Mission One Ultimo, New South Wales, Australia
By zebrafive on 03-Nov-07. Waypoint GC170MW

It's probably time for a new mission in this area.

Temporarily disabled while my cone of silence is being repaired...

I have been eyeing this cache off for ages as one of the few city puzzles that I have not completed. So this afternoon I took the opportunity whilst in the neighbourhood to attempt the mission.

Found all the clues easily enough (even the first clue is in place), calculated GZ and headed off. I soon found myself going somewhere that did not make sense and so called a recent finder. My PAF confirmed that my calcs were correct but the clues are wrong:(
After getting the correct digit, I headed off to GZ. With my PAF still on the phone I was guided through the search process but came up empty handed:(!!!!

I was very dissapointed to say the least , after making all the effort (with full motorcycling gear on) and hope the CO can re-instate the cache container.

Anyway a fun cache and walk on a beautiful Sydney early winter evening which deserves to stay alive - in fact I am tempted to put a replaceement cache container myself - but I fear the CO has stopped caching.

TFTH

Really liked the clues and thinking to find the cache, but Wessiri and I couldn't "seal the deal". Maybe another time.

Out with agent cav99 to complete the mission. We think we got all the co-ords right and using the clues we narrowed down the likely drop points but time got the better of us and we had to call it quits. Another time.

Went there two times, did not find it either.
I enjoyed collecting the mission information. By the way, the information for A can be found on the training facilities.

Nice park, busy on sunny days.

I wandered around amongst the rather fit looking muggles collecting the required information, did the sums, made the corrections based on previous logs, then looked rather thoroughly in the likely locations without any luck. A call to a previous finder confirmed I was in the right spot, so I think the cache is gone. Thanks zebra for the exercise!

With the coords in hand we did not clime the building but using the hints (very clear) and previous logs we searched the area some 55 m south from GZ. But we did not find the cache there (neither the pants!). Will come back another time.

Happy to cross this one off my list!
I was worried that it'd be a waste of time but I ended up completing this cache in just under 30 minutes
TFTC

As previously mentioned the coordinates seem to be out but found it with the hints. Tftc.

The first mystery in Sydney.. thanks for hints... wasn't so easy to find! J-LEST-TEAM

Finally found this one - happy for the smiley. Plotting out the solution had GZ in the centre of the building, looking around likely places discovered the container some 65m to the south. TNLN SL TFTC

This entry was edited by blue_mars on Monday, 18 July 2011 at 09:30:54 UTC.

Finally f****n found with blue.mars. SL TNLN TFTC.

Fourth attempt today, park empty, nobody around. Thought I had looked there before as that's where I would have hidden it. Thanks for the further hint zebrafive. Very much appreciated. Tftc.

About time!

I think this was the first ever cache that we searched for, and after having a number of DNFs over the last few years, it was great to finally put my hand on the cache. I had looked in this spot once before, but this time was easily able to put my hand on it.

TNLNSL

TFTC. Great little adventure was had today, but after one failed attempt I finally got it. Cheers

Got this great cache with the help of a Phone-A-Friend after I had trouble with the ABN!

A great and entertaining idea.

TNLNSL. TFTC.

Found the pants but did not find the cache. I really hope it wasn't in the pants because they were pretty evil.

I was back in Sydney for another mission, and thought I'd better finish this one off. I didn't have the coordinates that I'd calculated for the cache during my last failed attempt at the mission, but I think they've been sabotaged by enemy agents anyway, and you're better off just gathering intelligence from the hints instead. Used the hints and geocaching spy sense, and found the cache hidden behind the pair of trousers (the last mission must've been a strange one).

TNLN - Thanks zebrafive

Finally found this one. DNF'ed about three times, but we were in the right area. Had some help from both Cherryred and Redtag. Glad to get this one off the list. Mission accomplished. TFTC

It was my first experience in geocaching. So far it is one big fail. Managed to find the area and decypher the coordinates. After that I was wondering around all across the field. No dogs, no cache.

MISSION REPORT:
TIME: 0930, 13.11.2010
CONTACTS: LOCATED, SOME DISCREPANCY WITH INFORMATION PROVIDED
PROCEDURE: ADDITIONAL INFORMATION [HINT] REQUIRED
TARGET: ACQUIRED
OBJECTIVE: SIGNED LOG ACHIEVED
MISSION ONE STATUS: COMPLETION

TFTC zebrafive

Second attempt on this - I'm sure I probably stepped on it, many muggles playing with a ball nearby increases the difficulty

Cache description amended.

Original coords were correct as measured, however you may have a more accurate GPS than I did (or one that handles urban caching better than mine).

The coordinates seem to be out by quite a long distance, so suggest that the puzzle is tweaked to correct them, or possibly add a projection to the cache description.

