Logs for myriad 

Yes...this spot brings back recollections of the typical sort of location that young blokes wound up at night when their testosterone was fizzing and they were making all sorts of gooey noises to convince the young girls that being in the back seat of the car was much more fun (than, err...geocaching)! But then, back in those days, GPS hadn't even been invented yet.

Ummm...back to the serious stuff. Must have driven along the bitumen leading to this cache a zillion times like many other Canberrans who frequent the particular trading establishments along the route; yet I (like most) never had an inkling to see what was beyond the bitumen. An easy find 'n' grab cache this time but, come the warmer months, some Indiana Jones gusto might need to be an acquired skill once the local wildlife comes out of hibernation. You can just feel it in your bones in this sort of territory!!

Took the scented candle and replaced it with a computer memory cache (ridgy didge!) module. 

Knew the spot existed (from my aviation pursuits), but have just never been there before. The roadway appears to have been just been recently graded as it didn't seem to be as rough as advertised, even for a 2WD station wagon. The final clue, of course made the hunt very easy. Hopefully, even with the construction work going on, the great unwashed will be most unlikely to accidently stumble across the cache. On completing the formalities, the aim of the exercise was to get out before the gates closed at 5PM! Luckily I had spotted the closing warning notice otherwise I had intended to be quite leisurely about it.

Took the yellow car and replaced it with a TV antenna adaptor. 

A fairly conventional, by-the-book cache hunt. Walked almost in a dead straight line from a carpark to the target. A bit of past acquired geocache hunting instinct instantly suggested the likely hidey hole. Some nearby yobbos were having a barby / boozeup but luckily they were out of eyeshot of the target area while I carried out the formalities.

Took the Flintstone doll and replaced it with an electrical toggle switch.

[This cache will most likely become a weekday-only hunt once the weather warms up and picnickers start coming out in droves]

[last edit: 8/9/2003 7:00:35 PM PST] 

myriad slips in to add another virgin to his tally!

A bit of a huff and puff effort if you are a shade out of nick in the aerobics department, but there awaits a rewarding classic ACT panorama nevertheless. The satellite constellation was near perfect for this hunt but some instinct kicked in and the final run in to the target was on raw dead reckoning rather than waiting for the Garmin 12 co-ordinates to stabilise. The ubiquitous ThomasS trademark container was found exactly as suspected.

Took the plastic lion and replaced it with a microcomputer CPU. 

Another very civilised cache hunt! Quite a few runners and bushwalkers went past but a pair of binoculars over the shoulder and a map and compass admirably disguised my intention for loitering in the area. Took the Nintendo star and replaced it with a bowtie. Waited for the walkers to pass before concealing the cache well out of eyeshot of the great unwashed. 

Very interesting site. Most would probably never know that the particular memorial existed there. Nice bit of concealment at the cache's resting place...just where you would least expect to find it, given the terrain and potential hidey-holes in the immediate vicinity. Took the blue car and replaced it with a socket drive extender. Carefully restored the cache concealment to its 'least-expect-to-find' condition and went off in search of another on such a pleasant sunny afternoon. 

A very civilised cache hunt; no pain, no strain! Walked straight to the target. Certainly an interesting piece of history that the average Canberran would most likely not even know existed. Took the keyring and replaced it with a door latch. 

A sunny Saturday was an ideal time to hunt this cache as there was minimal eyeshot from the great unwashed! My intuition immediately suspected the hiding spot but I paused a bit to work up some Indiana Jones gusto for the final run in. The potential for additional surprises shouldn't be underestimated. Took the plastic rubber ball and replaced it with a former two cent coin. Surreptitiously replaced the cache but luckily there were no prying eyes.

[Future cache hunters will need to bring their own pen/biro as the top of the lead in the pencil has snapped off]
 

With regret, I've decided to archive Tactical Diversion geocache. The look-and-feel of this multicache relies on the specific man-made features in the vicinity to provide the waypoint clues. There are just no other equivalent features in the area that could replicate this multicache. The recent vandalising of the cache has now compromised the hiding spot and exposed its vulnerability. The vandal's defacing of the logbook is inconsistent with the spirit of the previous entries and therefore it just seems inappropriate to continue the logbook.

