Cherri's Playground Mount Helen, Victoria, Australia
By flyjabiru1 on 26-Jan-08. Waypoint GC18XJH

As there's been either no response from the cache owner, no cache to find or log to sign, or it's been a number of months since the last owner note. I'm archiving it to keep it from continually showing up in search lists, and to prevent it from blocking other cache placements. If you wish to repair/replace/make available the cache sometime in the near future (next 30 days), just contact us (by email), and assuming it meets the current guidelines, we'll be happy to unarchive it. Should you replace the cache after 30 days has passed please create a new cache listing so it can be reviewed as a new cache.

The cache appears to be in need of owner intervention. I'm temporarily disabling it, to give the owner an opportunity to check on the cache, and take whatever action is necessary. Please respond to this situation in a timely manner (i.e., within 30 days) to prevent the cache from being archived for non-responsiveness. If you require more time please be sure to post a note (not an email) explaining the situation and how much more time you require. For ongoing issues please ensure you visit the page and post a note every month or so to keep everyone up to date.
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There are now locked gates and a keep out sign, so should be archived.

Since we decided to cache in this area about a week ago I have been trying to solve this puzzle. Nothing made sense, I went down all sorts of tangents and just couldn't make any connections. After we finished Duck Now, I pulled out my notepad to have another look on the way to the next cache, and the cipher just fell into place. We decided to drive out immediately to check if it was correct, and lo and behold, there was a cache waiting for us. Interesting area. Thanks for the cache.

What an interesting "playground". We wondered how legal the use of and access to this area is.

Cache was inundated with water, lid broken and disintegrating. We drained it and fixed the lid with tape as well as possible. Needs Maintenance!

TFTC

Cache container suffers from exposure to the elements and is slowly crumbling. Unfortunately we didn't have a suitable replacement cache, so we fixed it up as well as possible with some tape, but this might not last very long.

Found on our Ballarat Smackdown weekend with DazRascal, Blacklegend, Trailrunning and Quasar3671!

One of the many puzzles we had put heads together to solve before out weekend in Ballarat.
Enjoyed the walk to the cache which was located after a brief search. Many thanks for the puzzle and cache and for bringing us here. TNLN SL. Cheers.

One of 184 cache finds during our "Ballarat Smackdown" weekend of caching on the 23rd to 25th. There were 13 of us including Blacklegend and three of his kids, Trailrunning, Haveanez and their two boys, Dazrascal and myself amd my two boys Tyler and Cooper. We'd spent a few weeks planning the trip, with every Ballarat Puzzle solved in the area, cache lists and road and route maps all ready to go. We stayed in the Miners Retreat Motel for the two nights and the accomodation and facilities were great. Our goal was simple - find as many caches as possible in the time we were here !

We found a great variety of caches and hides during the three days, which also involved a bit of walking and some 4WD fun as well in the state forests north of Ballarat. The weather was quite cold of the Friday and Saturday morning but eventually cleared to nice sunny weather Saturday arvo and Sunday. We all had a great time, especially the kids who did really well to keep up with the pace we were moving.

Our second day of caching and it was to be our biggest day and fullest day too. With the puzzle solved previousily, we had the coords to GZ so drove to the closest entry point. We made a V line to GZ where the kids clambered over the rocks and soon the cache was found. Thanks for the puzzle and hide.

One of 182 caches I personally found during our "Ballarat Smackdown" trip. The trip included teams Quasar3671, Trailrunning, Haveanez, Dazrascal and myself. Caches included around 30 mystery caches, a few earth caches, lots of trads and multis and both day and night caching. Some 4WD action was encountered as well, which was great. All puzzles within 60kms were solved.

I took three of my kids, Jasmine 7yo, James and Jemma 5yo twins, traveling from Tocumwal. The trip covered 3 days and two nights, staying in Ballarat. Quasar3671 took his two boys as did Haveanez. One of the best caching trips I have been on, and certainly lots and lots of finds, almost clearing out the main Ballarat area. Home base was the Miners Retreat motel, which was quite pleasant and quiet.

This was a find on our massive Saturday run, which included both day and night caches. Lunch was a picnic in the bush at one or our cache stops. A night caching run was undertaken after a rest and dinner.

No problem with the puzzle or in finding the final hide on this one. Nice outstanding feature at GZ.... TFTC.

After a successful Friday evening to start off the “Ballarat Cache Smackdown” with 34 finds on the first day the Saturday was always going to be a day of superhuman effort. It started early with a run heading west and south, only to finish the day and night with a run to the Northwest and North. A great day was had by all because there was some good 4WDing and the weather held out for the day with only one notable shower. A total of 98 caches were collected today, and it shows you how quickly a cache can be located with so many searchers. This cache was one of them. A short walk in to an unusual area. Thanks for cache #50

16:13
We have had the corrected co-ords for the playground for some time. Today was our opportunity to visit the site. We had similar areas for exploration when we were young, probably we would not approve of our kids doing that nowadays.

