SOTN #18: A Range Rover Is Not Required To Travel This Road Golden Valley, Tasmania, Australia
By 2y'stassies on 10-Jan-18. Waypoint GA11407

Hi 2y'stassies.
Today VK7HCH continued our plundering of caches between home and the northwest of the state.
On Day 1 of the plunderage, your cache was one of those that we found.
We worked our way from Mangalore to Deloraine via the Central Highlands finding caches as we went.
Thanks for placing this cache for us to find.

Swampy and I decided that we needed to continue our plunder of caches in the north west of the state. Countless hours were spent solving puzzles, planning routes and generally preparing for the onslaught. This was going to encompass caches both from GC and GCA. Thanks for placing this hide.

A great day so I am looking forward to locating caches from Deloraine through to Poatina. Took a while to put the dahs and dits together but eventually succeeded. The deep ditch created a small problem which I manage to overcome. Cache and contents are in good condition.

Rated: for Overall Experience

Another puzzle solved last night and another that we couldn't find an easy way to solve even though we knew what it was. So did it the manual way which was quite time consuming.
Mr Beetle went to fetch this one and was grateful of the 'bridge' constructed by the last finders which meant he didn't have to go through the deep ditch.
Thanks, last cache for the day and then it was off home.

Hi 2Ys, thanks for the cache, and indeed the series.
Well, that's a deep ditch - I was looking for a suitable place to cross but the sides were pretty steep, when AlbyDangles found a makeshift 'bridge'. As I made my way to that point, my phone rang, and so my accomplice did all the work here while I remained engaged on the other side!
Out on a mostly GA caching adventure with AlbyDangles; about 28 finds all up, Breona to Westbury, via Deloraine. As usual, a great day out in excellent company.
Cheers,
EPs.

Rated: for Overall Experience

"Hello 2y'stassies thank you for the cache.

I found a root to walk across the ditch the cache was then soon found while EeePees was on the phone helping another cacher.

After spending a few days solving your puzzles most of them were straight forward but there was a few that I did need a help with.
Today EeePees and I went for a drive along the Lake Hwy with the prime objective to find GA caches along the way.
It started off a bit cold but ended out to be a lovely day.
And of cause the company was fantastic.

Found on Sunday 15 March 2020 at 1252

TFTC"

Out and about with the Rafas caching, A day that had it all Rain Hail Snow and Shine all four seasons in one day. It was cold enough to lower the temp. of the motor while going up to Bothwell and warm enough driving from Perth to home to put us all to sleep. a great day caching on an old road thats worth traveling on. lots of GCA caches to find, TFTC TNLN log dry.

Rated: for Overall Experience

Thank you for the puzzle cache 2y'stassies.
I solved a lot of the puzzles that were published for the States of the Nation game when they were published. However, I don't often travel the Highland Lakes Road so haven't had a chance to go and find them. A couple of weeks ago, RLD4963 and I were returning back to Hobart from Burnie along the Highland Lakes road and I mentioned that there were heaps of GCA caches along the road. At the time we didn't stop to look for any as we needed to get back home to pick up the GeoGSP from his doggy pet resort.
When the Blitz game was published, we decided that a drive along this road would certainly be helpful for us, so we picked a day and off we went - this time we had the GeoGSP with us. The weather wasn't terrible, we certainly had lots of blue sky, but also a few periods of overcast weather, and even a few short periods of light snow, and the occasional shower - but it was never cold, so all in all, we had a great day as we made our way, looking from caches between the Melton Mowbray turnoff and Deloraine. It was a big day, leaving at 7am in the morning and turning back in to the driveway 12 hours later, but we had heaps of stops and breaks to have a bite to eat, we even found a dog park in Deloraine for the GeoGSP to really get out and stretch his legs after sitting in the car.
Thanks for publishing and placing this cache, I learnt a lot doing all the puzzles that were published for the states of the nation game.
A nice quick find with RLD4963 and the GeoGSP.