The quirky twist to this multicache, hence its name, was the fact that, at the first waypoint, you were actually standing directly on top of the cache's hiding spot but the briefing text was a subtle wordplay to suggest that the cache was located much further away and not somewhere so obvious! The other twist was my intuition that most cache hunters would have a mindset of multicache waypoints normally being some reasonable distance apart and that this multicache has them located no more than about 50 yards apart. The logbook entries suggest that most hunters fell for it and that the penny dropped once they realised they had been 'tactically diverted' away from a most likely hiding spot.
 

Sadly people, it looks like Canberra is experiencing a bout of cache vandalism. ThomasS' Tuggeranong's Top appears to have been knocked off within days of placement. Tactical Diversion was fleeced sometime after the last entry on 6 July 2003. The vandal obviously intended that his presence be known...he actually left the logbook and the container but took every other item. His message has the English expression commensurate with his level of Neanderthal human evolvement. You would wonder how a Neanderthal could master GPS in the first place!

The logbook entries suggest that everyone enjoyed the intended fun of the quirky little outcome of this hunt, especially when they could eventually see it staring them in the face. A decision will be forthcoming about this cache.


 

A second easy and quick cache find on a pleasant Canberra winter's afternoon. I was a bit cautious about lingering in the area for too long on a weekday...the denizens of Fort Knox have an admirable overlooking view and it's sure damn hard to see if there just happens to be any suspicious eyes peering out from anywhere in the brickwork. I kept my back to them while going through the cache finding formalities. With a backpack, a map, a compass and a bottle of water I was all geared to convince anyone that I was a bushwalker stopping for a break!

Took the gift wrapping tape and replaced it with a microcomputer processor unit. 

Have never been down this neck of the woods before but was aware of the major nearby features. Certainly an easy-to-get-to cache site with easy-going trekking BUT...the need for a final skill that goes beyond the call of normal geocaching duty could be a potential problem for any future geokiddies.

Took the toy car and replaced it with a date stamper.

[A suggestion for future cache hunters to this site might be to carry a roll of decent gaffer tape. The exposure of the existing cellotape arrangement to the elements, particularly the below-zero winter nights and the daytime heat is sure to see it quickly deteriorate. The consequences of the tape letting go will really spoil the intended effect of this cache!] 

A new inner city easy-to-get-to cache wasn't going to sit idle for too long it seems.
The locality has its share of undulating land but the hill was certainly a bit deceiving...you just don't tend to see it looking from outside in, even if you've driven past the general area a zillion times before. A straight run in to ground zero and it was a snack find. The camo paint job might need a short order refresher as it's already starting to flake off. Hopefully, bower birds (and the great unwashed) won't spot the unnatural hue. I noticed a nearby walk track, so overdoing the concealment might also be a problem. A bit of a concealment juggling act for all future hunters, I'd suggest! Took the grinding stone and left a mini lint cleaner brush. Just got of the place before the rain started to pour. 

What a perfect, mild, autumn afternoon for this hunt!

Actually threw the treadly and helmet in the back of the wagon but intuition said that I'd probably run out of daylight. So I piked out and drove the route instead! The waypoint clues...I mean, what can you say; they'll still be there when most of us are pushing up daisies! Consistent finds throughout the hunt (aided and abetted by a dash of UTM Grid, a daggy old map and some local knowledge.) Of any cache hunt, this has to be the first time that I've ever been standing at the exact co-ordinates with the cache container at my feet. Those dudes who calculate and update the satellite orbital ephemeris data either had it spot on today...or the position error was co-incidently the same as when the cache was planted. I was showing an EPE of 17 feet.

Took the plastic whistle and replaced it with a plastic spatula. 

Yes!...another virgin cache bites the dust! Fortuitous, actually, to spot it early only because I was posting Saturday's 'Original Molonglo' find.

Driving up the main drag conjured thoughts of likely 'where best to park and how far to walk', anticipating the number of possible permutations for a multi-cache in this area! But one of those little Canberra sanctuaries that most locals have probably been past a zillion times yet have never registered a mental chord looms on the horizon and gives an up-front warm fuzzy feeling about the task ahead. Off to waypoint one and there must have been a bush-walking club convention! There was an endless stream of them and I sensed a lone feeling of being observed loitering with intent. Binoculars and a camera slung over the shoulder seemed to allay any suspicion instead of having to stop and explain geocaching to the masses. Eyeballing the estimated target area suggested that a walk-grab-walk might be least suspicious. A break in the clumps of bush walkers, a snap raid and my dead reckoning navigation was spot on. Got well away from the target area to log the find, took the Apple computer mini spanner and left a pack of domestic electrical fuse wire. A walk-drop-walk out of public eyeshot and the cache was back safe and sound. 

