Mangrove Mania West Haven, New South Wales, Australia
By Armidillo on 08-Jun-08. Waypoint GC1D5GP

Tftc. Took a bison with us after reading previous logs. Got to gz only to find a rope and no container. Attached new bison to the existing rope. Fun paddle out, tricky once at gz to navigate the mangroves. Found with red_ear_slider.

Tftc, GZ located with Portstevo, fun paddle through the islands. Found rope evidence but no cache, must have perished in the storms through the years, Portstevo replaced with bison.

With Roo_and_tribe visiting from Wollongong with their kayaks, we decided today was the day to get this one. It’s been on the radar for a while!! We drove up Henry Kendall Dr, turned left at the reserve and kept going until we reached Stingray creek. Great day for a paddle! TFTC

714 for the tribe

OCW KWmoo. Drove to the end of the road, turning left at the fork in Henry Kendall Drive eventually you reach a spot you can launch from. In fact launched three vessels and towed two kids kayaks to GZ to go cache hunting.

Cache not in the best condition - could do with a replacement. Reluctant to log a needs maintenance on this old one - if you are heading out to GZ maybe bring a replacement out with you - a bison and a long cable tie loop not held tightly around the tree branch would work well.

TFTC. An epic adventure.

Parked at Henry Kendall reserve and paddled up the river. Easy paddle to.the cache a lot harder going back. It was a good spot for a paddle while on holidays from Shellharbour. TFTC.

What a lovely idea and perfect day for a paddle. Def a favourite. Thank you for your idea.

I noticed this little cache needed some love. I understand you little fella. It's been a lovely year for many of us. Too lonely for some like myself. Hahaha. So I took it upon myself to give this cache a bit of love. The weather was just right this morning, in fact it was pretty good all day even though a few Cumulonimbus clouds threatened to make sitting in the middle of a lake a bit dangerous.

After pulling up the kayak at the wrong spot, but a beautiful one, losing a thong, fighting the tide, and fishing fishermen and boats, I made it to GZ. After careful inspection I made the find. The coords were spot on with my Garmin. Then the balancing act of climbing onto the front of my kayak, standing on tippy-toes, and undoing the cache without dropping anything. Phew. Done.

Signed log and returned to....

Wire and salt water don't usually mix. Today was one of those days to prove this. It fell apart as I was screwing the lid back on. Luckily I had some fishing gear with me. Hopefully doubled over 30lb fishing braid will hold a while.

I had fun getting to this cache and enjoyed a tourists paddle back enjoying the scenery and bird life.

Thanks for placing this cache.

this one has had me curious for some time but I had no means of getting to it
that all changed when I bought a kayak and one for geo grandson and today we ventured out to find it. We had success,found signed until I slipped and fell in the water and had to paddle back with a wet bottom. Geograndson was happy as this was his last one before returning to Darwin and looking forward to coming back next Christmas holidays. many thanks to those who have maintained this very challenging cache.

Couldn’t get to the event today but got to go out late arvo in the boat to look for this one. Saw it had been replaced since our last look. Thanks huskymaddog team. Was a quick find today in the exact spot we looked at before. Tftc.

This was our second visit here, our first (back in December) resulted in countless mozzie bites and after only 5 minutes decided to call it and come back prepared.

Since then we received advice that the cache may be missing or damaged, so we decided to bring along a replacement.
Paddled over to GZ (which took longer than anticipated as the tide was going out) and after 10-15 minutes found nothing except for a small remnant of an old container, so we wired up a new one with a new log.
Thanks for the cache

Looked for this one today while we were out in the boat. I see it hasn’t been found in a long time. We looked for 1/2 hour in all the possible places- we thought. Nothing for us today. It may need a maintenance run to check it’s still there.

We've looked at this cache plenty of times over the years, been to the spot we thought we'd launch from and others we couldn't, thought about trying to beg, borrow or steal (well, not really steal) a kayak and ended leaving disappointed each time. NOT THIS HOLIDAY!!! The first thing we packed was the kayak and this cache was up at the top of caches to find. Arriving at the parking spot at the end of Henry Kendall Reserve (still a bit muddy) we launched the kayak and were finally on our way. We'd read previous logs about the disintegrating container and had another with us to replace it - this was one organised trip for a change!

