Miowera Meadow - Grass trees Australian Capital Territory, Australia
By Tankengine on 09-Apr-22. Waypoint GC9PYXX

A lovely 18C still overcast day, perfect for wandering around the bush and fire trails for the day. Cache found OK. It is a typical TankEngine medium size green metal tube. It is located at the base of the Westernmost post for this particular Grass Tree and is completely covered in grass.

A dnf here today. I'm wondering if this has had a fence upgrade.

A great hike with the Bullen Range 7 (signing as BR7) which consisted of Toy Hunter, baristayan, buckoraider, contesta, pantspeople, sebass19 and me. A lot of bush bashing and along the Fire trail in the Bullen Range NR on the south east side and west of the Murrumbidgee starting from the Deep Space Station.
Up and down along and getting glimpses of the Hills in the background. Diving into the bush down steep bit in the last third to get to the harder once. We made it a great loop today that contesta had planed for us today. What a great comeback of the UFOs. About 14km in about 7h and 30(+) caches later we returned to the deep space station carpark. No DNFs and the caches were in good shape. This was a very enjoyable hike, the weather was not hot, rather a very comfortable 18 degrees max today with glorious sunshine. A great real exercise and adventure like only caching can give you. Thank you for the very enjoyable company today!

And thank you Tankengine for putting these caches out.

Found with Bullen Range 7 (BR7) which consisted of myself, baristayan, buckoraider, contesta, Flintstone's, pantspeople and sebass19. Absolutely massive day of caching. Lots of going up and down hills and portions of bush bashing and rough ground terrain but we all kept in good spirits with lots of laughs. Amazing views all around and a very peaceful area, saw absolutely no one else other than a park ranger. On a day that makes me embarrassed to be a Western Bulldogs supporter, this walk was a major highlight! Thank you everyone! TFTC TE, amazing trees!

Cache here blends in well. Lovely grass trees and nice to learn a new word in appreciating the Miowera. Cheers TE

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In the spirit of reconciliation we would like to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of country on which we geocache throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We (the pants people) pay our respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.

I meet Conntesta at Canberra Space for hike/geocaching for day... Today BEATUFUL full sunny...tks

Find # 8672

Making the most of the opportunity to duck out for a few hours of caching fun. Seeking out the occasional challenge or two, or trying to mop up as many solves as I can to keep that long list under control. Seems to increase faster than it decreases

Gosh! Fancy seeing these trees in their very own playpens.
We had no idea they were so special and need to be held captive.
It would be great to see so many more of them here.
Log signed and we enjoyed visiting this spot which we had no idea about.
Thanks Tankengine
Domsky

Thanks for drawing my attention to these beautiful trees. I very much appreciated the flat terrain of the area.

TFTC!

Found while exploring around the area with some friends. TFTH

Beautiful old trees, makes you wonder if they were all through here once before
Grazing.
Have missed these trees on my last wander this way so thanks tankengine for pointing them out

What a glorious day to go for a hike!

Teamed up with AngelG27 along with the geochaps comprising of Search4, TikvaNZ and Fox in Jox (signed as FASTS). Great fun with this lot! The focus of the day was to nab the recently published caches in Bullen Range and a few others along the way.

Another one Search 4 and I made the slight diversion to on the way back to the geomobile with the others.

What a lovely meadow with this random clump of Grass trees! Found the Tankengine trademark hide after a few moments of searching. Giving this one a fave!

Thanks for the hide, TE!

Found with SA a while ago. Interesting plants. TFTC

Headed out today with the intention to just get the nearby ZQX Virtual Cache. However, once up on the range, I became overcome with the urge to hike. In total, I spent 6 hours looming around near this cache today. I hadn't planned on getting any more caches, so I had no pen, water, food, or hiking equipment. I took a photo of the log, the cache, and myself holding the log in front of the cache to prove that I actually found it. I contacted the CO and messaged all the photos to them. Permission has been given to log this cache with a close-up photo of the log. A huge thank you to the CO for this cache in this amazing part of the world. Thanks for the cache and the Adventure.

