On Top of Old Smokey Amphitheatre, Victoria, Australia
By Mr.Coffee and the Coffee Clan on 08-Jun-08. Waypoint GC1D3ZP

Mount Cole State Forest opened this week. (Buangor State Park and Mount Lonarch Forests remain closed still).We did a reconnaissance trip to see the state of things, and if by chance there had been any small pockets of unburnt land that might have held a cache. No such luck (we weren't holding our breath). The bush is all burnt but will regrow of course. Nature is amazing. But it will take time. At the moment, the ground is still very soft and fragile and the animals still need to return and establish their new homes. Any cache placement would be very exposed and covered in soggy black ash anyway.We will continue to monitor on behalf of the Cache Owner.

This cache is an an area subject to fire fighting operations (22-23 Feb) and may have been impacted by the fire. It has been disabled until it is safe for the CO is able to check the current condition of the cache.

the legs were already tired
the last dregs were drained from them here
an eagle cruising the thermals watched us toil

we spent the last two days doing the beeripmo circuit
the steep opening day up the ferny gully and among the snowgums
we made slow but steady pace: no hiker left behind
rain filled our afternoon and evening
we sheltered and shivered
no one was as foolhardy as us: we had the run of the mountain
a swish new cooker produced claggy penne, washed down with a tim tam
we fell asleep to the plick-plick of raindrops on the tent
one of our party woke in the dark to pluck a leech out of their gums

today was a downhill affair
the long slow steady descent back to richards
easy on the muscles, rough on the joints
salty chips in the car beckoned us on

and afterwards
a memorial to mark the trek
somewhere to sign our name and mark our presence
so we can look back on the hike and remember
the altitude lost and gained
on the mountain in the rain

Found 9:28 am
Fun scramble up to GZ for a surprise quick find. On the way in a bush bash approachwas taken. But on the way back there actuallywas a track, making for a quicker exit. This track is next to the power pole, easy to miss on the way in down the track from the road.

TFTC Mr.Coffee and the Coffee Clan

Date: June 12, 2023 Time: 9:31 AM
Find #13894

After finishing the Beeripmo Walk yesterday and camping nearby, we decided to find a few caches before heading home. Last one in the area, awesome spot for a hide.

Massive thanks go to The Coffee's for placing this one.

I really should have walked this one. Narrow track and pinstrips the entire way. No turn around until the end. However, this was our one and only view for the day, so was happy with that, plus a nice big cache out in the bush. A nice spot for a cache.

Stunning view. TFTC

Sadly didnt find this one today. Didnt have alot of time to look. Will have to come back for this

A weekend away, hosted by the lovely chooknchunk. Today’s guided tour - Mt Cole and surrounds.
A familiar name right here.
I think I could actually smell the coffee from here!
Thanks for placing and maintaining this cache, The Coffee's

Another great spot of views ️ TFTC

Great family day out on Aussie day

Weekend away quiet and some caches to go. TFTC

So sorry, this got forgotten and only came to light after visiting the area again this new years. GT37 remembered this one as she didn't like the angle of the turn around area, lol. Funny the things we remember. Apologies.

Up here with a fellow cacher, exploring some of the many tracks. We have had a great day but we must be heading back soon. We will definitely be back as there are more tracks to explore and more caches that we have yet to find. This didn't take too long to locate, sign and return to it's hide so might even have time for one more, lol. Thanks for placing this cache and maintaining it for so long.

Our last cache for the day and the one with the best view. We parked about 200 metres back as swaggie2 did not want me to drive the full distance. So a pleasant walk in the late afternoon saw me arrive at GZ pretty quickly. Signed the log, admired the view and headed back to the caravan park.
Thanks for placing this cache Mr.Coffee and the Coffee Clan

I was just driving past on my way back to Melbourne from a work trip and I thought this could be a nice quick detour. In the end it was that quick but definitely worth the visit. What a lovely area this is, I’m really grateful for being shown around.
I drove up up up in my old trusty 2wd steed and walked the last few hinder meters. Finding the cache was easy enough. I signed the log and TNLN. All seems to be in good order.

TFTC

PS I reckon I had the place to myself today. Not a soul. Just wind in the trees, birds and a nut looking for a plastic container . Magic

I was nice and close by with some previous finders who were kind enough to bring me here.
Even though it was very cold wet and windy the views made up for the discomfort.
Thanks for the cache!

