Percy [Pet Rocks at Brimbank] Kealba, Victoria, Australia
By caughtatwork on 30-Jun-12. Waypoint GA4449

#GA5109 - 14:40; In Melbourne for a couple of days and between errands, there is time for a spot of caching. I collected "the magic box" for the Victorian Reverse Geocache (GA6859) from its CO and then set off on my mission. Collected some caches along the way, then did a bit of work for the geodaughter before getting back to the mission. I originally had company when the trip was planned and the unfound caches in this series wasn't on the agenda. That all changed after the recent COVID cases and I was travelling solo, so decided to clear some of the caches I hadn't found, but my usual caching companion had. Managed to collect eight pet rocks today and not sure how the other one didn't make it into the PQ! Looks like I'll be back again for that one. This one was a quick find and the cache was in good condition. TFTC caughtatwork

Rated: for Overall Experience

Following a 1,300 km round trip over the last two days, I decided a good leg stretch was in order.
Reading the last line of the cache description "Come and take a few hours to walk around the park, picking up some pet rocks along the way." I was hooked.
This was the ideal location to wind down on the way home.
The weather looked somewhat threatening, but hey, it is Melbourne after all.
Donning my raincoat, eTrex10, pen and phone in hand, I set off.
Although "Percy" was the first stop he was actually my last find. Perhaps I should have read the hint sooner. Que sera sera.
It was actually the closest to where I had parked the truck so, after a short search I moved on but vowed to try again before I finished. That strategy paid off and I ended up with five finds and no DNFs for my wander.
As others have said "Percy seems to have lost his head" but the rest of the cache is fine.
Thank you for placing these caches in a great park caughtatwork. Very much appreciated.

Rated: for Overall Experience

Good find but the top part was missing. Only the plastic backing and log were found. Log was quite wet.

Rated: for Overall Experience

Kids excited by the treasure hunt. Thanks for your stash.

Rated: for Overall Experience

I followed the hint straight to a thoroughly-buried cache and ended up breaking a pen in the process of extracting the log. You see, Percy, has become an ants nest and he was just swarming with the little fellows. I'm not really into insects so the pen had to be sacrificed for my greater good. I traipsed back to the car for another pen and managed to add my name to the log before replacing. TFTC caughtatwork

Rated: for Overall Experience

After the Meet the Moveables event nearby Whheels and I set out to see if we could find a few of these caches. Having been advised by the owner that they may well have been buried due to the long time since they had been placed, I was delighted to find this one which had lain undisturbed for so long, the coordinates were spot on.
It’s all okay though and our signatures have been added.

Rated: for Overall Experience

Found with Cybergran V after Meet The Moveables at Brimbank.

Unloved for a while, but all ok.

TFTC Caughtatwork.

GCA Find #104

Back to Brimbank today hopefully grab all the remaining caches. This was an easy find using the hint. Some Ants had taken up residence inside the Rock. Had to wait to make the grab because a muggle was parked near by.

Thanks CAUGHTATWORK

TFTC.

Rated: for Overall Experience

ltf

Percy found after a bit of a walk

This one was a quick find, it was daylight bey the time we got this far. TFTC

OK, the weirdest thing ever happened on the way to this cache. Emily (my 12 week old puppy) and I had gotten back into the car after having done a small circuit of caches (that resulted in 2 DNF's and only one find ) and I thought I felt something odd on my leg. So I looked down and there was nothing there. It was only for a split second, so I just assumed I imagined in and continued on moving the car towards this cache. As I was driving along, I thought I felt something again. Since I was driving, all I could do was put my hand on the area and see if I could feel anything, which I couldn't, so again I decided I was imagining it.
As I pulled in to a car park a few meters from this cache, I felt the feeling again. OK, that's it, I'm not imagining it, there has to be something. Since I was stopped I just put my hand again on the stop on my leg and OMG!!!! Something moved under my hand!!! IN MY TROUSERS!!! Arrrggghhhh, I bust open the door of the car, thinking I'd immediately drop my pant and get what ever the hell it was out of my pants, but no!! There were two blokes standing near the car next to me having a chat..... shit!!!
I headed around to the other side of my tiny little car, less than a meter high and squatted down so the couldn't see me, I opened the passenger side door to make it look like I was just organising the puppy to get out of the car, and undid my pants to access the mystery moving object in trousers. Looking down..... I spotted...... a small lizard/skink. I can only assume the poor thing was as traumatized by the experience as I was. But seriously, I think I had quite a few more hairs turn grey after this little adventure.

No lizards of skinks were harmed in the making of this log. It scurried off towards the grass after being removed from the inside of my clothing!!

Oh and I found the cache.

Thought this may have been a little difficult with muggle close by down hill picnicking.

However the trees gave good cover for a quick find.

I sat back and signed the log before I moved on.

TFTC

Rated: for Overall Experience

Before leaving home I had a plan to concentrate on GCA caches, mainly at Brimbank Park. A few GC's were also on the list but were not the priority for the day.

I looked around and around the base then started on the hiding spot a little further off the ground. No success. Moved on to the nearby tree and also no success. Back to the first and dug a lot deeper. This time the googlies were revealed.

Thanks C@W for this GCA cache.
#379. Cache visited at 1258pm on 6/7/15

Muggles having lunch just down the hill so I had to use my best stealth approach. No problems.

A quick find after heading in from the last one. No problems and all was good. I think he looks like a Percy....

Thanks again....

Rated: for Overall Experience

Found on our caravanning and caching tour of the area a great series that we enjoyed.