A pleasant, Autumn day in Canberra...just ideal for a cache hunt or two, complete with the ubiquitous hill climb! Keeping it cryptic, I found a bit of a psychological twist in this hunt. It is interesting how the mind will easily conjure new perceptions when the most inviting probable solution turns out to be a fizzer and the remaining 'nooks and crannies' become differently focussed. I actually walked straight past the target during an initial radial search from ground zero and the camouflage just didn't gel! Back to GZ, a brief pause, a mental flush, a re-think of simple possibilities and the camouflage became transparent this time. Took the glycerine soap and replaced it with a garden watertap double adaptor. Then went and explored the great views from further up the ridge. 

A very pleasant, mild autumn afternoon for a strenuous hill climbing cache hunt. The effort is, however, rewarded with an easily observable target location. The satellite constellation gave GPS co-ordinates that were within spitting distance of the target. Concealment of the cache is somewhat less than optimum but as the site is well off the beaten track, the cache is unlikely to be accidently stumbled upon by the great unwashed. Although it's not a problem at the moment, this cache is definitely not a swap candidate for anything resembling food. The local wildlife seems to have a sense of smell that goes through plastic and some animals are known to be persistent enough to get lids off containers. This cache would be a sitting duck! The cache is in good condition but I suggest that the next hunter brings a zip-lock sandwich sealer bag (the Hercules are a bit more beefier than the Glad) to provide additional protection of the logbook (4x 6) against the temperature / humidity changes encountered here during winter. I took the scented candle and replaced it with a scrubbing brush. 

Easy access, easy stroll, easy cache find!

Had actually gone to hunt this cache just after it was placed but the warning signs and heavy vehicle activity suggested that the area was still out of bounds to the public during the cleanup of Mt Stromlo...so I didn't push my luck!

The rubber seal inside the metal lid is holding up well against the elements and the cache is in good condition. The glass bottle could be vulnerable to the weight of the 'concealment', so I've ensured that the bottle is below the ground surface level.

Took a glass bead and replaced it with a set of stick-on buffer pads. 

Certainly, an easy-to-get-to cache find. I was a bit hasty in leaping straight into a fossick of the more sheltered spots of the target area and struck a blank...despite being within spitting distance of the cache all the time. A step back, a quick flush of the brain of any microcache mindset, a clear look and rethink of the situation and the penny dropped. The container is surviving the elements and the lid seal is well intact.

I just happened to have a couple of micro trinkets in my travel kit: a Malaysian coin and a computer oscillator module...so the cache is now 'swappable'. 

Without a calculator in my kit, this cache hunt invoked some old 1960s-style pen and paper long division of 'big' statute measurement numbers plus some judicious use of the Garmin 12's Pan feature to dead-reckon the co-ordinates of the second clue (given that only crows can go as the crow flys!)...and it finished up being within about 50 feet of my estimate!

The target area definitely wasn't the stuff of red carpets! The tree cover knocked the stuffing out of the GPS position accuracy so some concerted radial searching from an estimated ground zero chewed up a bit of time. Stumbling onto the cache was decidely more by the sensation of it sounding out of place rather than it looking out of place. The moral of this cache hunt is to wipe any mindset of anticipated appearance of the cache container.

Took the toy horse and replaced it with a rope-climbing carabiner. 

A moderately easy virtual cache find...provided that you're armed with a bit of territorial landscape knowledge and know some of the local ins and outs of particular places in Canberra. Certainly one of the more civilised cache hunts that doesn't require the skills of Indiana Jones or Sir Edmund Hillary!
 

Mac's Peak geocache survived the recent bushfires and is now back on the air. Note the new starting co-ordinates and the new offset clue. The total walking distance to the cache does not change much as you would have commenced walking from somewhere near the new clue anyway. The original offset clue was part way along the track to the cache anyway! 

Back on the air again. Slightly different route but has the same look-and-feel as before. 

Tactical Diversion is temporarily off the air.
The cache itself actually survived the recent horrendous bushfire that swept through the area but the waypoint clues won't quite tally up at the moment! Stand by for version two in the not too distant future. 

