King Parrot Hazeldene, Victoria, Australia
By Alansee on 04-May-07. Waypoint GC12N9T

After being pretty much laid up at home all week with a geocaching injury (see [url=http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LUID=b26d14de-f945-4aa1-b14c-30144cf53e69]Musical Mahem - Top Ten[/url]) I was feeling up to a drive today, but wasn't up to anything requiring much of a walk, so I thought I'd finally get around to doing "Melbourne's 1st". It was an opportunity to check out the extent of the recent bushfires, although I didn't really want to intrude on any of the devastated communities, so I headed off up the Melba Hwy and then west from Glenburn to Flowerdale and then to Strath Creek. I'd noted this one had been re-enabled so I made the short detour south from Flowerdale to check it out - but it was fairly evident along the few km to the turnoff that the fires had been very intense along the ridge and it was extremely unlikely that the cache had survived. I got to the turnoff and was shocked to see that there had been a little community around there and all but a few houses had been totally wiped out - probably around 20 houses in all, plus cars and various infrastructure. The fire had been so intense that I could see 6" I-beams that had been distorted by the heat and the only remains were masonry or crumpled and twisted corrugated iron . There were people still living there - in caravans and tents - and my feelings go out to them. If I'd known there was a community here, I don't think I would have made the diversion - but I was amongst them before I realised, so I just headed on up the Forest Road and stopped up near GZ where it was obvious that no cache could have survived - probably an ammo can would have been distorted by such intense heat even. It must have been one of the worst places to be - at the end of that very narrow valley with steep walls 200m high, the fire must have had the intensity of a blast furnace as the strong northerly howled through it!

I didn't know whether to post a note, a dnf or a sba here - but, as we were standing near GZ taking a couple of pictures on this lovely, still day, a large tree branch broke off and fell only 20-30m from us - so I wouldn't recommend replacing the cache for a while, at least, as locations like this are still dangerous. All the same, it was a great spot for a cache and I hope I can come back here one day and log one after things have recovered a bit (I also wanted to continue along this road to Murchison Gap - but decided today was not the day!).

Thanks Alan, sorry about the cache - but a very sobering place to visit today!

Given Geodes' log and pictures it is clearly best to archive this one as it would be a rather long time before it could be safely replaced. At least a couple of years methinks.

My thanks to Geodes for checking it out and for the photos. It is certainly a disaster area.

This one may have gone in the fires but its open for business if anyone wants to check. Its not far off the highway and can be parked near.

Disabled because of the disastrous fires.

Out and about bushwalking in the Silver Creek area.
Thought we should drop by and pick this one up since we walked past it on our previous outing to the area.
We expect to be back in the area soon to check out the remaining tracks.

TFTC Alansee.

The Riddellers

This is our second Alansee cache for our long weekend away and having a trailer on full of fireworks equipment we decided to walk the last 200 meters in case turning around could have been a problem. As we have found with all Alansee caches the GPSr led us directly to the cache location for a well hidden but easy find. It was great standing here filling out the log in the late afternoon sun looking down into the shadows in the valley listening to the cars zipping past blissfully unaware that this place even exists
TNLNSL
Thanks Alansee for the cache

This was a beautiful spot up here although it was late in the day and we didn't see any King Parrots. The cache was in a rather anty spot, and I ended up with ants inside the container, and then ants on me. Frustrating little things. Hopefully I got all the ants out again, I wouldn't want their suffocation on the conscience! Took the Red Remembrance Poppy geocoin. Thanks for bringing us here.

Found at 15.55pm, a nice easy find for us. we love coming up to this area to stay with friends Ray and Anne Butterworth and staying at Tranquill Rises. It was a beautiful day as well.
Took - Small packet of magnets
Left - Small pair of Binoculars and Red Remembrance Poppy Geocoin.
TFTCSL

The Looney's of Cranbourne aka Ann and David

We were staying in the State Park for the weekend and on the way to Funfields for a toboggan ride. Geogirl had a friend with her and this was her first time geocaching. (Although she had heard about from all the others.) A gentle introduction for her and she was thrillled when she located it. Exchanges made. TFTC Alansee

Drove within 30m of this one, didn't feel much like walking after finding Derringers bush book library.
Again the GPS had me shooting of in the wrong direction, and Marcus had beat me to it again.

TNLN SL @ 1305.

Found at 1300. Arrived to GZ after following on from 'Margarets Litery Compendium' for a much sort after drive by find. Whilst DJ was showing me how well his GPS worked by looking for the cache 20m away across the other side of the road (we won't name which brand), my trusty Garmin led me straight to the spot just in time for me to turn and see DJ looking at his GPS (unnamed) wondering what was going on.

Thanks Alan for the cache.

Found @ 1945 after making the trip up to "Melbourne's 1st" cache to celebrate my 100th find. An easy find after a short walk up a gentle hill.

TNLN TFTC

A nice easy find whilst following the Goulburn River back to Shepparton. The cache was located in a timely manner. TNLN. Thanks!

Found by Uncle Jiffy on 27 Jan 2008 at 18:17

Out with C@W. Due to being in C@W's new car we decided to walk up the hill to GZ. Due to tree's, voodoo, damned technology, the GPS gods, we both wondered in circles for a short time. I managed to spie a likely place and bingo. Retrieved the cache and was trying to hide from C@W while writting in the cache but he spied me. Honest I wasnt trying to trick him Nice view from GZ although we were both a touch tired to enjoy it after working in the heat all day. Thanks.

