Hardest Carseldine, Queensland, Australia
By hotandsweaty on 04-Mar-07. Waypoint GC1188E

I am scaling back my caching activities as a 'hider' as I do not have sufficient time for maintainance. This cache can now be archived as another cachers wishes to place a cache here.

Needs maintenance

Found this one this afternoon with tabmow68, pengana, mrs tabmow, tonino and bub. The lid was not on properly so with all of the recent rain, all the paperwork was soaked inside. Couldn't record our visit on the log.

TNLN TFTC

Like every one else our gps put us 8 meters away. After an intensive search it was on to the help line. The price of a packet of "monty carlos' was well worth it. and eventually we had the goods. TFTC

#3 of 32 finds in Brisbane on day one of a big weekend's caching, in company with The Garner Family and HawMorFords. I found this one at 1050. I had found "Hard" and "Herder" on a previous trip, so I was keen to finish off the series. This one was certainly the hardest of the series. At least I had a head start on some others: I have used this exact hiding method on one of the waypoints of my "Enigma" cache in Melbourne. TGF and HMF stood back and let me find it on my own, however, they did point out the general area of the cache, because my GZ was 8m away. I made no exchange. Thanks to hotandsweaty for the cache. Cheers, dak.

Will not classify this as a DNF as PDA didn't show picture. Had a bit of a look around, but no luck. After looking at the picture I'm no longer sure if I was even close to GZ... GPSr upgrade is getting more and more urgent...

Without the picture we could have been there all day. . . or week for that matter. Now if I could only be as lucky with Harder!! TFTC

And number 300 for La Kedi goes to.....(drumroll)....Hardest! Thank goodness for the picture and Mum's clever thinking, as our GPSr's were about 8m off, but the pic saved the day. And there goes another landmark cache for me. TFTC! ='.'=

There are names for people like you, they may be in the dictionary (maybe only the Macquarie) but I am not repeating them here. Fantastic cache, I loved it, once I had found it. First one in this series found only because it is so close to home.

Went searching with the family just before lunch as it is an easy 1.5km walk from home. Spent over an hour looking around with no luck. Came home and read more of the logs but not that it was much help. Had a good look at the picture and went back this arvo as I realised I was in the wrong spot by a very small amount. My GPSr was giving me a reading about 7m away with a 4m accuracy.

Spent about 30mins searching but was determined not to give up. The bigger tree/bush on the left in the background of the photo was found lying on the ground. I tried to straighten it up (prickly little bugger) and was partly successful but it will most probably blow over again. Another one further over was in the same state. It must have been from the strong winds earlier in the week.

TFTC

Now lets see photo, hat, sunscreen, water, lunch and dinner I am not going home till I find it!

Would you believe less than 5 mins and I had it, why couldn't I do that last time!

Had a quick scrabble around a couple of days ago without having any idea what I was looking for, and didn't come up with the goods.

After looking at the cache page, I returned this morning, surveyed the scene, and then hit the jackpot. Still not what I was expecting.

Thanks for making me think on a weekday!

Jerry.

Found by Sunshine Toledo at 2:30pm. The lid was off the container and made it obvious (But, of course, I would have found it anyway, ahem) Lid is now on and the cache is again well hidden. Great hide. TNLNSL TFTC

This cache was discovered on the way home from Urban Jungle event today. It was a very cleverly disguised cache. With a bribe of icecream on offer for the junior cachers it didn't take long for them to locate it. TFTC

Yet another cache that we dreaded doing but actually wasn't as bad as we thought. (must remember that icecream bribe makes geokids search harder and faster). Thanks for the cache.

We came, we saw, we CONQUERED!!

It was just after midday, getting a little warm in the sun and we were about to give up until someone yelled..."I found it". Music to the ears.

Great hide...thanks for the effort!

Used picture to determine search area. Simply a matter of walking over and the first thing picked up was the cache! You just have to be damn lucky sometimes TFTC

We SPUDS love a challenge [^] so thought we would give this a go today. As we drew close to GZ we were lucky enough to disover another group of people heads down bum's up, it was "Nasty Steve and his lovely wife and daughter" turning over every piece of bark and leaf in a 10mt radius. Lovely to meet you, Steve was the one that came up with the booty today. Nice park great hide Thanks guy's .