Sorry, folks...Mac's Peak is off the air until I check it out after the horrendous Canberra fires that went through like a dose of salts on Saturday 18 January. The posted waypoint holding the offset clues has been vapourised into the ether!! Will need to do some co-ordinate re-programming, assuming the cache itself survived. 

Gave this one a shot on the way home from work. Had actually earmarked the locality a week or so ago using UTM with a local map and had an inkling of the general spot but geocache hunting was down on the priorities that week. I was hoping that the tennis players were not as plentiful as on a normal weekend so as to avoid any suspicion of being seen poking around. There were a couple of tennis players this time but luckily they were on the farside court out of eyeshot. Next, the GPS satellite constellation coverage just happened to be lousy at the time of day that I picked. The position error was high and the trees just soaked up the signal strength from some directions giving an inconsistent position fix. It really then came down to intuition and fossicking amongst each likely possibility. A few passing joggers gave me the evil eye but I had a cover story already thought up! Finally spotted the booty but waited until the coast was clear before spiriting it out and filling out the log in the privacy of my car. I took the dolphin stick-on thingy and replaced it with a set of kitchen measuring spoons. Waited until the coast was again clear, and the cache is now back where I found it. 

Ahhh! A pleasant, sunny, spring morning to take another virgin cache. Nabbed this one on the way to work via a bit of a detour. It took some time for the Garmin 12 to settle down to consistent co-ordinates...something to do with its internal clock temperature going from a cold start after being in the car overnight. A minute or so eyeball scanning to discount the unlikely hiding places narrowed the field down somewhat. A quick fossick amongst what seemed likely to be a probable hit...and bingo. I was surprised to find that the container was glaringly clear when walking from one particular direction. Given that this place gets a fair amount of touristy traffic in the warmer months, I've taken the liberty of making it just a smidgin less conspicuous to minimise any accidental finds by the great unwashed. The skill of the average geocache hunter should still clinch it easily enough, though. I haven't really got my teeth into the travel bug thing as yet, (the penny's dropped now that I've downloaded the relevant guff ) so I took the luggage tag and replaced it with a set of table coasters. A nearby virtual cache has long been claimed. However, astute geocache hunters might still sense a 'disturbance in the Force' when hunting this cache!! 

WARNING!! WARNING!! Will Robinson DANGER!! DANGER!!

Went to do a post-installation check of the cache to make sure any wildlife hadn't been tampering and found that a reptilian denizen had become the self-appointed guardian of the cache. Australian bush standard operating procedures ARE therefore recommended. The scrubland is generally covered with very short grass and visibility of the open ground near the cache is excellent. 

Could easily have nabbed this as a virgin a couple of weeks ago but didn't want to be a glutton that week!! Had the co-ordinates worked out on an earlier work trip during a morning tea break at the tucker box but since the cache didn't appear to be on the main drag (like another virgin that I clinched) I decided to leave it until I had more time up my sleeve. On the return home from a country work trip, there was a bit of fat in the schedule to give this one a shot. The GPS bearing / distance while on the backroad gave a reasonable ballpark of where I should point the vehicle and we finished up driving straight to within throwing distance of the booty. The hunt needed a bit of a fossick and radial search as the tree cover gave lousy GPS satellite reception and estimated position error at the time. A bit of persistence and I had it nailed. Took the flashing safety light and replaced it with a genuine Pentium CPU. The cache is in good condition and the container well sealed...but despite us being in a drought at the moment; if history ever repeats itself as I have seen in this area on occasions in the distant past...the cache will no doubt be taking swimming lessons!! 

Another country work trip that went past this neck of the woods saw an opportune time for a leg stretch and driver changeover...and a cache hunt. Initially, the GPS distance-to-run suggested that this cache would be a bit of a hike into the scrub from the main road but working out the best spot to do a U'ee hinted to a 'map feature' that intuition suggested would get much closer to the booty. My intuition was coaxed a bit by the earlier consistent lay of the zapper with the road and the (now) clear deviation of the zapper from the main road in the vicinity of the cache (this might sound somewhat convoluted and cryptic...but I don't want to give it away too easily to future hunters but rather let them find the easy way for themselves!!) The scrubland has the same look-and-feel as a couple of my other cache finds so it quickly narrowed the field of potential hidey holes. A few minutes of scurrying, poking and prodding and it was an easy find. Took the portable clothes line and replaced it with an electronic circuit card.