Sean.75 decided that he would drive in as close as he could here so we didn't have to get too wet finding this one. It was a bit of fun!! Tftc

Nice find

Today we were in the Mt Cole area chasing a few first to finds and while traveling between those first to find hunt we past the little fella.
We decided to leave the car at the junction of the Glut Rd and Divide road as I wasn't sure of the clearance. plus it was a nice walk out in the wonderful country air.
After some rock hoping we soon found the cache without any troubles. Not a bad view from up here as well.
Thank you The Coffees for placing the cache

Cool view. Great rock climbing. Found w Tazz&Co & jellynelle
TFTC

Visited the TV towers and then thought ‘it doesn’t look too far to this one’ and decided to head to it next. Turns out it was a pretty good 4WD track. More battle scars for the car. I should have also worn the gaiters to this one. A lot of spiky plants

During a great weekend with kenare we managed to find your cache, after a bit of looking. Great views. Cigc. Tftc

Out this way for the weekend with Sean.75 to find a few caches and have a few laughs. We packed up camp this morning and rolled out at 8.30. After trekking to the falls we headed over this way to see if we could make the find. After a bit of s search we soon had the cache in hand. Tnln, cigc, TFTC

A chance for a summer drive and picking up some caches. Not easy to get here, have taken so many turns that we are not really sure where her is anymore.

A very enjoyable run to here after the Mega event and all is in good order.

Not an easy find, but great fun!

1:05:00 PM. We finally found our way up here after a couple of false starts on tracks our GPS showed. One we had to back out of after we found a tree over the track. We walked the last metres as the final bit of the track was too over grown for us. We walked around and came back on the cache instead of an up hill bush bash. Cache found and log signed. We are enjoying our days outing around these tracks. Thanks The Coffee's for placing this cache.

Team Clarmensma met up again today, this time to target the Beaufort/Mt Cole areas. A wonderful day was had with lots of laughs and great cache finds as well as some beautiful walks. TFTC!

A day adventuring with Team Clarmensma around Mt Cole and Beaufort. A great day was had finding some cool caches and taking nice (and sometimes long!) walks. TFTC

Caching in beautiful Mt Cole today with Team Clarkmensma (me, becca85, boo09, neisha07, Adam and Luke). What an amazing mountain - why have I never been before? So excited by the places we discovered today and thankful for geocaching for bringing me here. We headed here after doing the walk to Raglan Falls and I think you can actually see where this cache is from that hill (see pic and 4WD track up mountain). We took way too long to find this cache. We needed to be higher than where we were looking but finally we managed to find it after going through sooooo many prickles (and it is unloved too). Thanks for the cache

Each school holidays or thereabouts we form Team Clarmensma, the bionic combo of myself, GemmaSistema, neisha07, boo09, Adam & Luke and choose an area to target and make a day of it.
Today we left the house at 8am and returned at 9.30pm. Not a huge count today, instead we managed some fantastic (& killer!) walks with amazing views. A great day!

I can't in all honesty say I enjoyed this one.
It took me way too long to jump up one way then realised it was not the best access point. We re-routed and climbed up, down, around rocks, around and through prickle bushes and were all very relieved when the call of "Found it" was finally made!
After seeing me after a previous caching day last month, my sister banned me from geocaching the few weeks leading up to her wedding in October (I am Matron of Honour). After seeing the state of my legs after today, I will have to agree with her. Haha

TFTC!

Today was a planned trip of hitting Mt. Cole, Mt. Buangor, Mt. Langi Ghiran and Beaufort for some unloved caches. We were lucky to have great weather and great company along the way making for a successful and an enjoyable day.
We were actually trying to find our way to another targeted cache when we passed this one and of coarse had to check it out and turn it into a smiley. The Triton was practically able to get right up and personal with GZ allowing for a quick find even though Na'wal had a fight with the prickles and lost.
Thanks The Coffee's for the placement.

The Tritonz turned this one into a driveby today! Caching with Na'wal and The Tritonz.

[red]Find #2830 Traditional #2233 [/red]

A day out was planned and I was a late tag a long. The plan was to tackle a few unloved caches, one being one day before two years in some the beautiful area of Mt. Cole. The day was a successful one, claiming four unloved caches for the day. It was a beautiful, sunny spring day that started at 8am and a late arrival at home of 11pm with some great company and plenty of laughs.

McLookers, theTritonz and myself had this as one of our targets today. After a great bite to eat and a coffee lower down in this area, we loved the idea of a bit of 4WDring. This was a bit of a goat track and very overgrown but with some good driving we almost made this one a drive by lol. We parked and looked down before going up to find this one. Some devil bushes made my legs their lunch before we found this one quickly.. We Stamped and replaced as found.

