache puzzles, but ultimately it's more important to get out and look for them, otherwise what was the point?

To that end, and because it's been way too long since I walked some decent hills, it was time to get back to the Dandenongs for a Meander.

Way past time, in fact. It's been nearly five years.

A field puzzle, eh? Through the scrub I ventured, to this picturesque oasis. Looked in some likely spots, but they are legion, so eventually resorted to the spoiler pic.

Now, in the several years since this second fifty DM hides were published, I'm guessing some undergrowth has, er, overgrown. So the spoiler definitely helped, as I was casting about, though there's no way I'd have spotted it from the starting point.

Thanks, ahomburg, for a treasure hunt with a slight difference.

#5424

We approached gz along a comfortable sloped track, but little did we know that the slope was to turn to almost vertical as we headed back to the car.
After looking for quite a while and widening the search area we still had no luck. When I looked inside a hollow log with my torch something moved inside, so I wasn’t too keen to hang around after that. The hide was too good for us. Thanks for the challenge

field puzzle? look around?
too easy, this is how i cache normally

with a phone cheap enough that it has no inbuilt compass, so all treasure hunts feature a series of concentric circles as i try to get the distance-to-cache down without directional aid
with a data plan on a cheap enough network that in the mountains there’s no chance of helping words or logs or photo arriving via reception
with a caching sense bad enough that i never look in the right place first time

so going around in circles with no real clue of where the cache is?
right up my alley
too easy

Goodness - I’m still bewildered and wondering about the “kind of field puzzle bit”! I almost retreated but inbred stubbornness infuSed the hunt and I had that fabulous bingo moment - if only I’d com win from the track that way, but who would!. After way too long I figuredIn Melbs on caring duty to spend time with mum Mollie and lucky for me she is close by so able to head off on the trusty MTB and find a few caches in iso. Not so many peoples around late in the day either and the rain is threatening. Found, but the hint and spoiler of NO USE TFTC CO and challenging fun mind bending distractions

Yeah right Adriaan, resist the urge to peek at the spoiler. Naturally we respected the CO’s wishes..........for about 2 seconds, then peeked. The walk down this bloody hill was tough enough, with both of us shuffling sideways and trying to keep both feet on the ground, without you presenting us with a puzzle, which included the coordinates, and a picture of where the cache was hidden and expect us to use our geo senses. In your dreams.

A nice quick find here and we did replace the ziplock bag to make up for cheating. I’ll take the unloved as well.

Personally I think this is your best puzzle cache EVER, and would really love to see more of these types of puzzles:) Thanks Mr ahomburg. Have a favourite point for this one.

Well that took quite some time, but we eventually found it. The GPSr was not playing well, but the extended search worked. Thanks ahomburg.

We do enjoy a field puzzle, but as we approached GZ and looked around, we were a bit perplexed as to where to start. So we checked the hint. Now we were really lost. So we just decided to engage our geosenses and started our search. Lucky for us the cache was found and log signed. TFTC ahomburg.
Chiefton

Found on 25 Apr 2019 at 1:13 pm.
Today was the first day we took the electric bikes into the Dandenongs to finally find some of the DM puzzles plus others around the area that we have had solved for a long time. Some of the hills were pretty steep and really sucked down the battery power. I unfortunately even had to help pedal up a few of the steeper sections. What is this world coming to!
A couple of the smaller narrow tracks were very challenging as well with fallen trees across them but in the 3 hours or so we had we managed 20 finds and no DNF's. Pretty pleased about that.

We parked the parks and headed into the bush. Just as I was reading the description to work out what to do Fleabag- calls out "got it". That was easy, I was expected to be searching for a while.
Thanks ahomburg for the cache, the adventure, the hunt and the fun.

The Dandenongs seem to present a never ending supply of caches for Spiffy- and I. Many puzzles we have had solved for some time. Today we tried to clean up a patch on our Stealth electric bikes. Some hills really sucked the battery down but the real challenge was those that had fallen trees on the small tracks which meant lifting the 40kg plus bikes over... a little lucky here as I spotted something out the corner of my eye. Thanks to ahomburg for the placement and fun.

