Another Dharawal Gateway St Helens Park, New South Wales, Australia
By homedg on 02-Feb-08. Waypoint GC1922W

A nice quick find due to good coords and hint. Cache is still in good condition. TFTC

I've been pretty fascinated lately with looking back over many of the old caches in our area. Maybe it's a bit nerdy, but I love finding out about some of the locations that have been used, the hides that have been placed, the cache owners who've often left the game and enjoy reading back over the logs to unravel the evolution of the game. I also find the idea of what was once considered lost or long gone, being rediscovered after such a long time.
I'd read about this one not too long ago and added it to my list of archived caches to check. After finding The Box of Tricks only a couple of km away, I was on my way over to Dharawal to look for The Bucket of Fun. However, I'd left my run a bit late and with daylight fading, I decided to give that a miss. But remembering this was close by and seeing that is was actually very close to the road I decided to park the Geo-mobile and give it a go. Slipping back behind the shelter, I found myself almost immediately entangled in trees and bushes. Not sure if it was like this back when the cache was active, but GZ is now full of natural debris right around the rocks and it was a rather scratchy and uncomfortable hunt. After a few minutes I was scratched up and had nothing to show for it. Having another look at the hint and the map, I decided that maybe I had not taken the hint literally enough and relocated myself a couple of metres and... Bingo! The cache is very well hidden but definitely still there. The container is in pretty good condition despite one broken handle, swaps in fairly good order also. The original log is in poor condition, stuck together due to being wet at some point but one of the recent finders has popped in a sheet of paper which we signed. Great to find this old cache 13 years after being hidden and 11 years since being archived! Thanks homedg!

I very much like an archived cache and when phlphotos sent me the details, it was just a case of meeting up with the team and giving it a go. Good stuff!

Being the end of the school holidays decided on an extreme caching run today with the team of Splitty Miller JJCC, phlphotos and alnic39. The lure of an archived cache was too much so we headed to our second archived cache of the day and made another find. With the cache in hand we signed the log before replacing as found. Thanks for the cache homedg.

The following TBs came through for the mileage: Bob geoMinion, Dave geoMinion, Evil geoMinion, Jerry geoMinion, Larry geoMinion, Mary Hyde's Treasure, Stuart geoMinion, teamMerlin's 7 Deadly Ducks Tag (Lust), Vanlith The Youngling and Richard Teer.

Met up with alnic39, teamMerlin and Splitty Miller JJCC earlier for a day caching down in the Helensburgh area after some of the higher terrain difficulty caches. I have found a nice number of lists by Crew 153 every now and then I bring it out to see what is on the list of "worth a try" well this was one of them sent the coords to alnic. This ended up being a quick find

Signed the log and replaced as found. Both the cache and log are in good condition. Thanks for the cache homedg. I love it when you can find archived caches

The following TBs visited for the distance - phlphotos 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 & 2017 NSW geocoin, phlphotos travelling 2012, 2017 NSW Geocoin, phlphotos Mary Hyde's compass, phlphotos Spindoc Bob Memorial Geocoin, phlphotos, phlphotos Area 51 Tag, phlphotos backpacker canister cover, phlphotos Cache In Trash Out Geocoin, phlphotos Cache In Trash Out Tag, phlphotos CITO Micro Geocoin, phlphotos Col Miner geocoin, phlphotos Four Elements Geocoin, phlphotos Optical Illusion Geocoin, phlphotos Trackable Building Brick, phlphotos Travel Bug Dog Tag, phlphotos Oz GeoMuster 2018 geocoin, phlphotos Oz GeoMuster 2018 geocoin, & dirty Black Juke

we have had this one on the to find list for a while now, if it has been Archived then why is it still out there with all the swaps in it. SLTFTC

Archived

Got this one while in the area.What a great place to walk through I'm going to bring the MTB next time to do a few more in the area.Nice quick easy find although had to coax the cache guardian (rather large skink) off his sunny perch to get to the cache. Thanks for introducing me to this area.