 

Indeed, a novel and very cunning implementation of clues. This cache is not too far from my neck of the woods, so it only required a smidgin of a detour on my way to some Saturday shopping. The lay of the land is familiar as I've ridden along the cycleway countless times over the years. It was a bugger of a time with the paper compass though...there just happened to be a 20-odd knot wind blowing! The penny dropped with aligning the compass but it required some juggling with a few lines-of-best-fit to optimise the pointer. I didn't apply the distance 'calculator' to its full extent but rather used some intuition of anticipated hiding places. I was nearly thrown off the scent by something that could have conceivably been a microcache but it's contents (that won't be revealed here) just didn't tally. A bit of lateral thinking with the search and presto! There was a nearby group of people holding a recreational competition activity and to avoid any suspicion of loitering with intent, I just waved the camera and binoculars around a bit with the premise of being a landscape photographer. Luckily I had brought three potential trinket swaps...small, smaller and smallest, as only the Australian flag lapel badge would fit into the cache. I swapped it for the IBM Olympic memento lapel badge. 

Yay! Another virgin cache...that's two in one week. At this rate it'll be habit forming. This cache is without doubt a daylight hunt! (notwithstanding the park gate closure time). Negotiating the first site without some cautious footwork could ruin the rest of your day! With overcast conditions and mid teens temperature, the expected walk was not too torturous. I started my run at 1500 AEST leaving two hours for the two finds and some reserve to get out before the park gates closed. I logged the cache find at 1555 AEST but luckily the return walk was much quicker than the way in and I had about 25 minutes up my sleeve back at the starting point. Certainly another fine picturesque part of Canberra. I took the dice set and replaced it with a traveller's magnetic chess set. Full marks to ThomasS for the effort in setting up this cache...I suspect that there would have been a minimum of two return treks to the cache location, one to survey and one to place...plus the handiwork to make the baton! 

Yay!! myriad takes another virgin cache! Trundling down the highway on a work trip, this was a good spot for a driver changeover break. The co-ordinates had me initially fossicking for a micro or mini cache in some likely spots but the search needed to be just a bit wider. The final location has almost the same look-and-feel of a site that I have earmarked for a cache in my neck of the woods near home so the penny eventually dropped. An elderly fellow and his wife who were also taking a rest stop nearby were inquisitive about my pacing backward and forward, sequentially turning 90 degrees and pacing some more backward and forward until I found the booty. They were certainly interested in my conducting this mysterious ritual. I explained the basic elements of geocaching and they went away happily enlightened with the whole affair. Took the mini fishhook container and replaced it with a tube of athletes' foot cream. 

Strewth! This landscape would do an Agatha Christie murder mystery some justice. You'd never find a body dumped around here...ever! Hunting this cache just on dusk after arriving in town meant honing some prime geocaching skills. A ten minute radial search and I had it nailed. I took the travel clock and replaced it with a meagre offering of a genuine QANTAS in-flight meal box anti-terrorism gob-stopper spoon. I certainly didn't wimp out and use the Garmin GPS trackback feature to get out of this quagmire but just relied on some instinctive directional sense and a bit of Indiana Jones jungle penetration technique!!
 

Passing through this neck of the woods to see my parents (in the next suburb) while on a work trip in Sydney. There was just enough daylight left to give it a shot. Certainly a user-friendly category of cache...easy parking (getting back into the traffic stream in peak hour was fun though), easy walking, no Indiana Jones stuff needed and an easy find. The cryptic clue didn't quite gel but it didn't matter anyway. Unfortunately, my intended trinket would have impinged on the cache box weather seal so I declined a swap. The cache is in good condition. 

Up from Canberra seeing friends in the area so decided to do a bit of opportune geocache hunting as well.

It must be the laid back Queensland style but compared with some of the southern caches where we get just the co-ordinates and you have to sort out your own way...the clues were just like having a red carpet to the booty!!

Took a mini combo lock and replaced it with a Harvey Norman (Woden Branch...Canberra locality) souvenir pen...just to prove it came from Canberra!!