Amazing Grass trees, they are so big

Beautiful large grass trees around here, I would certainly believe they are some of the oldest in the territory. Thanks for marking this place with a cache

"Miowera Meadows": I had no idea there was this tiny nature reserve beyond the pines. I took some nice photos of the yacca trees in the afternoon sun. Cache was easy to find with the hint.

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The day's journey:

With a beautiful sunny sunday afternoon at my disposal, I went on a long mountainbike trek, starting at the Tidbinbilla Road and then following the trails all the way to their northmost point, collecting "Miowera Meadows" and "Weird Weir 39" before wheeling my bike up the powerline trail to the trig station, via "Bullen's backside" to the "Bullen's Range Wonderland virtual at the saddle so very familiar to me.

I did have to skip the 3inACT challenges, since I've never done a Wherigo, and did not try for DSD's "Traditional Relief" after assessing where it probably was and deciding I did not have enough time before sunset, and was not worth enough money in my life insurance to try it solo.

Finally, I rode/walked back along the ridgeline, depending on the steepness (see previous comment on life insurance), making it back to my car just as the sun dipped behind the mountains.

Out with Tankengine up into Bullen for a couple of new caches. With the new caches found it was onwards, and upwards for a few others on the track to the top on a lovely sunny winters day. There was snow on the hills but the sun was shining and the trail was steep enough to keep things warmed up nicely. Continued on back down to the much more pleasant flat walk back to the car, a little boggy under foot, several creek crossings and a few gates but dry feet and a decent mornings walk for 9 caches found on the way.

I was really surprised to see so many large grass trees here. It's a great discovery and pleased the cache was here to highlight them! Thanks for the cache and the company Tankengine!

#377 After deciding we probably were going to take a miss on the nearby CITO today, Turtle and I made a last minute decision to head out this way today. We haven’t been out this way before so we took the long way up to the event as we learned later and we ended up only just making the last 15 minutes of the CITO, however everyone had already disbanded so we joined Loci612 and Sebass19 before rejoining a split off group of the CITO.

Back on even ground we detoured over to this one just before heading back towards the satellites where our vehicles were parked. Upon approach of our group of 10, Loci made the speedy find. A lovely range and unique grouping of flora here. Thanks again Tankengine

**This Cache**

This was an interesting find! Awesome to see that conservation efforts happen even in the most random nature reserves around the ACT! This spot must be quite infrequently visited apart from geocachers and the more serious hikers!

The cache was a very quick find!

TFTC

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**Today**

I had no plans to come up this range again after finding *almost* all the UFO caches, but with the new ZQX virtual cache I knew I would have to make yet another trip!

Then a CITO was published in the same place, which was the perfect excuse to come up and kill two birds with the one stone! DSD and injuryman both pulled out the day before due to last minute commitments, but myself and sebass19 were eager to take on the range once again!

It was a pleasant walk, we took the shortest route up and back which worked out quite well, and also happened to have a couple of caches on it along the way!

Thanks to all the CO's!

Out with other cachers. Loci made the find. A nice spot. TFTC TE

#2262 Now on the flats we made our approach and circumnavigation before Loci located the cache and added our names to the scroll. Thanks Tankengine for highlighting this impressive patch of flora.

#17681 @1245
A CITO near a cluster of caches provided the incentive to do another walk on the Bullen Range. 9 of us started off for a wander up a spur to the ridge then along the fire trail to the CITO, collecting several UFOs on the way. It was a beautiful day to be out in the hills. By the time the CITO finished the numbers had grown by at least another 9. Afterwards we visited the nearby virtual, then dispersed in different directions, with 10 of us descending down the road then north to the cars via a few more caches. Cache easily found. TFTC.

lovely trees. Can see why they are fenced off.

When we heard about the CITO in the Bullen Ranges I was keen to go. There were lots of caches up that way I wanted to tackle. Most will be left till another day but some were targeted. Fabulous day to be out walking in the ranges and great company.

Unless mentioned all the caches were in good condition.

Thanks for getting me out and about Tankengine

Cache 8978 on 21 May 2022.