Given that the Orgeno doesn't display pictures in listings too well, I was mainly relying on a roughly drawn picture of the clues. Managed to find all the numbers except for the ABN - it didn't seem to be on the signs, and the equipment was in use, making a close inspection difficult. The sign for A is definitely there at the moment. I guessed a couple of likely values for D, but they put me in the middle of the racetrack, or in the middle of a building. So I went instead to where the hints suggested & took a bit of a look, but once again there were people using it to exercise (!) which made things difficult. I wish I'd seen the logs about the coordinates being out by 40m, as I would have had some more confidence that this was the right spot.

On the way to the fish markets we decided to try this one again. From memory this was the first cache we ever attempted (unsuccessfully) and so we thought that with 60+ finds under our belt we'd be in more luck this time.

But it was not so. We paid more attention to the hints than the coords this time, but still were unsuccessful. Oh well, at least we got some nice fish!

After two attempts, I thought I should log a DNF. I simply can't resolve a sensible set of coordinates. And even using the clues to hazard a guess where it might be, I can't get any numbers to fit those coordinates (and I had a fairly good search there anyway).
Great listing - pity I can't figure it out. Good thing I haven't made a career of espionage!

Hmmm, time to kill after a lifestyle and fitness expo, carrying a newly acquired yoga mat, and sitting on 199 finds....

Happy to report that people were using this while I was there! Even gave a piece or two a try, until I fell off.

Tried for GZ using my phone GPSr but it placed me on a greyhound track. Thanks to the clue, an informed guess placed the cache in hand. A great way to mark my 200th find.

(For the record, "A" is back and operational, and the value listed as the 'ABN' appears more likely to actually be a phone number. Doesn't seem to have stumped anyone so far, though.)

Agents report, Steptoe
0750 to 0755 - gained the numbers, despite the muggle agents around, but with only minutes to spare, had to high-tail outta there to pose as a muggle for nearby undercover work.
With the co-ords plotted into the GPSr, the remaining find taunted me as being only 500M away until I was freed from the undercover duties.
2200 - straight back to the zone, and started the hunt in earnest.
Many thanks to previous agents who confirmed the "error" range possible - thus avoiding unexplainable wall scaling (besides, I had not brought the grappling hook).
Applied the clues and a moment of logic, and had the log completed safely under the cover of darkness, despite the efforts to illuminate by a great full moon.

Thanks - been planning to get this re-attempted for a while. (PS - the "sign" for "A" may be back in place - only noticed on departure)

Found at 11.20am GAFF3. Earlier in the week p-pprass claimed on the forum that Geodes was an "amateur" at caching - well all we can say is we are glad he didn't see what a farical botch-up we experienced with this cache! We actually were very near GZ when we decided to "just look over there" before we worked out the clues, but then we mucked up the ABN question (which was embarrising for an accountant) and then to top it all off we mucked up the BC question - I wonder how many fell for that one?
We had a late breakfast in the brilliant sunshine while watching a personal trainer make her clients do all sorts of terrible things - they pay for that torture?
Thanks zebrafive - we enjoyed the place and the cache.

This ones been on my radar for way too long, I don't know why as it is a straight forward cache, all the points are easy to find, my problem was that I bumped the Oregon's screen while I was trying to put in the coords we worked out, this meant we had to walk about 800 metrers further than was required. Fortunately we got there in the end, Thanks for bringing us here, Great cache!

Calling Zebra Five.

"I have made contact and successfully rendezvoused at the drop Point"

"Wait"

" I think I am Being Followed"

" I need to throw them off the scent, I'll return to Bravo camp via the city, that should shake them off"

" Rest assured Zebra Five, Mission accomplished"

Agent Toadmiester7

Finally I have found this SL..TNLN..TFTH

This was my second attempt at this mission, but after arriving at the training area, I realised that I had not loaded mystery caches into my GPs. A few frantic phone calls home, I was back on track. Worked out the co-ord, but they did not look like they would work. Sat and pondered the clues, then it hit me, and some 20m from where I had been looking, and bingo there it was, you could just about be blinded by the smile on this very happy geocaches face. TFTH....SL....TNLN

Tried, but failed. Will try again - and with better preparation and with more time to devote to the find.

5pm. Third time and had two assists from Zebra. This time, went there after IMAX and literally spent
1 minute - first "grope" revealed cache. Covered everywhere else before but must have missed this.
Finished at last. Nice cache.
TNLN TFTC

Got it today without turning on the GPS. Having narrowed it down to 1 of 2 locations earlier in the week I followed the clues instead of the numbers and came up with the goods. To be fair its only about 20m away from where the numbers indicate which in the city is to be expected anyway! So with the clues you shouldnt have too much trouble. Is there a Mission Two in the works? TFTC!