I was lucky to have most of the day to myself today, and so I was pretty keen to grab as many caches from the eastern side of the mountain, and in particular try to get closer to finishing off the massive DM series. I was feeling good after the last find which was on the temple of doom track, but I should have left this track to get to this cache because the track was so indirect! My GPS battery was running low and so were my energy and spirit levels! I eventually scrambled my way to GZ where I was hopelessly lost looking for the elusive cache. I had to check the spoiler and that didnt help for a while until I finally stumbled upon the hide - yes!!! Almost done for the day, but I am worried that I have been walking downhill for a long time - there must be some horrible uphills to get back to my car!!!

Im hoping this really is just a field puzzle and there was nothing else to be solved online.
The find: we searched high but nothing. We seaechwd low and boom GeowifeE scooped the prize.

Took some scouting around in the Bush to find this one! We got there

Christmas is over , so its time to go caching and work off those calories . I like the tracks round here. Searched around , but finally couldn't resist the urge to view the spoiler . Soon enough I was signing the Log . Cache is in good nick . Thanks ahomburg .

Wow, that was tricky! I arrived at the starting coords and had a good scan around - where could this be hidden? A few things caught my eye but when I went over to inspect them - no cache. So then I went about checking anything and everything in the general area. After 20 mins I caved and looked at the spoiler. Hmmm, no, haven't seen that. I did come across similar items so I checked them more thoroughly but to no avail. I then sent out a PAF and not even a minute later, before I had a reply, I found it on my own! Was so happy I did it, thanks ahomburg!

I had solved most of the DM puzzle series but had not had any firm plans to go searching for them. A few weeks ago ZQX flagged that he would be in town and suggested that we should spend a day sweeping the area. obviously I agreed. This also spurred me on to solve the final few puzzles.

By now I noticed that the track was taking an upwards trajectory but as they say what goes down must go up...or is it what goes up must come down anyway by now the legs were starting to get a bit of a work out.

At the GZ ZQX and I split up to cover more ground. There were so many places that a cache could be hidden and after a while I couldn't differentiate between areas that I had already searched and ones that I hadn't.
The pain was soon alleviated when ZQX came up with the goods. TNLN. TFTC.

Frilk and I found this cache during a 19 kilometre walk around the area. I solved the puzzle back in 2015 and I've been keen as mustard to get back to the area to collect it and many others.
I was very happy to make the find on this. We had to resort to the hint photo and that was the thing that helped me make the find. I've only seen one other puzzle like this, in the lower Blue Mountains west of Sydney. Nice concept. TFTC!

Arrived at the site expecting something a little harder. The walk in along the mountain bike track was tough but cache spotted when I got there within a minute. Beautiful winters day and no one around. Thanks.

loved this one it is different doing them at night tftc

356 days unloved after solving this a few days ago and added it to the watch list we set after work bush is so much more different at night to during the day always love finding caches by torch light makes finding it so much more fun. Tftc

Found with the brother at 7pm pitch black and only a small head torch to guide us, while pushing our way through wet ferns. Had a bit of trouble but eventually spotted a rock that stood out to me! TFTC

Found while walking in the area on a sunny Sunday morning.

I took quite the circular route to get to GZ here... definitely the defintion of a Dandenong Meander! I stood at GZ and looked around. Having seen some of the logs I knew I had to search a little bit wider than where I stood so off I went. It took a few minutes to zero in one somewhere that looked likely and soon found the nicely hidden cache. The area at GZ was lovely and such a contrast to the rest of the area. TFTC!

Out after work for a much needed chance to go for a ride and get some exercise after a long lazy summer. I made my way to this one after missing the track to DM#85 and found that this was going to be my first cache I would try for this afternoon. I ditched the bike and headed in towards gz and on reading the logs knew I would be searching a little off from where the gps wanted me to go. I extended my search and soon had the cache in hand, thanks ahomburg for the hide.