Took - Ambulance patch
Left - Belt key holder retracter do hickey

Found by caughtatwork at 6:17
A wonderful cache. After suffering in the heat performing maintenance at the parents place, Uncle Jiffy and I were pleasantly surprised to get out of the car into a beautiful area with the temperatures starting to fall.
We were unable (and unwilling) to make this a drive by, so parking at the saddle, a short walk up the hill was rewarded with a glorious view. As occurred at every other cache for me toay, I was nowhere near the cache when Uncle Jiffy spied the goods. He tried to do the deed while hidden from me (I'm sure he had something evil in mind), but I was able to spot him and made my way across to the location.
Took nothing, left nothing.
Thanks Alansee. A great chance to see a decent sized cache container out in the bush.
*Overall Experience: 3*
GAFF 1

Rated: for Overall Experience

Easy find - well after we stepped into a massive ant nest and had bullants going beserk everywhere.
This spot has nice pinhole views, but spoiled a bit by the junk lying in the area.
TNLNSL TFTC
P-P-P-Pingu! Pingu!

Found this one at 13:05 on the way to fry a bigger fish nearby. I obviously parked in the wrong spot, which made the journey a tad harder than it should have been. Once I reached GZ, the canopy played havoc with Geko so it took a few minutes to find but I finally had it soon enough. What a great spot.

TNLNSL. Thanks Alansee.

Found at 4.40pm GAFF1. We were wondering what the Parrot Creek was going to do up here, but the views from near GZ were so good we forgot about that quandary. We made this cache nearly a drive-by , but regardless of the warning of not going downhill - we did!
It is amazing how rubbish makes its way around these areas - 20 or 30 years ago it must have been common just to dump your rubbish "in the bush". Thanks Alansee - we appreciate you finding these great spots for us to visit.

Found 10:15, a great cache with fantastic views of the valley below.

TNLN, CSI=4, thanks Alansee.

NUMBER 10 for today and the last as it was 9.04pm and poaring rain.

we must have looked funny running around with our torches in the rain!!

no view in the dark of course. drove to GZ so didn't get tooo wet.

Out- Concrete Blonde CD
In- family jewels

thanx

last one tonight with trudi as below

thankyou

found at 15:20 hrs
Indeed a lovely drive and very short walk.
The find was easy, the view was very nice and nobody in sight.
Took the measuring tape and left an Orange cap.
Thx.

Nice views - lovely spot. TNLN. Cheers for the cache.

Find # 1685 and 6th of the day at 11:00am. Accompanied by Feathertop on our weekly caching trip. With all the fog today the valley below looked like a lake. TNLN, Signed Log, Thanx Alansee....

Dear alansee
Oenze and I made this find this morning in the fog. Fortunately it was almost a driveby so the lack of walking distance was appreciated and I'm sure the view from here was superb. Thanks. TNLN

Well folks we did it made it to 200 on this cache and what a great out look. TFTC.

Found by Facitman and s-facit in the company of Rhinogeo at 12:55
4th cache for our day around the area. Left the Facitmobile at the bottom and used the Rhinomobile to travel in comfort up to the cache. s-facit found the cache after a short search. Very cold day and a bit cloudy but the views were still pretty.

Took Linkz toy
Left mini-pinball and toy car

Thanks Alansee

Found 200707011255 . Facitman & s-Facit joined Malby the GeoHound and I in the RhinoMobile to turn this into an easy driveby and find

TNLN

Cheers Alansee

Found @ 3:20pm.

Grabbed this one on our way home. As we were driving past, just had to stop and grab it....

Found @ 15:20. Collected with DAVROY on our way home from a days caching to the north of Melbourne 11th of 12 for the day. Thanks. TNLNSL

Found 1650hrs by Pickupfamily Dad and kids (Pickup Dragon and Pickup Tiger) as a quick stop-off on the way back (the correct way) from Derringer's new cache.

Another lovely view, seen lots today. Thanks Alansee for this great spot. TNLN at the cache.

Rated: for Overall Experience

Found at 5.20pm,
neat view of the valley,
TNLN
Thanks
K&M

Luck Dog enjoyed a run through the bush - the views are great.

TFTC - TNLN

Luck Dog's Crew

Another great little spot for a cache which I found on my way into Kinglake this morning. By the time I arrived the rain had stopped and the air was very still. There was quite a lot of fog around and on the top of the hill it appeared like a little island in a sea of mist. I disturbed some wallabies near GZ, it's always nice to spot some wildlife.

Thanks,

R - B

Cool second FTF with Rally, this time he spotted this one. As I was very close, I got the "it's in there" and played fetch to recover the cache. Meanwhile the real Fetch was off searching elsewhere. Great quality cache packed with great swaps, swapped Tape measure for pens set. Thanks Alansee for a quality cache.

Cool. Two new caches close to home and a second FTF. I am happy to claim FTF for this one, while I was not very mobile I did say "it's in there". Then again I was saying that a lot today . Another great location on a road I travel along often, this cache is a good size and is very well stocked. Hope the quality of the swaps stays with it's current level. My thanks to Ms Sassi and Fetch for driving me around while I lay flat on the back seat. TNLNSL It's nice to see a cache like this, well done Alansee.

Published