TFTC TNLN SL

TFTC

I walked right past this cache, on the way to Scrubbers, only to have to come back and grab my cap, to cover my thinning head of hair from the sun!
Thanks for an easy find....

This was tricky becasue we were parked virtually right on the cache which meant the gps was hiding the "nearest cache" picture. Luckily my paper caching printout had us remembering to get this before we headed off on a lovely walk in the bush.

There's a great selection of resting spots at GZ to sit and write the log although it seems one of the baby leeches that lives here knows about it too as geomatica found it on his shoe!

Found on a Southern Cache Hunt with Blossom*

Found at: 08:00
Cache 1 of 22

Instantaneous Find Rate: 0.0 caches per hour
Average Find Rate: 0.0 caches per hour

Well, not that we could go any further. Quick find by Lynn. Signed the log and then we were off to the next.

Thanks for bringing us here.

Thought I was going the 'backway' from Campbelltown back to Appin.... How wrong I was!!
Anyways I found the cache and Scrubbers also a biu further along.
Could here plenty of roos pounding around in the dark too. Moonless in fact!
TNLNSL
Thanks

got to get low to find this one

I love it, on my visit i found a syringe, placed it straight in my protable yellow container lol and quickly found and signed the log... decided against going for more due to poor light and saw a small fire to the south. Will return for the others another day!!

Thank goodness this one did not require crawling around in the scrub, as the little brother and I were tired from splashing around in the river and scared of snakes. This is an awesome area and everyone should totally go down and check out the river
Took the keyring and left a couple of Halloween rubbers.
TFTC - Delivery Boy

Found with rtec+. Thanks!

Rod and Paul. Nice morning hunting. Took travel bug.

TFTC

Was checking the area out, i live nearby, would have liked to have gone further but had my 2 and 8 month year old with me ! Took Maccas Toy Lion, and GingerBread Man GeoCoin, Left Diabetes Travel Bug and Thomas the Tank Engine

Located 1.50pm. Took fish, left soldier. An easy find. TFTC

What a piece of crap cache this was, all this beautiful area to explore and the owner dumps this plastic box next to the Entry
No really, it was the beginning of a tremendous morning geocaching with a good buddy Deputy Dog, some reasonable swaps inside but not for us. I left a coin, logged our finds and moved on to the next. Many Thanks Homedg good work

A great cache and really enjoyed the hide , great container... ruffasgutts4x4 is always upset if he can't bush bash 800m to find a cache... (But he got that out of his system soon enough)
TFTC SL TNLN

This was a great spot to park up and get the bikes out. We had a very enjoyable few hours cycling & caching in this area. Little miss H found this cache easily whilst dad was still putting the bike rack away.
Thanks,
The Hancock Clan

Having ridden over from West Cliff to avoid the long drive around from Wollongong we quickly found this cache. From here we headed in to find more of the local caches.

Cheers

Found this one with Hoojar.

TFTC

A quick find after coming back to the car from a lovely hike in this beautiful area.
TFTC Wilbert67

Quick find. TFTC!

Nice easy cache and a good starting point for some more
Grabbed cool looking coin.

visited to drop of GC

a nice start to a beautiful autumn morning TNLNSL TFTC

Had to come back and get this one as i had walked right by it last time i was here.
Today was the first day i was able to get here.
a nice easy find.
Took the TB will move it on soon
also swapped the bag for mini cards, geofrog and helicopter balloon and helicopter toy.
TFTC.

Nice cool summer evening for cache hunting,did not realize this was as far as Geo mobile could go and had two options walk or ride tandem mountain bike.(Still looking to buy one of those)so walking it is.Geo wife straight on to cache while I was still in the car looking for swaps.No gate keeper snake seen but could hear the barking dogs..
Left smiley spring SLTL....one down three to go....TFTC...

Dropped off The World Traveler TB....

After trying for this on the way in without the GPS I had a look in the way out and it was much easier with the GPS turned on. Thanks.