Came in from top down and easy walk to GZ but no cache - circled out and out till we eventually found it quite a long way out.

I had intended to drop in on this series some months ago and distinctly remember reading the description for this one back then. It feels like a part of my brain has been quietly contemplating what on earth this site could look like ever since. Upon arrival it looked...exactly like a patch of forest in a mountainous region of south eastern Australia. But there were indeed quite a variety of possible hiding places nearby. More than enough to keep me busy for a quite a few minutes. I did actually resist looking at the spoiler though. Eventually I found myself darting suddenly to one area I hadn't really considered at all to that point. And there was the cache. Phew. I was just starting to get worried. Thanks again ahomburg!

Found.Took a while. Searched where we found the cache but not thoroughly enough. Thanks

This one took a while but at my second visit to one particular spot, I found it. Thanx.

This entry was edited by erroma on Saturday, 17 October 2015 at 05:32:32 UTC.

4:36 pm #581
Today 88andy88 and I headed up the hills to meander our way through this area.
After 20 mins of searching and starting to run out of daylight and quite a way from our car, we decided to call the CO for assistance. Thankfully we then had the cache in hand shortly after.
TFTC and the assistance ahomburg!

OzHockeyChick and I continued down the hills to look for this little fella....The trek here was awesome and narrow trailed and even testing of our navigational skills as i am very well known for making T1's equivalent to T5's and i might add quite easily but in this one with a bit of a joint effort and OHC stopping me from leading her off the beaten track we made it to the hidden GZ. We looked for a little while and decided that we would need some help this time so we contacted AH and some advice given , some taken and soon enough a cache signed and replaced. Now the skies were slowly darkening and we were a long way from the car so we decided to make our way towards the car which was .........hmmmmm.....
TFTC and the help ahomburg
Ohh and a fav awarded from me just for the location and the area ......awesome effort AH

My third stop today, on a walk that was originally intended to be one cache onle. I think I should have stopped at two, as this one eluded me today. I had a reasonable look around, but it was not to be. Never mind, I will be back another day. Thanks for bringing me here and thanks for the cache.

Out this morning to find a cache for the anniversary award. The mystery was a bonus. Cache found in good condition without too much trouble.

Off the beaten track but easy find

I had a rostered day off today because it is my birthday and also I wanted to catch up on some contenders for the 2014 Victorian Geocache of the Year Awards tomorrow. I have a full days caching before racing home to get my vote in before 5 pm and as it turned out, I made it by 5 minutes, phew.
I actually spotted the object as I approached the GZ however when at the GZ I could not quite see it, none the less I made a bee line straight for the said object and sure enough came up trumps. Nice hide.
Thanks for placing this cache ahomburg

Now for the quick journey home to vote!

I decided to have another go at finding this one after giving up yesterday. the GPS didn't seem to be jumping around as much today, or I'm getting used to using it.

I got to the GZ, did as was told & looked, I saw lots of possible sites, had a look at the most obvious without luck. I wasn't going away from here today without finding it so then started circling outwards from the GZ after a few minutes I came across a likely spot, a bit of a prod with trusty walking stick & there it was

My way back to the track was easier than the way I went in, how I didn't see the way in yesterday I have no idea, too busy looking at the GPS & not looking around I think.

Thanks for another great cache ahomburg, enjoyed this one. took nothing left nothing

The photo is just a pic of the cache & log, doesn't include any clues of location other that the standard ahomburg black painted cache container

GPS & phone were jumping around a bit, after wandering around in ever increasing circles from most obvious location after 40 minutes I sadly called it quits, I shall try again another day, hopefully with better luck

Thanks for the cache ahomburg, I like a challenge when I dont have the geokids with me

I've solved all the DM puzzles I'll ever manage on my own. On Tuesday I was out to grab a few. Today it was a hot Saturday in the city, so a good day to head to hills to find a few more. I parked on the Sylvan Road and spent the afternoon doing a wide circuit. This is terrific terrain for walking, and I looked to stay off the main thoroughfares as much as possible.