Yay! We found it on our first visit.

We had been searching for about half an hour when the Spud Willis team arrived. (Pleased to meet you!) Great - Another few sets of eyes can only help!

We searched together for another ten minutes before Steve stumbled on the cache.

We thoroughly enjoyed this cache. Great location, and a great hide. The picture clue works perfectly to identify the search area without taking anything away from the challenge. Meeting another team really topped it off!

Thanks for another great cache!

DNF @ 12:40pm

Well I had a few minutes left on the clock after finding Machiavelian out in this area and thought I'd give this one last look. Yeah... lot of good that did. I think this'll be my last visit for a while...

[This entry was edited by Mloe on Friday, March 30, 2007 at 9:45:42 PM.]

We were on a roll this afternoon and with all 4 NANKS together we decided to give this "hardest" cache a go. Mr NANKS had been unsuccessful about a week ago but he came up trumps today! [^]

It was actually very quick (less than 2 minutes) and painless (no-one bored or frustrated!) but we can see how if luck was not smiling down on us, it could have been the second in a string of arduous DNF's.

Thanks Hot and Sweaty, another great hide!

Cryptographic analysis on the description failed to reveal any worthwhile information but infra-red scanning of the cache site photograph had uncovered the presence of unnatural materials foreign to the environment. Now to strike at the acclaimed HARDEST.

Seriously, I was expecting this one to be challenging. Arriving at the site I locked the geocycle to the picnic shed, took of my helmet , put on my hat, and applied the sunscreen.

This was going to be a test of endurance. I then began what is my regular ritual for H&S caches, ignored the GPS, had a drink of water and ignored every rule of caching of trying to guess where the cacher would hide the cache.[:o)]

Yes it was extremely tough at GZ, where would I start. Yes it was HARDEST – I estimate it took me 10 times as long as THE WALL.

TFTC

Thought we'd go today & see what all the fuss has been about. Without the photo (or a recent glance at it), combined with an unforgiving sun today, we really didn't expect to come up trumps.
Hats off to H&S for creating an invisible visable cache . We hope to be back on a cooler day with the photo and a more thorough look.

DNF @ ~18:18

Well, I figured since last time I wasn't looking where the picture indicated, and I was in the general neighbourhood for 'Machiavellian', I'd give this one another look. Yeah right, a fat lot of good that did me. Looked for 40 odd minutes until it got dark. Clearly this one is beyond my ken. I swore I wouldn't come back since, well, where else would I look? But then I DNF'd 'Machiavellian' to so I guess I'm destined to be up this way again and I doubt I can resist.

Well it's amazing who you bump into when your all at sea. After a quick find there Mr Nanks and I decieded to have a crack at this cache. It was to be my 600th cache I hoped. Unfortunatley that was not to be the case so I sadly sulked off home to collect the kids for a weekend away BUT never fear I will return TFT hunt.

A stinking hot arvo and a hard to find cache. Sue from Happy Harries and I bumped into each other over in the darkest of darksides. We decided an attempt at Hardest would be a good idea but came up empty handed after 40 minutes of searching. We got itchy from the native hibiscus and frustrated by Hot and Sweaty's cunning hide. Anyway, I will be back again one day with more Nank troops. Thanks H&S.

Much easier to find when the cache owner hasn't walked away with it.... Also, don't come at 5 am, no lights & the sun isn' up. Found in 15 mins. Much quicker than some of the others before me. Good hide, it will test those who follow.

... Geoff ...

Finally!!!

After another 30 minutes tonight, TGF uttered those wonderful words - 'Yep, Got it! - and this particular H&S episode came to a close.

I'm still not sure what I think of this cache. Anyway, it doesn't matter - love it or hate it, I'm very glad to have logged it as found!

Found Ok

Oh man oh man oh man... the relief when I finally got this little sucker was amazing. 30 minutes was required tonight & by the end of it I was lost as to what I could possibly to if I didn't find it this time.