Astute virtual geocache hunters might find a 'Disturbance in the (geocaching) Force'(like in Star Wars) not far from the jetty and towards the general store if they are looking for an easy virtual cache hit. I've already staked a claim on this category of virtual cache elsewhere in the country so it's up for grabs if you do your homework

[last edit: 9/3/2002 5:22:02 AM PST] 

My third for the day after a bit of island tourist stuff. Just like 'Coochie Coup', the clues were like having the red carpet rolled out!! Must be the laid back Queensland style again. Where I come from we're used to a set of co-ordinates and that's generally about it...find your own parking spot, find your own way, rain, hail, or shine!!

Madame has a definite soft spot for the fluffy things in caches, so I took the fluffy dog and replaced it with a (measly...but it was all I had left!) plastic putty spatula. All in the turn of geocache nature, I guess, as it's the variety of trinkets that counts.

A good lot of bushwalking exercise also results from this cache site. The cache is in good condition and has been well hidden again. 

Up from Canberra seeing some friends in the area, so decided to give some opportune geocache hunting a shot as well. Easy find in a few minutes of looking near the obvious hidey holes.

This poor little cache is almost close to being renamed Old Mother Hubbard as the pickings were pretty slim!! Left a stick-on vehicle reflector but didn't have the heart to take anything. C'mon local geocache hunters...pay this easy-to-get-to site a visit and give it a bit of a leg-up with some more trinkets.

And just a simple suggestion for the preservation of the logbook against the elements, particularly humidity would be to place it in a zip-lock bag. I prefer the Hercules heavy duty bags rather than the Glad version 

S 35° 22.007 E 149° 02.762
This is Mount Arawang trig point located at S35 22.007 E149 02.762. The trig bench mark consists of a large rivet embedded in concrete directly underneath the familiar trig marker. The letters on the rivet don't seem to give any hints of where, when, who, what or why!!! The site is located on the edge of the southern suburbs of Canberra in one of the many 'nature parks' intended for bushwalking or general recreation. The trig is at a height of about 2550 feet above mean sea level placing it about 500-odd feet above the prevailing terrain of most of Canberra. The steep climb to the top is energetic to say the least but the unobstructed panoramic view from the top is spectacular. Sunrises and sunsets are idyllic. To give some further perspective, Black Mountain tower is located just over 6 nautical miles (just east of) North from Mount Arawang and can be seen in one of the photos. This visit was made on one of Canberra's typically optimal winter days; clear sky, bright sun, no wind, no smog, but a tad cool at 12 degrees Celsius. There are several local caches positioned within cooee of this site.


[last edit: 7/13/2002 7:44:52 AM PST] 

Guess who had the wrong co-ordinates plugged in!! Dunno what I was doing but luckily I had already earmarked the locality on a street directory using UTM Grid before I left home. Thankfully, they were only about 50 yards out of whack and the likely hidey-holes were therefore limited to something that looks like it would suitably hide an inner city cache.

Definitely a neat spot of camouflage technique!!...and certainly discounts any mindset on the ubiquitous tupperware container. A midday Sunday find seemed to be the go for not attracting too much attention and it was easy to make sure that placing the cache back in its hidey-hole was out of eyeshot of any interlopers. It was a howling gale at the time so writing up the log was better done inside the car.

Decided that an expired Woolies fuel discount docket would be about as useful as a hip pocket in a singlet if it stays in the cache beyond the end of July...so its now on my dashboard with a couple of weeks lifespan left! Replaced it with a Wrigley's promotional pack which seems to have some unknown goodies in the sealed pack. [No, I'm not really mercenary...the petrol money saved will partly fund my next cache that is in mid-stream planning!]

[last edit: 7/7/2002 5:43:25 AM PST]

[last edit: 7/7/2002 5:44:15 AM PST] 

Definitely a well calculated tourist-friendly multi cache!

Being a local has some advantages for finding the ideal parking spots, but without detracting from the spirit of the hunt, future non-locals can save themselves some anguish if they arm themselves with a local street directory and make judicious use of a map grid other than lat/long to pre-plan their route from one clue waypoint to the next.

One of the waypoints will test your enthusiasm if the prevailing wind just happens to be not what you expect, as I (and a stack of Jap tourists who wanted it as a photographic backdrop) discovered.

Waypoint 5 was reminiscent! Previously saw it from the opposite angle though, as most visitors to that location would!