[blue]Thanks for this trad cache hide, The Coffee's [^]
Log and container in good condition.
Took Nothing, Left Nothing [/blue]

Good find with GeoHusband. Nice little walk from the road. TFTC TNLN SL

Found It

Tried to make it up to this one, but the track I think I needed to follow was blocked by a rather large fallen tree. Probably just as well as I wasn't really in the right car.

09:47
The morning after, the Beaufort Bash dinner Suscoes accompanied us to a few caches in places not friendly to their geo vehicle. Reading the cache notes seems to stir memories of one of our very early if not our first caching Event.
The satellites today had our GZ 10m SW of where we found the cache.

Thanks to The Coffee's for the hunt.
10328

Suscoe was out and about this morning in the company of Phetlern to find a few more caches before the BBQ event @ Beaufort.
It was a sunny and warm morning as we headed to the north of Beaufort.
A delightful journey to this cache and certainly we enjoyed the views from the top of old Smokey.
Thanks to The Coffees for placing this cache up here.
Some noise making black cockatoos nearby were not happy with us encroaching on their territory.

Found with Misschief18 whilst on a weekends caching holiday with some great friends Chooknchunk who were our chauffeurs around these tracks on a very cold and miserable day weather wise but very enjoyable company. Didn't know any of this area existed until now. A good hide.
SL TFTC

Found with The 2 Wanderers during a weekend at Raglan with chooknchunk. This one was a challenge. The weather was cold and wintry. Great views from here. TFTC

Our 50th cache. We are local and have been pottering with geocaching for about a year now, yet we are still discovering tracks in our area that we haven't ridden on horseback before. There's no way I'd take a horse down that steep option though! No riding today - just a fun driving day. Great location and lots of fun to find. Perfect weather today. TFTC.

Found this one on a cold and windy day while hiking the Berripmo circuit with friends. We came up here to have lunch and check out the views. A great weekend. TFTC

After nice winding muddy climb with the camper trailer in tow, got to the top and found on sunset with shrek and donkey to greet us. Signed the log quickly before the wind froze us. Found with 'mattman wanted' Thanks

After finding the 'Tower of Power" at the top of the hill I read the logs for this cache and saw people had decided to not even try the powerline trail... As I set off from the top it seemed easy, it's all down hill from here right..? It was bumpy and lots of fun but not that difficult in my little 4x4 cachemobile... then I made it to GZ and saw the rest of the track... "It's all down hill from here right..?" I have no doubt that my unstoppable-go-anywhere-geohunting-cachemobile would make it down the steep part of the track, there would be NO stopping it!! but um.. I think there were a few caches I.. um.. forgot to log at the top of the mountain..
Thanks to The Coffee's for presenting me with a challenge I may attempt in future when I return with a second geo-recovery-vehicle and an ambulance.

Eventually took the easy approach after initially approaching from the direction of a near vertical fire/4wd track.
New to this area and caching as usual gives a good intro to the good spots. TFTC.

Drove the car up the Glut Rd and turned up the track just south of this cache, then hopped out and clambered up the rocks to the cache site. Not sure why this is only for private members, it's well hidden and out of the way, a good reason to drive around this part of Mt Cole.

Always more challenging when you are new to an area. Started up the track and hoped it was the right one - the gps indicated it was close to being right and indeed it was. Lovely views and scenery. Thanks Mr.Coffee and the Coffee Clan

Found with The Quiet Plodder.TFTC

Took some time to get to this one due to a number of seasonal road closures that took us all over the Hills and alas causing to postpone the hunt for other caches nearby but we wanted this one. So, well pleased to snare this way after a short ramble amongst the rocks. The wiews tease you a bit with their glimpses of fine vistas but when you get a good sighting the landscape is superb! Found with Dylan 7a. Thank you to 'Mr.Coffee and the Coffee Clan' for the cache (in good condition) and its location. TNLN.

Been a long time since i traveled along glut road so i wasn't sure attempting it in a Falcon was a good idea.
Had no problems as the track was packed hard and reasonably dry.
Took awhile to locate GZ as its very overgrown and slippery.
Great view from here too.

DROPPED OF GEOCOIN MTZ3WB CHEERS

#139 12:06 24/04/11 Nice view, found while camping and exploring the 4WD tracks in the area. TNLN

Cache is still there dry and well. Didn't see a thing due to fog and drizzle, but will believe you when you say the views are great because that is one long steep hill to get there. Loved the cache, thanks.