I would have liked to have been able to cursed this cache & said that it was poorly placed or stupidly hidden or was pointlessly difficult, that might have made me feel better... but in the end I have to admit that it was quite elegant. It was there all along & I just didn't see it.

But please, please... we really don't need an "Impossible"

Back today for what I hoped wouldn't be another hour of cacheless searching
The picture put me in the correct area this time, it was outside my area of interest last time
So after 5 mins my poking stick revealed the little bugger
TFTC.

*FTF*

Firstly let me apologise H&S for all those names I've called you over the past few days. It wasnt very Christian of me ....but really deep down I feel you deserved every one of them!

Also I must apologise for the hole in the log book. I forgot to take a pen and had to create my own charcoal. It would appear that my creation was just a tad hot *ooops* I suppose it's proof that I was there even if the charcoal signature fades

In addition I'll have to apologise for the soggy log book...I dont know if it was because of the heat/humidity of the day or tears of joy. Either way a little moisture has entered the log book.

Now...I dont know whether you should be horse whipped or congratulated on this cache. It's certainly been the cause of frustration to many cachers. It is frustrating, it is tricky, mean and evil. It is also a very clever cache

Whilst the coords were a bit wayward (at least to my gps) the recently published photo helped greatly.

Thanks H&S for the hunt and the thrill of finding this little beastie.

ps...bumped into Bedmaker this morning...no photo...searched in the wrong 'zone'.




[This entry was edited by wingaap on Sunday, March 11, 2007 at 11:52:48 PM.]

This was an easy find, second time round. I started off on Thursday when I noticed everyone was having trouble locating this. I made my way down and just as I arrived I meet H&S who tells me he's just disabled it. I put a watch on and up it came again this morning. I saw the picture so headed down. Found wingaap frustratedly looking but no luck. I said I saw a picture and I'm sure it was in front of that tree. Still no cache. Must go but I will return. Checked the picture, I had the wrong tree. Printed the picture out and returned. No problems now, 5 mins and I had it!!
Great cache H&S, I'm sure others will have fun doing this and have many stories to tell.
TFTC

1740hrs. Just as we were reconciling ourselves to log this one as a DNF, 8 year old geo-son casually says, "I found it". We were surprised, pleased and rather gob-smacked that he made it seem so simple. He says he only found it by accident and I think he was more surprised by his find than we were. TFTC.

The cache is back in its original location.

The camouflage has been made a bit bigger.

In the attached pic, I can SEE the cache, cause I know what I am looking for.

It is NOT in the plants. It is NOT BURIED.

I have increased the difficulty rating cause this is NOT A QUICK WALK UP FIND.

I have raked the garden and repaired the damage.

OK Thats really it.... No more....

The rating needs to be increased if the coords are in fact correct.

I shall not be returning (after nearly 6 hours looking)

If the coords are not correct, I shall be feeling the need to sit down and leak salty fluid from the vicinity of my eyes!!!

I am hearing music in my head, and an asthmatic breathings sound... (I need drugs to stop this music, and my name is not Luke)

*********************************************************

[cue Start Wars theme and scrolling text]

The journey so far.... In a garden bed far far away, at a time not so far ago...

Episode GC1188E, A LOST HOPE

It is a period of caching hell.

Rebel cachers, striking from a hidden base, having won their first victory against the Hot & Sweaty Caching Empire returned for the HARDEST mission of all.

During the search, Rebel spies tried to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, a cache called HARDER, a transdimentional, off phase, photon protected camoflaged cache.

This cache has enough power to destroy an entire caching communities spirit.

Pursued by the Empire's sinister chuckles while reading the cache logs, Rastas000 dejectedly races home aboard his cachemobile, custodian of the revenge plans (AKA voodoo doll designs) that can save his fellow cachers sanity and feed the lustfull thoughts of retribution.

Sadly only finding HARDER and provide peaceful sleep and restore freedom to the caching galaxy....

********************************************************

The mission so far....

Metal detector did not find it.... but it did find drink cans, rusty nails, the smallest bits of wire, other unrecognisable metalic objects and NO CACHE!!!!

Neither did the "scientific randomisation experiment" (viz; Wingaap, thrice throwing a stick back over his head in the vicinity of what we think ground zero is and searching there.