Rated: for Overall Experience

This morning we had to go to Golden valley to collect a timber thicknessing machine, so we decided to do as many of the series of caches on highland lakes road as we could before miss DEZ055 had to be back for work.
we attempted 11 caches with 10 finds and 1 DNF before turning to head back home.
this one was a quick and easy find. TFTC

Rated: for Overall Experience

After completing the TTSS we decided that it was time to do a little bit of caching in the north of the state and so with the Lakes Highway now sealed we made Deloraine our stop over. Aus really enjoyed solving the SOTN puzzles and we found ten caches today. A couple of the containers were wet and so we dried them out, everything else was OK. Thanks for the puzzles and the caches.

Rated: for Overall Experience

Had a day off work, and decided to do a geocaching trip with Geo Kid E through the central highlands. Mainly to find caches for the latest event, Journey or Destination
Games

Journey or Destination

Game Period: 01-Dec-2018 00:00:00 to 31-Jan-2019 23:59:59 AEST

It is sometimes said [citation needed] that the game of geocaching is not about the destination it is about the journey. This game is about the choices you make in the experience of the journey or the destination.

On your entry to the game you will be asked to create a playing field with a number of ground tiles. Your playing field is a grid 20 x 20 ground tiles making a total number of 400 possible steps you can take on your journey or destination. You choose whether you want to find and follow the path or whether you wanted to meander around. A playing field is unique to each player so there is no benefit in teaming up to beat the system through brute force.

For each qualifying geocache that you hide or find during the game period you will be offered the opportunity to click on a ground tile and reveal what lies beneath. There are a number of different ground tiles that will be revealed when you click on your playing field. It should be noted that there are no punishments for clicking a tile but there will not always be the reward you were hoping for as you reveal each tile.


Dirt. The ground beneath the ground tile is just plain old brown dirt.

Dirt with some points. The ground beneath the tile is brown dirt but it has some points associated with it.

Concrete. The ground beneath is part of the pathway that will lead you on your way to your destination but has no point value.

Start. A concrete ground tile that has a blue map marker.

Destination. A ground tile that has a green map marker.


Meandering around and avoiding the path will accumulate points that will be used to place on you the ladder of wanderers. The more you stay off the path the higher the number of points you will accumulate and it will be your journey that will be the determining factor in whether you place into a prize winning position. You are free to select any ground tile to click on; they do not need to be next to each other.

Trying to find the path may mean you strike out on the dirt until you eventually come across the path and as a geocacher who can't say that this isn't a tried and true method. Once you find the path however will you try and follow the path as it changes direction around your playing field? Do you go North, South, East or West to try and find the next concrete tile along the path? If you head one way are you heading towards the start or towards the destination? When you do happen upon the destination tile then you will automatically be in a winning position.

At any point you are free to change from the journey to the destination and vice versa but you won't be able to regenerate your playing field. You are also free to keep playing as long as you have qualifying geocaches, accumulating more and more dirt tile points and placing you higher and higher on the ladder.

Qualifying geocaches fall into two categories. Finds and Hides.

A qualifying find is a geocache that meets the following criteria:

The geocache is listed at Geocaching Australia

The geocache has a hidden date prior to the game commencing

The geocache was logged by you on the Geocaching Australia website during the game period

The geocache was physically found by you during the game period

The geocache is not owned by you unless it is a moveable geocache

The geocache has not previously been found by you during the game period

The geocache is one of the following types:


Burke and Wills

Moveable (you will qualify only once for a find on a moveable geocache)

Traditional

TrigPoint

Augmented Reality

Beacon

Gadget

Multi-cache

Night Cache

Podcache

Reverse

Unknown or Mystery



A qualifying hide is a geocache that meets the following criteria:

The geocache is listed at Geocaching Australia

The geocache has a hidden date after the game has commenced

The geocache was published on the Geocaching Australia website during the game period

The geocache has a container size of regular or larger (Note: A regular geocache has a volume of 1 litre or more)

The geocache is one of the following types:


Moveable

Traditional

Augmented Reality

Beacon

Gadget

Multi-cache

Night Cache

Podcache

Reverse

Unknown or Mystery



The game tracking mechanism relies upon your honesty when logging geocaches as found or hidden.