TNLN . . SL . . Thanks for the hunt flyjabiru1.
2487

8614 An interesting spot for Cherri’s Playground. Surprised at how soft the dirt roads became after some overnight rain… Stayed on firmer ground until we reach GZ… Thankfully the GPS was right on the money and the cache quickly found, as there were lots of potential hiding spots here.

Many thanks for the puzzle and cache flyjabiru1
Greetings from New Zealand, Cheers YuGeo4

I went back today but this time my GPS had me in a different place. I suspect I must of entered the wrong coords last time. Cache was soon found. TFTC

this one was so much fun. done with robeert. had a look at the clues couldnt get it then robeert come over half a beer later we think we have it. its dark do we go and try to find it hell yeah great catch

Wow what a thriller! Done with team packafattys

After working out the code (I think) I tried to find this one. First I entered from Geelong road which made for a bit of adventure driving through the hills in my AWD. I finally got to what I thought is the correct spot just as the battery was running out on my GPS. I looked all around but all I found was those prickly weeds.

Very much enjoyed this puzzle - it took a little while before our "aha" moment! No locked gates today so we had a clear path to GZ. This would
have been a really great place to play! Thanks for bringing us here today.

Nice Hide and Puzzle, I must say I agree with previous logs about feeling strange jumping over a locked gate, but I did and managed to find the container fairly quickly

Took Penguin, Left Football Card & Toy Dog

Also Dropped in a GeoCoin

TFTC

Late start to a third trip to Ballarat to put a few more smiley faces in this area. The old ute wanted to know where I was going on these rough tracks.

I like others was curious about the locked gate and wondered if we should jump over but there was only a swag of rabbits and the ageing Bushfire in the area today so over I went.

Cache was soon located and the log signed. Thanks.

This was cache # 37 of 45 for the day, the cache was found in the company of Alansee and Team Crackers. This has been in the solved pile for some reason, we parked as close as we could to GZ and then proceeded on foot, I am not sure we should have really been in here, and this may need to be checked by the owner. My thanks to flyjabiru1 for the cache.

Took a bit of head scratching to figure out the code and not fully confident when it appeared that gz may be in an off limits area but came up trumps! TFTC, this one was felt well-earned!

The puzzle wasn't very hard to crack, was in the area of the coordinates so we pulled in and poked around, we found the cache right next to GZ so your numbers worked out well!

Geo juniour figured this one out and found it in the end. Our 50th cache! Thouroughly enjoyed this cache
T= USAF pin
L= Eraser
TFTC

thankfully found this after slipping and sliding around. dak would hate this cache.

We found our 15th Flyjabiru1 cache at 4:15pm as the 23nd of 40 on our Ballaratatattat Tour V in company of Backpaqer. I had this one worked out a goodly while ago but we finally got down this far to pick it up. Thanks for the cache from D B-A.

I did the puzzle a couple of days ago when I knew I was heading down this way. It seemed to check out so we headed here. We weren't entirely sure we were in the right spot, but we searched for a while before locating the cache. (I think we'd all walked right passed it without noticing it. No exchange was made. Thanks for the cache.

Found 12:10, in the company of Muzza who we must admit solved this puzzle. An interesting location.

TNLN, CSI=3, thanks flyjabiru1.

3rd find of the day and 1967th total find at 11:31.

Would love to know the history of this particular playground, some of the toys are a little 'different'.

Took: Nothing
Left: Screwdriver
Thanks flyjabiru1 for the cache.
Ian and Penny

Found at 11.30am GAFF4 on our National Treasure weekend after starting it over a year ago in the company of Ian & Penny.
We were here about a year ago and we couldn't work out the puzzle, but after a bit of assistance from the caching community, we somehow were able to get the final co-ords.
What a fantastic place for a young girl and her sister to play in - reminds p-pprass of the paddocks and basic places that he and his mates played in over 40 years ago!
Thanks flyjabiru1.

Found at 1450. Found the right way in alright, and after a few minutes, the cache was in hand. This would be a child's dream to explore around here.

T - Unite For Diabetes TB.

Thanks.

My second go at this one also. For some odd reason I didn't find the way in the first time several months ago? Can't figure out wy! Thanks for the brain food and the cache .

Yeah...found my first Mystery Cache. 5th cache for the day. Found with Peter and Tilley TB. Sneaky hide! Discovered Russian Diabetes Travelbug and Tilley dipped her paws in too.Cache was nearly empty so took nothing, left penguin, "flower", Elmo cube and calling card. SL TFTC

Found by Mary & David at 1505. David enjoyed another puzzle and Mary was interested in the varied vegetation. TNLN, but collected 'Cruiserdude II Geocoin' and dropped off "Vikhorevka, Russia" Unite for Diabetes Travel Bug. Our thanks to flyjabiru1 once again.

Found this one after my code-cracking buddy worked out what to do with the coordinates... I was very impressed with her! Interesting spot. Thanks Flyjabiru1!
TNLN

Found by McAdies.
I couldn't work out the code when it first came out so i left it and came back to it yesterday and worked it out in about a minute! Just needed to look at it differently. Found the right track then walked Lucy to the GZ and found after a short look.
Left Cruiserdude geocoin
TFTC

I was able to solve the puzzle without too much trouble when it came out. I always like a good mental challenge. I was also quite fortunate that my GPSr had excellent maps for the area and all the tracks were on it. This enabled me to park nice and close and make a quick fine. I agree with previous finders' comments, this would be a lot fun for kids to explore.

