Urban Forest - Western Ring Path St Albans, Victoria, Australia
By caughtatwork on 01-Jul-17. Waypoint GA10338

Today we started with the Western Ring Path series of caches then headed over to Cairnlea to find some more in that area. We had selected 36 caches to find and this was one on our list. Unfortunately, we could only manage 24 finds, the rest were DNF"S.

Cache and contents were dry and in good order.

Thanks caughtatwork.

Rated: for Overall Experience

18:25
A bit of a bush bash on the bike, but that just makes it more fun. The earwigs weren't impressed at being disturbed. Contents of cache all good.

------

Well.

This wasn't the day I'd planned, but family matters had turned the weekend on its head. Between sleeping in after the fun of caching in the dark until so late it was almost early, and staying at home to referee while the better half ran some errands, it wasn't until mid afternoon that I rolled out the gate.

Finally logging my first cache for the day after crossing the Whitten Bridge, I continued anticlockwise around the Ring Road, bagging 42 finds, and a handful of DNFs.

Thanks, C@W... today's haul has gone a long way toward my ambition of getting my GA logs over 10% of the GC total.

GCA#277

Rated: for Overall Experience

#GA1894 - 12:32; Day two of a caching mission to Victoria with Sol de lune. Our major goal for the week is to complete the SSS and other series along the Western Freeway/Ring Road and to then collect enough GCA caches around Docklands to bring our total finds for the day to 100+ which would build our trophy cabinets a bit more as we complete a few more 'missions'. This was one of 82 finds in just under 6 hours along the various series, where we only had the one DNF! We finished the freeway section and had now turned north to take on the 'ring path'. Apologies for the mostly generic logs. TFTC caughtatwork

Rated: for Overall Experience

Back at the next section of series and again it was just a matter of following the GPSr, dropping the bike and grabbing the cache. In most cases it was that simple and we just plodded along cache after cache. I think we were starting to slow as the wind picked up...nothing kills a ride like riding into the wind.

All was good though and unless stated, all caches were found in good condition.

Thanks for this one C@W.....

Rated: for Overall Experience

I enjoyed my walk along the Western Ring Rd path, south of the Western Freeway, a few weeks ago with my niece, so today I planned to cycle the northern section. I have not cycled very often in the recent past but I knew that the path was mostly flat so I should not get into too much difficulty. I ended up finding 25 caches in 4 hours, with a short stop to discuss geocaching with two police officers and another stop to chat with a VicRoads worker.
Thank you caughtatwork for this series.

Of all the caches I found today this one took the longest. My GPSr would not settle on where I was to search so I wandered up and down between the trees and bushes trying to find a location that fitted the clue. I was also distracted by a few Willie Wagtails which were flitting on the grass.

Rated: for Overall Experience

Planning for this trip began in June - we knew we would be heading to Adelaide but which way would we go? This depended on our targets. We looked at our list of unclaimed Dragon Zone trophies and picked out several that we could feasibly collect the required number of finds to qualify for the trophy. We then had to identify caches that would meet our targets and from here it was time to plan a route that would take us past the caches we had identified. Any caches too far off our route were discarded and replaced by suitable alternatives.

All was running smoothly until the Christmas in July game was announced. We would be travelling in the latter part of the game. It was difficult to include this in our target caches as we did not know what was required. Once the game began and we understood what we needed to do we could then add other caches to the target list.

We were just getting our heads, yes all four of them, around this when more Dragon Zone trophies were added. Which ones could we meet and which should we ignore? Do we need to add more GA caches and/or do we need to change our route and our targets? We decided on our target list and then our route and timeline. We had just drawn a line under everything and were about to begin printing our caching booklets, route maps and target lists when caught@work published 23 new caches on the Western Ring Path. Earlier we had decided on the caches in the Edgewater Walk series. If we added the new ones on the Western Ring Path and as many of the CCC series as possible, we could probably reach the required number of caches to qualify for the Dragon Zone trophies “Restraining Order Stalker” (Find 100 DZ caches hidden by the same cacher) and “Obsession!=Insanity” (find 50 DZ caches in a day). As the latter would give us our first Blaze Trophy, it was decided to alter everything to include the CCC series.

We usually head out of the Melbourne CBD as soon as we disembark from The Spirit of Tasmania as we do not enjoy city caching. If we were going to tackle the CCC series we would have to start in Docklands, then move to the Western Ring Path. Caches in these series also carry nice points for the Christmas in July game. New lists drawn up, alterations made to the route and maps. New line drawn and printing and collating begun. No major changes now (unless something significant gets published just before we leave – we cannot be too inflexible when caching is involved).

By contrast to our experience in Docklands earlier in the day, our GPS units behaved faultlessly on this section of the Western Ring Path with very accurate coordinates being recorded for each cache.

We enjoyed the experience of walking on grass as we made our way to GZ for this cache. Up until now we had been walking on concrete paths and after six hours on hard paths our feet were beginning to complain. After locating the cache we commented that this will be a lovely area once the young urban forests become groves of established trees. This was a quick find of a well hidden cache. All was safe and dry.

Thanks caught@work for this cache and all the caches you have placed along the Western Ring Road Path. They have become a recent focus for us as we travelled through Melbourne. And yes we are still practising for our dissertation.

***FTF***

Today was the perfect day to pick up some GCA smileys.

Xmas in July points need to be scored.

I threw the bike in the car and parked in a supermarket car park close by.

This was the first sign of a muggle today.

3 riders non the wiser as I signed the log.

TFTC

Rated: for Overall Experience

Published for the Christmas in July game if you need a new geocache or two.