The final run to the cache comes off the road that I use each workday so the likely target site became obvious. A little way into some light mulga and the find was easy.

Took the 'mood music' CD and left a traveller's magnetic Chinese chequers game.

[last edit: 5/26/2002 4:58:51 AM PST] 

An Eastern interloper over in this neck of the woods on business decided to have an after-work shot at this one. Definitely a tourist-friendly cache with easy parking, no hills or mountains (for a change!) and a spoiler photograph to boot. The spoiler didn't add much value in any case as the co-ordinates lead you to the likely obvious hiding spot. A few minutes fossick and it was an easy find. Being a mini-cache container, one of the items that I wanted to leave (a genuine QANTAS gob-stopper heavy-duty plastic 'ration pack' spoon from the flight over) wouldn't fit! So I left a meagre contribution of some party poppers and took the little yellow car. The cache is in good condition but it's getting a little crowded inside! 

Up from the South on a business trip; and decided to give this one a shot late in the afternoon after work.

Well...yes, nice stroll through the trees...and the reason why you wouldn't try cache hunting on a weekend is a giveaway...but searching was a bit like a game of blind man's bluff. Several 'position averaged' fixes placed the co-ordinates close enough to a man-made feature that seemed to be the obvious hidey-hole. But...no joy. Then decided to carry out a radial search from the fix...again, no joy! Time was against me and I could see that this was going to be a bit of a saga. Add the fact that your intrepid explorer wearing only T-shirt and stubby shorts and with minimal local fauna knowledge, had no intention of sussing out a potential Joe Blake population in the chest-high grass and risking a severe blip in our work and get-home flight schedule.

The real problem, I guess, is that without knowing what this micro-cache was going to look like and without a generic hint of its placement and the onset of sunset...I was behind the eight-ball.

Next time, maybe...when we're back in that neck of the woods!!
 

Ahhhhh...nothing like taking a virgin on the side of the mountain in the bush on a cool, brisk, clear-sky, autumn Canberra morning - even before breakfast! Err, whoops...virgin CACHE, that is.

The torment wasn't Tailor...but rather the (long scream)...poetry! Another hill...sure, but luckily not as heart-starting as some others in the ACT! The numbers worked out correctly but your's truly decided to go a bit feral for part of the way rather than stick to the walking track. Usual magnificent vista of the sun-lit Brindabellas and the overall panorama means you wouldn't be dead for quids! A bit of map orientation / reading and directional / distance sense with the GPS and compass should give cache hunters some perspective of where a couple of other caches in the locality are positioned. Visitors to the ACT can really up their tally in a relatively short time.

Madame at home is an avid book fan so I took the paperback 'Halfway across the Galaxy and Turn Left' and replaced it with a Mickey Mouse mini-purse / keyholder.

[And finally, just to dispel any notion amongst other hunters that there is a hint of insider trading going on in the southern surburbs of Canberra to deprive others of being first to some newly-placed caches; you might find a sense of deja-vu in getting to Tailors Torment and Mac's Peak. The fact that two adjacent caches were put 'on the air' within a day of one another and that both have similar look-and-feel clues really is a bizarre co-incidence or, maybe, 'great minds thinking alike'. And that they were both found within a day of placement by reciprocal owners is perhaps really a case of 'first in, best dressed'!! Local knowledge and being able to visualise the possible site before getting there certainly also added an edge]

[last edit: 4/27/2002 1:40:05 AM PST] 

[No disrespect intended for heading off on a cache hunt on ANZAC Day...but my thoughts of rememberance were expressed during the morning]

An energetic and invigorating afternoon's climb is an understatement!! A 4WD or trail bike would shave untold expended calories off the trek to the cache. After the huffing and puffing had subsided, the clues made it easy to find the hidey-hole. Scanned the panorama with binoculars for some time to pinpoint and take compass bearings on some favourite landmarks (including the site for a new cache...nudge nudge, wink wink!).

Took the Army ration pack drinking chocolate sachet...err, I mean the astronaut's pre-packed, vacuum-sealed, survival energy food [in keeping with the theme of this cache ] and replaced it with a chunk of genuine, glow-in-the-dark space chalk...which is likely to be the sought-after trinket for any budding young space cadets that next visit A Spacey Cache!!
 