Thanks,

R - B

Now who's Cherri for this to be an appropriate playground?

This one was closer to home than I was expecting. I guess this is an old mine area.

TFTC.

Found with chewinprickles and Robmc.

Eventually found the right way into this area. A nice quick find followed. TFTC

The longest part here was finding the correct road in. I think we tried every possible one before finding the right way. Easy find after that. Certainly improved our geography in this area.
Thanks again

A strange place to go exploring, but as a child, I suspect it would be interesting. It took us a bit to find the right way in, but the search at GZ was quicker than I thought it would be.
Thanks, Robmc.
PS: thanks for the puzzle.

5.00pm
Found by Roma and Max.
We had our fingers crossed that our calculated numbers for GZ were going to be correct.
Your kms measurement from the posted numbers seemed to be ok, and our approach track also seemed to correspond to a previous finders description in their log.
On arriving at these co-ordinates we were confronted with another nemesis that has stressed us out many times before.
However your accuracy, when acquiring the numbers for this position, put us within easy reach of what we sort.
Thank you again flyjabiru1 for the method you used in establishing the numbers and the placement of this hide.
Romax.

Found this one with the Geokids on a warm afternoon. Worked out the puzzle yesterday at second attempt and all seemed OK. Finding the cache confimed it was correct, although for a nasty moment I thought it was another "Morning Walk"

TFTC.

Diane solved this puzzle on the way to Portland on Saturday so we decided to return to Melbourne today via Ballarat to pick up this and a few other caches. As kids we liked exploring a few unusual spots, it seem that Cherri did too
Made no swaps at this one
Thanks again flyjabiru1

Found today at 1625.
Out last for the day out of 23

Also our 400th cache. WOO HOO

Really dunno why anyone would want to play in such a location now.. but I am sure that many moons ago it was a fun spot.

VKC basically had puppies whilst driving to this location as we were in the 2 week old new ute.. and there was a heck of a lot of big paint scratchy bushes on either side of the well worn big bumpy dirt track.
Thus is was a rather slow trip up to GZ.

A nice quick find once we had checked the ute for scratches and bumps.. and then it was time for the slow return trip. NOooooooo!!!

Took - NIL
Left - NIL

Thanks for the cache,

VKC1SR

Found easily after decoding with a slight clue from FJ1!
This is some playground, and I can see the attraction to curious young eyes!!
Find # 335. Found @ 2.45pm.
T:car L: 2xworkers, fozzycard and aussie flag
Thanks again FJ1

A rather odd, but interesting area. Our last cache of the day which saw the car collect more mud and dust on the way in - it was a good excuse to stop at the carwash on the way home! Enjoyed doing the puzzle. TNLN TFTC.

The puzzle was solved quickly from my desk this week and after checking that Oenze had the same solution we drove in today to make the find. Another area I had not been to before. thanks flyjabiru1. Swapped a car for a plane.

Find # 2192 and 14th of the day at 3:15pm. Accompanied by Feathertop for a day out caching in Ballarat. Had this one solved pretty quick too, I dont understand why Cherri would want to play here though?. TNLN, Signed Log, Thanx Flyjabiru1...

Hello,

Found this one today, brought back bad memories of when I rolled my first car while hooning around this particular area many moons ago.

TNLNSL. TFTC

Cheers.

Found with sandar10 after quickly working things out on our second look. lucky our car isnt too wide for the trip to GZ.
Cheers TNLN

Found with Highrod at 7:00pm.
After racing 2dudez at Winter Flat. He told us about this one, but we were too tired to unravel the code. So tonight we made short work of it and off we went. GPSr had us going all over the place, and we ended up back near the car. We could definately see why kids would want to play here. TNLN Thanks

What a difference daylight makes!
Visited GZ at 9:30 last night and after a 30 min search, left for home wishing I had brought my big torch.
Today with less of a GPS error and the morning light I found this one about 30 seconds after arriving at GZ.
Made the effort to find before the day warmed up, as from last nights visit, GZ looked like a potential home for snakes, (FJ1 : you might want to add this into your cache page's attributes).
Cache found at 8:30am.
Congrats to DarthVandal for his First FTF, and well done to FJ1 on the puzzle (this one took me just under an hour of head scratching til I worked out your code)

28/01/2008 0015hrs: My first First to Find! What does one do when they arrive home after a long day at the office? Go Geocaching of course! The fact that it's nearly midnight just makes it a bit more of a challenge! I noticed that a few more of Flyjabi's caches were popping up around the place and that this one hadn't been found yet - I couldn't resist! Made short work of the slightly more difficult cypher and Google Earth soon confirmed my answer. After negotiating the narrow twists and turns I very quickly had the cache in hand after arriving at GZ.

Took: Plane and 'flippin pilot'
Left: QANTAS jumbo and USAF Pin.

TFTC. PS: I flyjabiru2!

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