Nor did kaos theory as the area has been thoroughly trashed and nothing turned up.

Simulating a chicken scratching up the ground has not worked on anything but staining the knees of my work trousers....

Confirmation of what the cache was made of (at least a component part) and a location where the cache is NOT, has not helped.

Yet another GPSr today has confirmed where most of us think ground zero is. There is a stick pushed into the ground to mark where a majority of the GPSr's have GZ (with a little bit of red plastic there pressed into the ground)

What is good about this cache is that it now can be listed as an EVENT Cache as I have met more goecachers here that at some gatherings!!

Yibbida Yibbida, that's all folks (Please come and take me away you nice men in white coats.....)

****** PLEASE NOTE *********

Just had a call from H&S....he has removed the cache in order to give the area a chance to recover. It'll be a while until he can get to a computer and he asked if I'd post this notice.

The cache will be replaced in due course.

As at 4.49pm - 8 March, the cache has been removed by the owner.

****** PLEASE NOTE *******

Must have disabled while i was driving to GZ
BUGGER! MUGGLED BY OWNER

With my love of finding the hard ones, mum dad & I left home about 4.45pm (dad printed the notes about 15mins earlier) ,drove over, searched for 1 1/2hr & left disappointed. Only after we had coffee did I leave to go home. As I drove in the gates dad rang & was laughing.... I knew it must has been disabled. Damn... Saw some good ideas for hiding a cache there too. Nice park.

Thanks for the enjoyable afternoon ... Geoff ...

I spent 40 minutes scratching around GZ from 1140, looking at how this place had been turned over, left, right and centre!
It looked as though every piece of timber and plantlife had been upturned and closely inspected. I gave up!
If the best finders in this sport can't find it, what possible chance do I have?
I went back to the car to add some coords for the nearby Puzzle caches (much easier) when a car pulled up behind me.
Hmmm..... glancing in the mirror I spied a gentleman carrying a metal detector into the park. LOL.
I quickly jumped out of the car and called out "That's a good idea"
After introductions, I could see that Rastas000 was determined to find this cache, that was for sure. So I asked if I could join him in the quest.
Rastas hovered the metal detector over the complete search area while I dug up and studied everything each time it gave a reading. There were certainly many indications of metal, as there is a lot of wire and other metallic objects in the mulch, but, alas, no signs of a cache.
Wingaap then joined us in the hunt during his lunch hour.
Just watching his methodical approach to finding this cache was an eye opener.
Then the more improved scientific method of finding a cache was deployed.
Throw the digging stick over your right shoulder, and where she lands, lo and behold, there lies the cache.
That didn't work either.
To Rastas000 and wingaap, great to meet you both
Thanks H&S.

[This entry was edited by findalot on Saturday, March 10, 2007 at 6:30:57 AM.]

cache temporarily removed.

With all the visitors and the recent rain, its getting very trashed.

Have removed cache.

Will relocate (within a few metres) in a slightly drier part of the garden by the weekend I hope.

All of you were VERY VERY CLOSE. I could see where you were looking, some even looked right beside it...

Dropped in again at lunch time. Met up with Find A Lot and Rastas. Even the sniffer dog and metal detector couldnt help us locate the cache. Ok...maybe joking about the sniffer dog...but not joking about the metal detector!

Another new gps confirmed our original gz.

It has been marked with a stick and pink marker. This has been put in place so that the owner can confirm our coords.

To add insult to injury.....the skies opened and the three of us received a good drenching. Wet and frustrated we departed the area vowing not to return until a. the cache is found or b. the coords are confirmed c. a clue is posted (not necessarily in that order)

I've put more time into this 3.5 cache then I did walking the trails of WitchPig's X ...and with that one I had to find seven waypoints (micro in the bush) along the way!

H & S.....this cache certainly lives up to its name!

Had a look this morning with geonanna at about 10:20am (was that Mrs HMF we saw leaving?). We looked high and low and in between for about 50 minutes but no luck.
Thanks for bringing us to this beautiful new area.