Appreciate the time and effort gone into placing these caches and the pet rock theme bought a smile to our faces every time we found one. Thanks caughtatwork.

Rated: for Overall Experience

On way to Delahey for 6 weeks evening work.
I have been wanting to find this series before end of week.
Enjoy this park and cache
Thanks for bring me here and caches

Rated: for Overall Experience

Date: 18.11.2012
Time: 1:00

Today, my caching buddy SedgwickDave and I were headed for Brimbank Park to find the 26 GCA Caches that had been placed there. It started as a rainy morning but ended up as a beautiful sunny day. but first thing is first, find a few caches on the way. Also, as is also a self imposed requirement for our caching runs is to find at least three different cache types. We managed five today... Trad, Multi, Puzzle, Earth and Letterbox.

Another quick find on our cycle around the park

Apologies for the copy and paste, just too many to remember

Thanks to caughtatwork for the hide and the series.

Rated: for Overall Experience

Found with Ahomburg today while on the bikes riding around this great park. Got a flat half way thru so not only did I find caches but had to pump the tie up every 5mins. A fun day with a work out taking about 4hrs to complete. With only 1 not found and 1 other not attempted due to muggles.

With what I thought was the end of the series (excepting one 'cannot find' ), it was time for a short black and peppermint slice at the café (and fully recommended they are too ).

So, a quick review - 1 DNF, 24 finds. Wait a tick, isn't there 26 in the series ? OK, log on to the internet and check. Sure enough, poor old Percy wasn't getting a guernsey and yet, the O3 wasn't showing it as being there at all . It looks like the 'random-not-show-a-cache' problem had manifested itself on the O3 yet again . (At least the Nokia was working .)

So, I marked a waypoint on the O3 and headed back to GZ for a nice easy find at 13:55.

TNLNSL. Many thanks for a fantastic series caughtatwork .

P is for Percy and P is for piece of cake, which is exactly what this find was certainly helps when there isn't a muggle to be seen for miles
Thanks for the cache C@W

Found by Team Ladava as we continued our stroll around this delightful park on a lovely dry day after so much rain. The ever-present River was rushing past with so much force but it had subsided from the high water line and left some rather odorous mud.
I was a little concerned for the welfare of Percy as there had been some chainsaw and clean up work in the area but he was safe and sound.
Our thanks to caughtatwork for your work in putting together this mini power-trail.
Cheers
Ian & Sandra
Team Ladava

Rated: for Overall Experience

Took the opportunity of a quiet and wonderful Winters day to go to the park and complete the series in new day. Not many people about, which helped me to ho end.
Great series, certainly worth the effort to complete. Thanks for taking me here. TFTC

Rated: for Overall Experience

14:41
Following a rainy morning, the sunshine appeared to the west as we left the little one's kindergarten, and she was keen to find some more pet rocks. So we parked at the bottom of the main carpark and walked past half of our previous finds to visit Ezio.

By the time we had to leave to meet big sister after school, we'd added E through L to our tally, and cheekily picked up Percy on our way across the paddocks to the car. A pretty good haul for the afternoon, especially considering no less than two emergency detours to find a loo (the joy of caching with young children).

Rated: for Overall Experience

Pleased to see there was no requirement to run up ALL the hill in one go... Took a little longer to get to the actual hiding place, but easily found. Thanks.

We were looking at a map showing caches in the Woodlands area. We then looked at the surrounding areas and noticed a very interesting group of caches, the Pet Rocks at Brimbank. We decided to visit today for some preliminary work to assess what may be needed to attempt the series. We found the first Pet Rock at 3:15pm and were back in the car by 4:30pm heading to an appointment having found a total of 14 Pet Rocks. In every case we found that the coordinates were very accurate and resulted in short searches. Normally we would write some comments specific to each cache but to do so for caches in this series may disclose too much information about the hide. So, we have opted for a commen log for each find. We really enjoyed the walk through this great park and the hunting down of Pet Rocks was a great way to spend part of the afternoon. We hope to return tomorrow to look for the remainder. Thanks for a great concept caughtatwork and thanks for the caches.

It was a cold start to the day but great for a walk around Brimbank Park searching for a few new GCA caches. After a DNF on the first one we got into our caching groove and had a fantastic time finding all the hides. We will return to finish off the series very soon.

TNLNSL
Thanks C@W, we appreciate the effort put into this series.

Rated: for Overall Experience

I saw these get published, then my heart sunk when I saw pwags was quickly on the scene to gather up the FTF goodness. Needing a good string of finds in a day, I decided to give these a go instead of venturing south to pick up the JackSpeak series. I awoke far too early thanks to the cold so after giving the sleep option a miss (it just wasn't going to happen) I got up and planned a day's geocaching - priority #1 get the pet rocks! I detoured to grab another GCA cache on the way, then headed to Brimbank where it was still kind of quiet, although the dog-walkers were out and about, from Chihuahua to Irish Wolf Horse, uh, Hound - and a few of my favourites the Staffy. Percy proved problematic but persistance paid off for a FTF

Today was my opportunity to clean up the remaining half of this mini power trail, after grabbing the first 13 caches as FTF's last weekend. As there were no other logs yet online, I thought I'd be getting another 13 FTF's but as I opened the log for each one today, I found that I'd been beaten to them - congratulations to quiet1_au!

As I said last week, this is a great little power trail - many thanks to caughtatwork for hiding these cute little rocks.

Found this one at 2:43pm.

Rated: for Overall Experience

Published : Come and find me.