I got to GZ and looked, but only saw one thing that stood out. But the cache wasn't there. I then did circle work for about ten minutes, getting very hot and realising that I could have brought more water. Luckily, and I mean luckily, I stumbled across the box.

Thanks for a challenging set of puzzles and for bringing me to a superb area for walking!

This series has been a fun and interesting learning journey over the past 6 weeks that that lead me to 28 puzzles and 35 km on a glorious October afternoon in Olinda. With the offer of a conference in Melbourne I tacked a couple of extra days leave at the end and figured I would spend a day up in the hills. So the lure of a string of puzzles and a great location had me hooked. I knew I would have only one day and all I could do was pray it wouldn’t rain. But in any case the solutions part was fun and I learned a few new things which is always nice.

The PUZZLE and the FIND:
With so many puzzles in my GPS I had sort of forgotten what to do with this one. So once at GZ and wandering around a bit (as my GPSr actually dropped out all together three times), I finally double checked the listing and remembered what was required. No fear about checking the spoiler - the phone didn’t want to work either! Thankfully there were a few spots that seemed more logical than others and the second one I checked was the right one.

This one started and finished my morning's meandering. Didn't get it on my first visit, but came back to it later and yea!!! found it. It's good to end on a high note, especially after the exertions of the morning. Why do all the tracks around here only go up?

Rabbitto and I got to this one and couldn't find the cache at GZ. Fortunately we (re)read the cache notes before very long and then started looking properly! About 30 seconds later we had the cache.

I found this cache today on a walk through some Dandenongs walks in company of Alansee. We first started looking at the listed co-ords before Alansee remembered that this was the cache that wasn't quite in that spot. Thanks from D B-A

More exercise for me. Took about 10 minutes but got there in the end. Saw the big ants - avoided them. Lots of hiding spots...TNLN TFTC Adrian.

Found this one last night with PopTopPete. i Got bit though my thick socks by one of those really big ants, man that hurt for 10min. TFTC.

Evening walk with Gunks to log some of the nearby mystery caches and the traditional ones too.
After the first find, I realized I'd lost my phone (along with drivers licence, bank card, cash...)
We were on a real treasure hunting mission, with no coordinates. It was dark, we were walking in a forest, phone was in a black cover and it went straight to answer phone when we rang it (reception is pretty poor round there.) And I'd only had it 2 weeks.
Luckily we'd been mostly on tracks, so after a good look round the definitely off-track GZ, it was time for back tracking.
Nearly back at the start I found it.
Then it was time to resume the geocaching, when it was safely zipped up in a bag, not in one of my press stud pockets.

Nice hide, TFTC.

Tftc earlly morning bike ride weather just perfectc

26/07/2014 12:09 (*2TF*) Second to find on this one as some hounds had already been here. Not sure why the inaccuracy is mentioned in another log as that seemed to be the point of this one. ie: Look elsewhere about GZ to see where it might be found. As you'd expect I searched 3 compass points before finally attempting to look in one particular direction where I saw something a little unique here and sure enough the cache was hidden there! TFTC ahomburg TNLN SL

FTF with Trailrunning, with a few of The DM series solved we decided to take some time to go find a few between work commitments. This was no big deal it was just like finding any in the series, most are about 15m out in this new batch of hides. Thanks ahomburg for the cache.

When this series was first published, I had no time to start to solve. After a little prompting from Rebel Acts we started to solve these one by one. Our intention was to solve all of them before heading out to collect them in one evening, but temptation of getting a few FTF's got the better of us and so today will a little shove from RA I decided to take some time out and go on a *FTF* hunt. While we only have 8 puzzles left to solve in the DM series, I've enjoyed the series so far. Today was 7 FTF's on puzzles, with a total of 9 finds. Some nice hills here!

Tried to find this in the pouring rain. Stumps, logs, forks and branches were the sort of things inspected to try and find treasure on this hill.
The path here had more hairpins than a teenager beauty case and 400 meters quickly turned into a kilometer plus walk.
Up ending all these small dry ecosystems a wombat was disturbed. Time to get out of here.

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