1899.15 TNLN
Visited: World Traveling Gold GC A#6 & Micro Micro A#33

Albida

Found it easily with Jkcourtz. TNLN 10.50am

Found 10:50am with Cattledog81. Nice start for a walk.

Another find for the day by Geo Jye.
Took some toys and left a lion and a penguin toy.
Thanks
Team Thomson_8 xx

Easy find. Thanks for bringing us to this lovely location.

My first cache ! Very exciting, it was a great outdoor day with friends.

Interesting gateway to an interesting area. One clip was completely gone from the cache, but other than that all is well. TN, left glow stick, SL. Thank you for the fun and the cache homedg!

12:20pm
After the GPS led us well astray to a road that does not exist anymore, we doubled back and came the way I thought we should of. Aint technology grand?

Anyways, while we made lunch, the two girls found it easily.

Cheers

An interesting road with double yellow lines.
Was it a main road to somewhere once?
Thanks for the experience homdg.

Left this one to the geowife and kid2 while kid1 and I went down the road. They found it between a stream of muggles coming in and out the track.
JABs.

Visited a further 5 caches beyond the gateway before remembering this one at the end of the sortie.

out for a days walk

Ahhh! the gateway, does that mean this cache or the snake I seen near GZ is the gate-keepper.
Easy find as I headed out to the other nearby cache. Did a coin swap. Thanks

Found by Pi.

This is the gateway to Dharawal that I use several times a year and it gives access to a wide variety of activities.

Bring your mtb as there are several good rides in the area. A good, mostly easy, ride is right in front of you. Victoria Rd goes for about 6k's and the out and back run is pretty straightforward. Not to mention the staggering array of wildflowers that can be seen here all year round. For some more interesting stuff head down 10t (straight ahead on Victoria Rd and it's the first on the right) to the t-intersection and turn left onto 10b or turn right onto the continuation of 10t. 10b gives you access to miles and miles of firetrail, you can even ride to Appin or Darkes Forest.

Plenty of bushwalking as well. I have done several off-trail walks in the area and found some stunning spots with views that go on for ever. Or you can head down to any of the creeks for a swim. The water in the creeks is incredibly clear and fresh. And not to mention some of the weird objects we have found in the scrub.

The greatest pity about this area is the people of Campbelltown barely know that it exists. But on the other hand that means for those of us that do know we get it all to ourselves.

TNLNSL.

Picked up Geocoin.

TFTC,
Mike (pi)
GPS.

P.S. Just remembered, one of the clips on the cache container has come off and it needs repair. And I should do a better job of proof reading before hitting the submit button.

[This entry was edited by GammaPiSigma on Sunday, March 02, 2008 at 9:02:48 PM.]

[This entry was edited by GammaPiSigma on Sunday, March 02, 2008 at 9:17:37 PM.]

just droping a coin to track my FTF's

13:05 Hrs
The cache was easily located and the duties completed before we made the short walk to another recent cache placement nearby.

I have been to this lovely area a quite a few times now. There are now numerous caches that are accessible from this entry point, so hopefully the area will see a few more visitors. Bring the MTB and have some fun, as there are tracks ranging from easy fire trail rides to challenging single track if you do a bit of exploring. There are easy walks to some great views, and some refreshing swimming holes.

Took nothing
Left a keyfinder.
Dropped off “Van Helsing’s Sister†Geocoin.

Thanks homedg.

If you never been here before you might want to bring some steak for Brutus and Cyclops, the two dogs that live opposite. They will come out barking ready to attack, so if you throw them a steak you should have time to grab the cache and get back into the safety of your car.

Published

*FTF* for me again 3 in two days after a day up at newcastle and 2 ftf's up there we came home and what do i see a new cache in my emale so instead of going to have a beer with homedg we went to get his new cache 1st then over to have that beer or 4
nice easy find with co-ords spot on and not geting the cache out i sent tne 4 year old geotot in to find and after a short hunt she found it in no time at all
TFTC
took whistle
left radio & coin