The lure of a CITO on Bullen Range was too hard to resist, so plans were made with team FATZ and others to attend, via a few other caches on the way there and back. Sadly, a couple of buddies could not make it at the last minute, so the group which started out from the gate was smaller than planned. We walked up a spur to the track, south along the track to the CITO (where we split from the Sydney crew) and Kittykatch, Joolay, TikvaNZ, Fox in Jox and myself joined with AKM and then headed down the western track to the road where Lochie612, Sebass, Turtle and Deadthief caught up to us It was a glorious morning for a hike, blue skies and birds aplenty. About 11kms all up.

This cache: quick find and an interesting mini conservation area!

Thanks Tankengine for the cache and the fun!

We wandered up the track to find these fenced off grass trees. Lovely to be back on flatter less rocky ground here. Thanks for hiding and maintaining this cache Tankengine

Find#2685
Nice hiding place
Found with loci612
On a adventure to Bullen range
Thanks for the cache

I love grass trees and have several in the garden. I suppose in a 100 years they will be quite attractive provided a developer does not rip them out. Cache was in plain sight so I tucked it behind a bit. TFTC.

A Canberra Bushwalking Club trip, with a couple of caches on the route. This is a beautiful area - both grass trees and a lovely shaded grassy meadow. Plenty of muggles with me to find the cache. As usual, a fine Tangengine set up. TFTC.

There’s new caches appearing on a daily basis, and my inbox is quite full at times. Physically I can’t get them all, and sometimes it’s easier to get inspired by other cachers who recommend interesting caches, rather than going blind to find caches. Mountainsbeyond was my kick in the backside to go and find 3 newly minted caches in this area quite known to me, the bullen range. It’s the Easter long weekend and the best entry point to get to these caches was down discovery Dr and boy the tracking station was very busy. But not the walk to this and the other 2 caches, the only thing in our way was shorn sheep and long grass. With spectacular backdrop views the going wasn’t too hard and soon was at GZ.
This was the second cache of the day, what a weird set of ferns, all encased in their own private fence. The usual TE cache was here, Tftc.

Woot! [FTF] with StarsAlign at 0821!

Seeing these new caches published yesterday I thought the area looked familiar. Oh - hang on! Yes, we were here only two days ago and cycled directly past two of the three (within 5m of one, and within 20m of another). Nonetheless our familiarity with the area gave us the confidence to attempt an early morning mission, so the younger GeoTeen and I rendezvoused with StarsAlign at a suitable parking spot at way too early.

We elected to take a more direct route in on foot rather than the longer way we had previously used on our e-MTBs, so hopped over the usual fence and walked around a large flock of recently shorn sheep, through the knee-high (and wet with a heavy dew) grass in a more or less straight line to the first cache.

A straightforward find and sign (yay! a blank log! And a very nice, bespoke-style container here) and then on slightly easier trail alignment to our second objective, the Grass Trees (this one). I confess I hadn't noticed these as we sped past them earlier this week - wow, what an unusual find out here in the shadow of Bullen Range!

Photos taken and log duly signed we then retraced our ride from Tuesday, up and over Schrodinger's Gate (can't decide if it's open or closed or both) to the starting co-ordinates for the final multi cache. We quickly extracted the data and soon had a feasible-looking set of co-ordinates, so took a short walk to a very pretty location where the cache was soon located.

From here it was back to the cars, as always we found a much easier track out than I had selected on the way in. Some more pics of the photogenic Tidbinbilla Range and then we were back to the cars.

A fantastic little walk, only 6.6km return, but stunning scenery on a beautiful day. A few random pics from the adventure attached.

Thanks, Tankengine! A favourite on this cache for highlighting a really unexpected part of the bush.

[FTF] ️ ️ ️ with mountainsbeyond

Despite being here just two days ago it was a glorious morning to do it all again. With fun company we headed out very early morning as we had other commitments in the afternoon.

Lovely location with plenty of roos to enjoy. Worth a favourite point on this cache (Miowera Meadow) for the three caches found this morning. TFTC Tankengine.

PHOTOS TO COME

Published