The games administrators will undertake verification of a statistically significant number of logs.

Players who continually log inaccurate information will be disqualified from the game. The game administrators decision is final.

The game administrators will subtract qualifying hide or find geocaches from your tally if they are found to be not genuine.

The game administrators reserve the right to provide clarifications to the rules at any point during the game.

Don't forget to claim your limited time game trophies, if your qualify, while the game is in progress. Once the game completes the ability to claim your trophies is lost for ever.

We found some of these caches a little disappointing as they seemed placed only for the SOTN event and did not take advantage of some nearby great places. Some caches though were great and placed with a real reason and certainly were worth the visit

TFTC

Almost at the bottom of the hill and could see the suspected hide from the parking spot. Cache and contents are in top condition.
Another top cache...many thanks 2y'stassies....cheers ST.

Rated: for Overall Experience

Puzzles solved some time ago and today was the day I could tackle the remaining caches in this area. In a hurry to get back to town to pick up big “kids” and I wasn’t sure whether I could get this one or not. I wanted another green tick so I stopped , jumped out of car and ran along track. Cache was in second place I looked. A goods days work. Thanks for the series 2y’stassies

Heading up the hill out of Deloraine chasing puzzle caches. This the first undertaken and it took a bit of effort to traverse the ditch, excellent effort.. thanks..!!

Rated: for Overall Experience

We were undertaking the recent puzzle caches recently placed in the Golden Valley region. The aim was to find 20.
Thought I knew where the cache was, but had to work out how to get to it, once solved it was a quick find, log signed and cache replaced.
Score 2 of 20
Thanks 2y'stassies

For us, today was all about the two (originally 5/5) events on the coast, that was the reason for our trip up. While we were up there we planned to find a few other caches to top up our meagre contribution to the States of the Nation Game. We managed a handful on the coast and one or two more on the Highlands Lakes Road, finding all but one (I need to check my cords on that one).
My apologies for the copy and paste log but if I have any hope of finishing and claiming some scavenges, it’s my only hope.
We found all containers in good condition and really enjoyed our time at the events this morning and our various finds during the rest of the day.
Thanks to the various cache owners of our finds today (mainly Tassie Trekkers and 2y’stassies).

Rated: for Overall Experience

Sainted at 1518 hours

Spent some time over the last few days solving puzzles for a loop through this area. We set off fairly early on a mission and found all the caches we targeted, we even got a couple of FTFs along the way. The weather was lovely at the start but a bit over halfway up the clouds lowered and the rain started, not too heavy but it did mean that one cache that was a "maybe" on the list became "leave it for another time". The finds today should mean some good points for scavenges in the States of the Nation summer game so thank you to both the teams that devised the puzzles and hid the caches that we found today

We had limited time between family commitments and bowls to gather caches that we could use for scavenge points in the States of the Nation games. With the northerners and northwesters publishing puzzle caches profusely (and all with large containers) we set about solving them as profusely as they were being published.

We decided to take a couple of days to make our assault and this was one we found on our trip. The weather varied from warm to hot, to dry to wet to torrential rain, to a change of clothes in the empty car park in Trevallyn Reserve (nearly considered "Nude up for a smiley" but luckily we changed our mind - not enough points on offer for that one!)

We thoroughly enjoyed solving the puzzles and the tour through the Geocaching Australia and Geocaching.com toolboxes.

Thanks to the cache owners for their hardwork in creating and hiding the large caches.

Sorry about the lengthy logs. We are currently aiming for a dragon zone virtual verbosity trophy. We have just received the 100 word trophy, so now aiming for the 150 word trophy. For all new GCA cachers, a warning, write a decent log to start with in case you want to get these virtual trophies down the track. Having now passed 2000 GCA finds with a lot of one word logs (on many moveables) makes for a lot of typing now!

