Start of the Line – Or End of It!!! Warrnambool, Victoria, Australia
By Smergol on 27-Sep-13. Waypoint GA6445

Cache Details

Difficulty:
Terrain:
Type: Traditional
Container: Micro
Coordinates: S38° 23.134' E142° 28.512' (WGS 84)
  54H 628840E 5750374N (UTM)
Elevation: 7 m
Local Government Area: Warrnambool

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Description

Start of the Warrnambool – Pt Fairy Rail Trail (Phonetically Bull Fart series).

The railway line from Warrnambool to Melbourne was opened in 1887. The construction of the line to Port Fairy, via Koroit, started in late 1888 and it was completed in 1890.

Between Warrnambool and Belfast (Port Fairy) there were 12 gate keepers’ cottages. Stations were situated at, Warrnambool, Illowa, Koroit, Crossley Kirkstall, Moyne, Rosebrook and Port Fairy where farmers shipped their produce directly to Geelong and Melbourne.

Koroit became an important hub with the line to the north (Hamilton Spur – “Spur of the Moment” GCA cache there) joining the Port Fairy to Warrnambool line some 300 yards to the west of the station. Remnants of the cattle loading yards can be seen near North Street. The goods shed, one of the largest in the area is opposite the station. Also, remnants of the sidings and goods sheds at Port Fairy, Koroit and Illowa can be seen along the trail.

Some thought the line so beneficial that they felt the farmers should not require compensation for it passing through their property. For a time, the soon to decline ports, handled large quantities of railway materials. J Wilson and Company supplied 5,100 tons of equipment to the project.

The line came to provide an important recreational aspect to the area. Special pleasure trains ran to the seaside towns for Sunday school picnics, school excursions and social gatherings.

 

The line closed in September 1977 by the Hamer government to save some money!! The Rail Trail was completed earlier this year - 2012.

This part is originally part of the Spur going down to the Breakwater and Woollen Mill – but is the Start of the WarrnamboolPt Fairy Rail Trail (Phonetically Bull Fart series).

 

“FTF” GCA Pathtag in cache.

 

Hints

Guvax Zntargvp naq gur Anzr bs gur pnpur.
ROT 13: ABCDEFGHIJKLM
NOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Decode

Logs

08-Apr-24
With 233 weeks since a find I wasn't expecting success here but still thought I would give it a try. Quite a long walk to GZ [there was probably a shorter way] and then a lengthy search didn't uncover a cache. Lots of rubbish in the area and the only thing that may have been a cache container was a squashed mint tin.
Think I covered all things that fit the clue but lots of it was under thick scrub and after two lots of blood from scratches I gave up.
Maybe next time we are in the area we'll check on this one again and if it has had a find we'll try again.
 
19-Oct-19
Found by caughtatwork at 09:16 on 19/10/2019
A tricky find as the location did not seem quite right, but came up with the goods in the end.
Took nothing, left nothing.
Thanks for this geocache hide for us to find on our long weekend away in Warnambool, checking out the sites, the geocaches and the local TrigPoints.
*Overall Experience: 3*
GAFF 1
 
27-Jul-17
Found ourselves on the wrong side of the tracks, and with timing running out, we had to give this one a miss.....bummer.
 
05-Mar-16
Being a Doubting Thomas – I didn’t believe that I could have been so far out.
BUT! Having rechecked on Google Earth – the given coordinates are way out.
Sorry Bucketeer for the run around.

 
05-Mar-16
A planned trip to Geelong turned into a trip to Warrnambool so I had a bit of time to kill while the girls were shopping, and after a contacting the CO after my DNF at the start of the week I decided to give this one another go. After much circle work I finally found something that matched the hint but seemed too far from GZ after failing to find any more I returned and found the cache shortly after with about 36 metres to GZ indicated on my GPS.
2TF over 2 years since the FTF and cache still in good condition. Very Happy
 
29-Feb-16
The second of 3 in the series I DNFed today rode my bike to GZ while my car was being serviced but I couldn't find teh cache and after envoking the hint it didn't help any as I couldn't find anything to match within 20 metres of GZ Sad
 
29-Jan-14
Wow wee FTF since this was was hidden in sept 2013. The cords weren't much help & nearly gave up. That was until we decided to search a little further and not before to long mum yelled here it is & came out with cache in hand. The name of the cache says it all. Thx for the FTF path tag. Gets a fav from me. SL, TFTC. Dancing
 
21-Jan-14
GZ does not match hint. No luck for us today
 
27-Sep-13
All aboard!
 
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