It was a beautiful day on the water, made even better because we were finally going to get the cache that had been so tauntingly close so many times. We quickly spotted it when we arrived. Balancing on the kayak and trying to extract the log had the container crumble away in our hands. We tied up a new container at the same spot and put the old log and a pencil inside. Hopefully this older cache lives on for years to come so others can enjoy it as much as we did. TFTC Armadillo.

Oh what a beautiful morning. Great day for a paddle couldbt see for looking but eagle eyes spotted it. Tftc

This cache needs maintenance container very cracked amd disintegrated

Paddled here from Dunbogan in a double kayak - quite a paddle upstream against the tide into Queens Lake. Were able to stand up in the kayak to access the cache, so didn't need footwear. The logbook was there, but unfortunately no pencil, and we had no pen! So pressed our "signature" with the edge of the cache lid, and "coloured" it with mangrove mud!! Our mark! Sending photo to CO.
Paddled back to Dunbogan - much easier with the tide! TFTC

I came prepared with my boogie board for the adventure. I parked at the end of Henry Kendall reserve, and i read the description again and it said I needed footwear! Forgot that.... So i set off with my GPS in one hand and a pen and car keys in snaplock bags in the pocket. About 100 m in, my keys and pen fell out and luckily i was quickly to notice as they were about 5m floating away. Thankfully alot of it the way I could walk in the water Got to GZ, and there was oysters everywhere! I got a cut on my right foot... There was a tree branch on the water, so i mover my board onto it, stood up and got the cache, signed and went back. Thanks for an enjoyable cache!

Found today with the other members of our team, and with the support of DiMorgan and Pprass... There is a funny revenge story that accompanies this finding, but I will leave it up to Team Nurse to fill you all in.. TFTC...

Team Nurse Hayley at the start of her paddle....

Found this as a revenge plot against Team Nurse Hayley for finding Hopes Lost Whiskey without me. I hatched the plan with DiMorgan to borrow their boat with a motor. Very easy drive there and back. Hayley then had to paddle across using a canoe which was a little harder. Haha. Pay back is great. Adding a favourite point for the adventure.

Well karma is a ..........!!
So with the company of my fellow Geofriends Dimorgan, Pprass, team nurse and team nurse mel, oblivious to know the buggers knew what was going on.... Jokes on me!

Cool find, nice little kayak around the lake too with shabz72!

Log damaged but. Tftc

So tried to tackle this one today with Team Nurse Hayley on little blow up boats with oars. Went all the way in to Port to purchase the boats, came back to blow them up at the servo. Nope couldn't blow them up there. Tried to blow them up with our mouths. We wouldnt have finished until after Christmas. Finally tracked down an air compressor from Team Nurse Mel's Muggle husband. Blew them up then tried to figure out the best way to tackle it. Tried Queenslake village, people were staring and there was no park available for non visitors. So headed to Henry Kendall Reserve. All good getting excited. And then the spectacle started. Trying to row a tiny boat across this strong current was very hard. Not to mention Hayley and I aren't the most competent rowers in history. The current took us and we floated onto a sand bank some 70 ms from the cache. Got out of the boat and started walking. Disturbed a fishermen chatted about where we come from but he was surprisingly uninterested in what we were doing there. After all that effort we found out the current was far too strong to get across and decided to forfeit the cache (for now) now how to get back? We we could have waited 6 hours for the tide to change and take us back or walk along the bank further then we pushed off from and let the tide do the work. We opted for the walking. Mind you this bank was steep and mangrovey and sticky and muddy. Anyhow eventually two fisherman kindly brought us back safely to sure. What an adventure. Still no cache found. Yet.

With Wazza.artist on her birthday. Gotta be a real nut cache to have an ambition to do this one one your birthday. Thanks for this one.