We are participating in the States of the Nation games which are currently running from 16 December 2017 until 21 January 2018 and we will try and use this find against one of the scavenges.

States of the Nation is a real and virtual geocaching scavenger hunt where your home state will compete against other Australian states to find and hide geocaches. Over the 5 week course of the game there will be hundreds of scavenges that you can track down, find and convert into points for your state. Some scavenges will be easy. Some scavenges will be tough. Some scavenges may be impossible. Don't despair. You are not competing just for yourself; you are competing as a state.

There will be a number of scavenges released on a weekly basis but each scavenge will remain until the end of the game. This means even if you decide to join the game part way through, the early scavenges are still available for you to claim. Scavenges will require you to find a geocache, hide a geocache, attend an event or do something else completely different. The game focuses on all aspects of geocaching and so all cache types, sizes, terrain and difficulty will be up for scavenging. TrigPoints, Events, History, Virtual, Webcam, Podcache and Locationless geocaches are all scavengable, so you're not just looking for a box under a bush. Each week there will be a mix of physical, non-physical and locationless geocaches so even if you are not in a geocache rich area, use the locationless component of scavenger series to get out, find something to log and gain points for your state. If you watch the scavenges as they are released you might also spot the 'not so hidden' patterns and plan for future weeks of the series.

Hiding geocaches will also be a large part of the scavenger series, but please remember this is a game of geocaching and geocaches that you hide should be long lasting, be of good quality and you should be proud of what you hide. Please avoid hiding a geocache just for the day so your state can find it before you archive it. Geocaches that exist for a short period of time may result in any claims on that geocache being disqualified. Play creatively, but also play fairly. More geocachers hiding more geocaches makes for more geocaching fun.

Go Tassie, Go Tassie, Go Tassie, Go Tassie Go Tassie Go Tassie Go Tassie

The States of the Nation games have helped boost our dragon zone points and we have achieved a few milestone trophies as well.

Have you joined a clan? Enhance your geocaching experience by joining a clan and being a part of the Dragon Zone. Choose a team Clan Griffin , Clan Phoenix , Clan Cerberus or Clan Minotaur . Earn trophies and rise through the ranks from Dragon Fodder to Ruler of the Universe.



whitewebbs are now a geocache themselves as we have published a 'Geocacher cache' GA10805 - Where's whitewebbs? - so if you spot us out and about in the field sign our log book and receive a code word to earn yourself a smiley.

Rated: for Overall Experience

Found on a big day of caching down the coast via the Western Tiers. Lots of puzzling beforehand enabled us to add this one to our list. Spent some time with the Dit Dit Ditting and accurate co ordinates made for a quick find at GZ.

Many thanks 2y’stassies we appreciate the time and effort gone into creating and publishing this cache for the SOTN games. Another one we can claim.

Tassie Trekkers are now a locationless geocache we have published a 'Geocacher cache' - Travelling Trekkers GA10932 - so if you spot us in your area sign our log book and receive a code word to earn yourself a We were one of the lucky teams to receive a pathtag from Geocaching Australia for publishing a "Geocacher Cache" - thanks Geocaching Australia.

The States of the nation games are here - join the fun from the 16th December 2017 - 21st January 2018

Have you joined a clan? Enhance your geocaching experience by joining a clan and being a part of the Dragon Zone. Choose a team Gold - Griffin, Green - Phoenix, Blue - Cerberus or Orange - Minotaur. Earn trophies and rise through the ranks from Dragon Fodder to Ruler of the Universe.

Rated: for Overall Experience

Going a little batty after ditdahditditting our way through the puzzle, but solved after straining the brain. Jumped in the geomobile and headed off to GZ this afternoon. Love this part of the world, and the much easier terrain sans snow. An empty logsheet and a FTF was an added bonus. Thanks so much 2y'stassies for the great puzzles and the large well-stocked caches. Go Tassie!

This is an audio format of a previous puzzle