Without a doubt...a very user-friendly cache!! If Rick and Christine want to place more of 'em like this, I reckon they'll hardly get a whimper of complaint. Ideal for passing tourists to add to their find tally [like us who were on our way down to the coast for a long weekend]. Absolutely no requirement for a map and cut lunch, jungle combat gear or the ability to leap tall buildings at a single bound. Having the Garmin 12 in power-save mode slowed its update a little as we passed abeam the cache while driving over the bridge, suggesting that it might be on the other side of the river, despite the subject of the cache name being fairly obvious. Having outsmarted myself and certainly having no intention of going for a dip, it was back to the other side where the target was becoming apparent. Easy parking, a few minutes casual stroll and a quick fossick nailed it. Madame liked the bandaged bear but I felt guilty about our meagre offerings so I left three items to compensate; a whistle, a party popper and a supersonic jet aeroplane (actually a 1/400 replica!)

myriad 

A pleasant second find for the day after an earlier successful mission over yonder to the East a bit. Easy parking, easy stroll, only a few kangaroos...they bolted anyway and a limited number of hidey-holes that fit the criterion of the clues. Couldn't understand what the German tourist wrote in the log but, no doubt, he/she enjoyed the panorama (as I do)! And guess who likes marmalade?...The cache is therefore lighter by one (small) jar's worth of the stuff and has been replaced with an ink stamp pad and a couple of party poppers.

This cache almost has the same look and feel of a couple of new sites that I have surveyed recently and are likely to pop up in the near future once I have some offset cryptic clues sorted out.

PS. The black cat??...the black cat near the cache??...anybody know what it is meant to achieve!!

[last edit: 3/17/2002 1:50:09 AM PST]

[last edit: 3/17/2002 1:56:13 AM PST] 

Out for a pleasant Sunday arvo cache find. Should have started at the top and worked down rather than the other way around, but it was all good exercise anyway. Found the ol' oak tree (proverbially) and then fossicked for a while amongst the rocks to look for anything that was out of kilter with nature. The cache is reasonably well hidden but nature could never have placed the rocks as they are and that was the giveaway. Exchanged a couple of party poppers and a champagne bottle cork for the strawberry chew-chew bar. A few people walked up and down the nearby pathway while I was writing the log entry but I don't believe that they noticed me or saw what I was doing. I made sure it was all clear when I reset the cache, so that it remains well hidden from the view of unwashed plebs and detectable only by us of the GPS cognoscente. 

The coordinates of this cache put it at 1.9 nautical miles from my home, so I thought I would tackle it after work in place of my usual power-walk around the local nature trails. A rough guestimate of the location didn't tally with any of my usual walking tracks and it was late in the afternoon; so yours truly simply hit the GOTO button and made a bee-line for the cache site. Getting to the edge of suburbia was easy and then it was hill and dale as the crow flies. The kangaroos didn't hang around but I was wondering if I had just walked into a bullfighting ring! They just kept staring and that was the way that I liked it. Closer to the cache the terrain gets a bit rugged so the walking tracks became a better bet. By the time I was getting close, the sun had set behind the range of hills and the light was falling. The final clue was a godsend as the satellite geometry wasn't crash hot in this location as well as there being some tree cover attenuation. The GPS position error was up a bit compared with a clear sky horizon-to-horizon view. A bit of a fossick for a couple of minutes and a glint of plastic gave it away. I logged the find (the first one for this cache...yay!), left a red fluoro pen and took a nappie safety pin.

Now the tricky bit...getting out before it gets too dark to find my way home. My directional instincts now gave me a better estimation of where I actually was and I found an old vehicle track which led to where I half expected. With 20-20 hindsight, this would have been a much easier way in, despite being well off-course of my original track. Negotiated a couple more herds of cattle (this time the bulls were a bit more curious), and then finally hit a familiar strip of macadamised overlay. It was dark at this stage, so a quick phone home to take a raincheck on the search party and a brisk walk home to burn off some more calories rounded off another successful mission. 

My second shot at this cache...found it this time! Had a bit of help with a couple of extra pairs of eyes though. Took an old mate and his son out for a geocaching initiation. The young fellow found it first. I was actually within spitting distance on my first search a few weeks ago but the moral of the story is not to get a mindset on the expected shape and size of the container based on other cache finds . Took a Band-Aid and left a CDRW. The cache is getting a bit top heavy with CDs so my suggestion for future players is to preferably place the slim-line cases.