If I get a chance to head that way today, I will check the coordinates, I did take 4 readings and the coordinates given did take me back to within 1 metre of the cache several times, so I am confident that they are accurate. I also have viewed a picture on the logs which shows Bruce in the general vicinity of the cache so I am sure that he is looking in the right area.

I realy really doubt it's been muggled...so I guess I'll just be checking to make sure that you all have really MISSED IT.

I there a better way to get an average/exact location on a garmin etrex?

+30min

Dropped in for another look on the way to work.
Wish I'd seen H&S's log before I left

Needless to say another dnf

Personally, I've sending a sizaable donation to Rastas for the H&S voodoo doll



[This entry was edited by wingaap on Wednesday, March 07, 2007 at 4:56:11 PM.]

Right - Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Mrs HMF headed out for a look today convinced that a 'Girls Look' would unearth this filthy hide....

It didn't. Chalk us up for another 30 minutes

Aaaand this would be where h&s posts "Ha Ha, it was all a joke, there's no cache there! Gotcha!" Nobody's that brave...

I know what it looks like. Want to know my Paypal account?

Total time so far: 3 hours.

Thats it.... I need to get the big guns out... another hour today at lunch time, in the showers of rain, thats over 4-5 hours total I have spent in that god forsaken garden.

It must be nearly 10 hours of combined searching to not find this so far!!!

I am off to Sydney to do some caches while I am there (I hope)...

DNF @ ~17:40 - 18:20

Well, I was only there for 40 minutes before it got dark so I don't know what I was expecting.

Normally once I get on site, having my GPS drift off is asannoying as all get out. Today I was begging it to drift.. "come on... it is clearly /not/ here! There is /nothing/ here. If you drifted off a few meters at least I could look in those rocks or /something/..." But no, every time I look at it is very stubbournly reading 234, 078. Not only can't I find it, apon close inspection the whole area has clearly been very thourghly picked over. Every chunk of wood, every hunk of rock shows signs of having been recently dislodged and then careful replaced. I don't know if I should be more impressed by the absolute invisiblity of the hide or the abilty of my fellow cachers to so leave so little sign of such a complete search. As close as I can figure, the cache is right there in the open but out of phase with our dimension. To find it I need to reverse the polarity of my GPSr and flood the area with ionized cachetrons.

Put me down for another hour or so.

I even tried reversing the polarity of my GPSr and flooded the area with ionized cachetrons

No luck

What is it that posseses me to get up at sparrows flatulance time and go back to this god-forsaken mulch covered bit of ground.

Any sane person would give it up.

This time I did the zen thing and sat and looked, but it is just not working for me. (I have trashed 3 pair of uniform trousers this week, drycleaner, here I come)[xx(]

I hereby declare that I am building a "hotandsweaty voodoo doll" and shall place sharp implements into its body for each hour I have been at this cache. (and another pin for each of the sniggers I am imagining coming from them reading the logs) There will not be much room left soon

Your in follicular removal

Bob

Nope. I missed out too.

50 Minutes.

Add another 50 minutes.

About 40mins this morning...a brief visit this evening on the way home from work. No closer to finding the little beast.

I hope the area can handle the traffic. By all reports there was a bit of a gathering of the clans this afternoon.

Bumped into a very tired and frustrated looking cacher as I arrived.

Metal detector or perhaps ground radar might be the go!

40 mins this morning, 45 mins early afternoon, and 2 hours late this arvo (at grand central station), leaving in darkness.

Difficulty of 3.5???? Does the scale go to 10??

I just hope I am looking around GZ.........

Nearly 3.5 hours, much of it on my knees... Rename this bloody thing as "impossible"...

Spent 40mins this morning looking and looking and looking and looking and looking and looking and looking adnauseum.

There were two pairs of eyes, two GPSr's both seeing GZ as the same location....

Hmmmm, will a metal detector help??? Or just dumb luck....

more time to be spent here. I just wish I was sure that GZ is where I think it is.

Nope... its hard.

1 hour & counting.

There ya go Wingaap, it is all your fault... Harder and harder, you utter utter B........!

This is all because of you. (I am looking forward to this one)

Rastas000

Hey, you never know, It might be easy! Some of my other caches that I though were easy, turned out hard.

Published