OH! BTW, Today I did the big 5... One of each of the 5 main cache types. (Unknown, Traditional, Multi, Earth, Virtual), all in a single cache run! This was the Mystery / Unknown Cache

Rated: for Overall Experience

[7:30am. Used co-ordinates without luck.
As indicated ABN is there.
Nice place - will be back]
If A= 6 as given then GZ is outside the park (across bridge) and 30m away.
If A= 6 + 1 ie 7 then GZ is in park but nothing there to find.
Hints indicate bridge but...

I can confirm that A = 6 (not 7).

Google Maps shows the final coordinates at approx 40m north of the cache location. These coordinates where obtained using a GPS. Unfortunately, the local buildings may have affected the reading.

Once you have calculated the final coordinates, use the hints to narrow your search.

I had the info printed from before the new Intel. But I agree with Richary, even with the correct numbers and good GPSr reception I was ages away from where the clue would have me believe. I didnt investigate my suspicions today. The ABN is there if you look, not on the signs so you can maybe remove the extra hint for that and make people think laterally The numbers I used matched the new intel so I think a co-ords update may be in order.

Rated: for Overall Experience

Due to reports that enemy agents have dismantled equipment in order to hamper our efforts, we have revealed additional intelligence on the whereabouts of the secret drop point. Good luck agents!

I decided on a nice puzzle cache to hit the milestone of 2400 on GC, 2500 total with 100 GCA finds as well. OK, point one is missing but that's not a big problem as it is the most significant digit so there are only a couple of possibilities. The ABN is harder as it doesn't seem to be on the signs and a quick google didn't shed any light. Again it's the most significant digit so not a big drama.

Unluckily however I still couldn't make the numbers work for some reason and ended up brute forcing it. My first solution took me like others to somewhere filled with used needles and the like, so as a service to others it is NOT located in the huge banyan(?) tree with lots of great hiding spots.

Ended up using the clues and found it after a short search. Not sure where my calculations went wrong, but anyway spent a fun hour strolling around the park and scratching my head before it was found. Nice way to bring up the milestone. Thanks zebrafive.

Found it together with w.qbic on 11/24/2009.

181 - Despite the aforementioned missing sign - the clue and a bit of caching common sense proved to be successful for BGowza and I! Took TB. TFTC.

[This entry was edited by Gowza on Friday, October 30, 2009 at 7:19:11 PM.]

Agent 'Gowza' and I made it our mission to locate this cache, but when we discovered the enemy had stolen one part of the code as part of their espionage, we had to put our top-secret geocaching agent training into practice. We quickly established possible locations with aid of the encrypted intelligence provided by agent 'zebrafive' and we were able to close in on GZ and log our visit, the enemy none the wiser TFTC

As mentioned one of the signs is missing but with the hints I managed to guess what it would have been. I was walking around the park scratching my head for a bit though. Much fun

It was a beautiful day for a walk, so that's just what I did, and this was the second attempted. One of the signs from the workout areas has gone, and there was one symbol I couldn't find, so I presume that this is where it was supposed to be. It was the symbol for A.

I punched in a couple of possibilities into my GPS and one led to a likely spot, but there were some nearby muggles sitting on a seat, with other muggles spread across the park on the grass, so it wasn't a good time to try to find it. Perhaps I'll return on my next visit and try at night. Thanks for the cache.

second time lucky found @ 2110. tftc tn l tb

Enjoyed finding the clues, but the resulting GPS location led us up a hill to another little park. Resorted to the clues which thankfully led us straight to the cache (which was not up the hill!). Took the trackable coin. TFTC

Found with beth.w. Loved the clues and quickly worked out the co-ordinates but the GPS took us to a little park some way up the hill. It didn't seem right but after a double-check we set off. After scratching our heads at this park for a bit we finally read the hint and Mrs B was pretty confident she knew the cache location. Back down the hill and Mrs B found the cache immediately. I'm ashamed to say we were a bit rude about the cache owner, and we have to apologise as when I re-read the clues on the laptop screen later I realised we had forgotten to add the 1. Oops. TFTC.

[This entry was edited by bondi burrows on Sunday, August 02, 2009 at 2:36:30 AM.]

Great cache i loved it found it quickly
Took TB TFTC SL

Used my head on this one and found it with a bit of looking around
Great spot. TFTC!

Solved the puzzle quicky and put the new coords into the GPS which told me it was in the middle of the football stadium. Looked at the clue and used my commonsense to quickly locate the actual location of the cache. It was 150m SE ish of the coords i gained from the puzzle. Very good idea for a puzzle cache but a shame that the final coords are out.

Left a TB and coin

TFTC

I found the clue and calculated the result and headed over to a promising looking spot. After a brief search I had turned up syringe, undewear and, believe it or not, worse! I didn't feel like sticking my hands anywhere, so cracked the hint. Nothing made sense so I revisited the clues and realised I was 200m from where I should be. As I approached the new GZ I spotted a likely spot and found it easily.
It seems far too exposed and may have moved a little.