[purple]Spring Camping! [/purple][font=Comic Sans MS]
[url=http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=868404][green]Trip on Everytrail[/green][/url]

Getting there was easy because I came from the top however the way out was kind of interesting. The idea was to take Long Gully Rd. to the Main road. Well ... that doesn't work with a car since that road is closed. So I had to take the Glut Rd. which was "a bit greasy" >> if anybody complains about the idiot leaving all these tracks. That's be me :tired:

[green]Dankeschön & Cheers
Philipp[/green]

(Rated 4 stars with [url=http://www.gcvote.com]GCVote[/url])

Well, didn't we have fun getting to this one.
Got to the bottom of the road that TOMTOM wanted us to take and thought it would be easier to put TOMTOM under the front tyres than get up that hill.
So we kept going hoping to find our way to the other road to get us up there and no probs, found the road and all we had to do now was get to GZ.
While I waited in the car with geobub, geohub was nominated the one to do the hunting.
2wd has not a chance of getting here. Watch out for little shrubs with nasty little thorns.
TNLNSL
TFTC

Parking about 140m from GZ we had a nice walk in through bush that, for the first time in a while, didn’t just go ‘crunch’ underfoot. Let’s hope there is some rain over summer to keep it that way. T: Marble; L: heart ring. TFTC!

Out and about with Doheng on a ballooning weekend.
T sylvester the cat....sufferin suckertash.......
L puzzle
SL
TFTC

What a view! Thank you for the treasure.

Out for a afternoon's caching with fullonphil & Emily this was our third stop. We were planning on having lunch here but again the European wasps changed our minds. Spook & Emily tried to find an easy way in while fullonphil took the direct approach and had the cache in hand in no time. We debated whether or not to take the shortcut out via the power lines but we decided to leave it for another day as we had dinner arrangements with Pyreenees Kid & Makita that we didn't want to risk being late for
Thanks for the cache Mr Coffee & Clan

Another track I'd never been down. Found during an afternoon drive through to Elmshurst. Thanks.

Having a bit of a Beaufort and district day today. This was number 4, after somehow fluking the right road in. It wasn't quite the way I was expecting to go but it worked. Cache found easily while the GPS was left to settle. TNLN. Many thanks for the introduction to a new part of the range I have not visited before.

I made two attempts to get in to this cache and got within about 500 metres. Unfortunately, I was at the bottom of that steep hill. Nothing for it except a tough slog up the hill. It took a little while to find the cache, then a difficult descent back to my car.

Once back at the car, I checked and realised the better way in. Oh well - I needed the exercise. Thanks to Mr.Coffee and the Coffee Clan for the cache.

Sooty jeans after walking through the fire ravaged undergrowth but enjoyed the view from the top!

A FTF of sorts.... Well... I was the First To Find after the cache was actually published online.
Had to do a tech job in Raglan, so ducked out here before going to my client's. Parked the Geo-Tiida about 180 metres away and walked into this one.
An easy find, but as they say, where there's smoke there's fire.... well, OK... no fire, but got fairly dirty from the blackened ferns that rubbed against my jeans while walking off the track.
Although I have a fairly good knowledge of the area, I hadn't been this far along the track before.
Grabbed 3 TBs (only one was listed here though?) and Left Sundial TB.
Thanks to the Coffee's for bringing me back to the Mountain.

Published

All OK

found on a night cache with Slightly mulled characters on a great weekend relaxing, thanks to Mr Coffee and the Coffee Clan for a cool night experience.
Cheers

Found whilst attending the mulled on the mountain event.

Found at 8.50pm GAFF5. After a great meal and maybe a few drinks at the Mulled event, we were given the co-ords of a new cache by Mr Coffee. So a quick whip around and we managed to raise the interest of micaparamedic, 0.5 of Spruce Mooses, highrod and sandar10. So off we went and after a couple of no-go options because of highrod's low clearance vehicle, we managed to get to GZ. Adam sprinted off in the dark without a GPS nor a torch and manged to find the cache with a little bit of direction from mica and pprass (we can't let you get away with that Spruce Mooses!!) Thanks for the adventure Coffees.

If there is a GAFF0 this was it! Adam stumbled over it without a GPS or Torch in the dark while the others were pondering their GSPr's going in different directions. Happy to claim the FTF on this one. Thanks Mr Coffee for the cache.

Found at 2030. Raced off from the Mulled Wine Event with Pprass, Sprucemooses in an attempt to be the FTF. However that went to the Mooses who found by light of phone and the use of Pprass' and my GPSr's