After about 3 Hours we finally found the cache in the rain. made us walk to the wrong spot about 20 times and it didn't help that we were on bikes going up and down those realy steap hills. great cache and make sure you leave lots of time to do this one.
TFTC

After 2 houres of confusion, we realized that it has to be in a public place. And finally we found it. Was good fun, nice cache!

I couldnt find it either

As greenblob said, went with her and the other two and couldn't find it. We did everything right, as far as we knew, but the drop point eluded our vision.

Came with dogboy, dslme and pestuzio. It all lined up. But we couldn't find the cache. No luck this time, will return
Greenblob.

wow, what a great style of cache, but unfortunatley our cache finding skill swere not up to scratch with this one. We got to gz, and looed, we then read clues, and lined them up with gz that we were at, all fits but didnt find the prize.
We will return
dogboy

I think I'm heading for an F in field training. My final GZ ended up somewhere in the middle of the dog racing track. I'll have to come back to reread the information to see where I went wrong. Very interesting idea for a cache though.

Counter agents were clearly active today and tried to cause interference with intelligence equipment. But good old spy knowledge eventually helped us reveal the drop point.
TFTC - good fun.
Team Vainui

Like previous agents, the information at hand was a bit askew. As any agent worth their salt, a liberal interpretation of the information sent me in the right direction. A bit of searching uncovered the bogey and the mission complete.

After enrolling in the Spy School we went out into the nearby field to collect the required information for our mission. With the information collected and deciphered and the Drop Zone calculated, off we went to complete the mission.

Looks like Mission Control can't get things quite right (as per usual) as our GPSr put us 50 metres from where we had assumed we should have been. But by resorting to the Field Hints and applying a bit of caching know-how we soon had this mission completed.

Thanks "zebrafive" for this 5-star cache - we loved the concept, the planning you've obviously done, the great cache webpage, the very cunningly worded field exercises you made us do and the well worded hints. We had a lot of fun and really enjoyed this one.

Found this one at 22:45 while out and about working off our Japanese meal. Alsume had all the paperwork so I had to rely on his expertise although a wrong calc nearly had us infiltrating a nearby building that could have proved quite embarassing. A rethink and a liberal reading of the hint though soon had us with the prize in hand .

TNLNSL, although our Geolicence Geocoin had a visit to mark our first NSW find for March 2008. Thanks zebrafive.

In Sydney for a planning meeting, the alert went out for a late night caching session. Having infiltrated foreign territory and collected the required intelligence (without doing the workout!), Eudes & Alsume plus fellow planners set out to locate the secret drop zone. Despite making a mistake which saw us about 50m from GZ, a bit of caching instinct turned up the drop zone and the cache before too long and the log was signed at 10:40pm.
TNLN
thanks zebrafive

Exam duty call,
Human Resource management
Boring as all hell,
But part of my career development
Of all the exams,
This would be the most hated
Thankfully across the road,
A cache waited
As soon as the three our were up,
I was out like a shot
Completed the task,
I was hot to trot
GZ posed no problem,
In seconds the cache was had
Loved this one Zebrafive,
Not bad, not bad!!

Tracked down the required data and headed off to find the cache. The final co-ords had us out by about 50m but by using our caching nose we tracked it down with little fuss.

Then off to the fishmarkets to pick ups some lunch.

It always feels good when you can cross off your current nearest cache to home.

In the first attempt I ended up on a closed gate.
Read the instructions from the double agent again and did some research on the 3w system to find my mistake.
Than a quick look into the online drop zone visualizer and I could head of to the final.
Found immediately the right spot, however only the second look exhibited the cache. Can caches move?
TFTC
Alpini undercover agent of team PLG
Out: Coin

BTW. the satellite gods are not very accurate at the final, however the hint is very descriptive...


[This entry was edited by Alpini on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 at 6:43:34 PM.]

After stuffing up the puzzle the first time finally got around to finishing the well set up cache. Loved the cache location.
Thanks zebrafive for the cache and help.
Regards Philma.

Luckily the only exercise today in this area was some elbow bending at the local cafes so we had the place to ourselves. After acquiring the required information we set off on the epic journey on foot no less. Arriving at our destination soaked in sweat and smelling a bit fishy we soon unearthed our goal.

I set off last night hoping to snag the F2F on this cache but was defeated by the thunder storm.

This morning the sun was shining and I completed the cache without too much trouble.

TNLN

No joy with this one.
Regards Philma.

This listing will self-destruct in five seconds.

Our double agents have reported the capture of the Homesick Moose TB. Apparently he is being held at the secret drop point awaiting a rescue.