This was one of the best caches grumpynutcache and I have done. Mostly because of the challenge of kayaking white water kayaks out to retrieve it. Perfect for grumpynutcache, who was recently grumpy muggle husband but gave in and has joined the game. He doesn't like simple caches but loved this one especially as it got his wife; me, out in a kayak on my birthday. TFTC

Sweet find! Wish there more of these

Loved this cache. Opportunity to explore a new waterway. Beautiful environment. Dropped the kayak in at the Gogley's inlet, Dunbogan for a 10k return paddled. Tired & happy now. Please place more water caches TFTC Armidilo

great day, good reason to take out the kayak, no problems, to good a day to go back - TFTC -

Found it, Luckily we had half tide so didn't have to wade through mud. Standing in kayak can be pretty hairy though. Lovely day, beautiful lake, might even do some fishing. TFTC

With the aid of my brother & his boat we headed out into Queens Lake to hunt for a cache.
I had checked the previous logs & looked at the photos that had been added, so felt I knew what to expect.
Arrived at GZ & the only evidence of a cache were 2 pieces of eclipse tin, it had been more than a year since the last find so the cache had all but disintergrated.
I have replaced it with a M&M container with a new log book & pencil inside. The cache has been attached in the exact position as previous.
There were lots of people along the lakes river banks enjoying picnics during the holidays.
I am giving this a favourite point, it was a nice change from all the previous land based caches that are the norm.
Thanks for getting me out & onto the water Armidillo.

The log is now unrecognisable, just a soggy mess with unreadable past entries. The container is rusted at both ends with the pencil now poking out the bottom.

We kayaked here from Laurieton only to find an unwriteable log, so mushed that I will add a photo of part of the log when I get home to verify my find. Thanks for the hide and paddle.

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Had a good swim out on a cold day, luckily had a good wet suit. TNLN. Couldn't find waterproof camerea so not pictures

Luckily geocousin "temingi" was around with his kayak to help get to GZ.
But at low tide I then had to get thru the knee deep mud to grab cache.
TFTC.

Gotcha !!! Kayaked over and back and didn't even get our feet wet. TFTC

Search and found cache while out fishing for the morning, the fishing was a bit slow and then remembered about this cache and just to make it possible it was high tide too so I could not resist the temptation to have a look...The lid was hard to open due to rust starting to get to the cache...TFTC SL...

Hi Geowife and I really enjoyed this cache. We found it at11:40 on a beautiful Sunny day. After this we continued to paddle across the lake to a picnic area under Jolly Nose lookout, before heading back to grab another cache at Henry Kendal. Looking forward to grabbing other cache's down river.
TFTC
LeDug

Had a ball finding this one on a hot day in the begining of summer. We pumped up the inflatable Canoe & went for a paddle (2 adults & 1 child on board) after sitting near GZ looking from the canoe there it was, TFTH Armidillo. Paddling back to the launching spot a different way we seen dozens of large Flathead zooming out from the weed beds in the clear water

Found this cache in the company of Pprass and Browngang. Pprass had been eyeing this cache off for months and coming up with all sorts of plans to find it. The replacement of my trailor bearings mean that we could use my boat and abandon Pprass's plan of making a "Huckleberry Finn" style raft to float to the cache. The weather was fine and it didn't take too long to locate the cache in the mangroves. Pprass and Browngang replaced the rusted container with a new one while I recorded the event with the camera from my position "knee deep" in the mud. I was concerned that Pprass's grin would not fit back in the boat for the journey back to shore but somehow we managed. We flicked a few lures around the river on our way back but only managed a small flattie, will have to come back here some other time for a more serious session. Many thanks for the cache, I really like doing these ones where a little planning, adventure and comrades are required.

Found in the company of blackie71 & pprass. What a Beautifull day on the water. Flicked around for a flattie out of blackies boat with no success though.

Found at 9.30am GAFF5 in the company of Blackie71 and Browngang. After 2 yrs and nearly 5 months, we have finally conquered this cache! The main reason for the delay was finding a suitable craft to get to it. We had planned to hire a canoe, but Blackie71 decided to mercifully fix the bearings of his boat trailer so suddenly the means of travel was solved and we just had to wait for a suitable day - and today was just glorious.
Still, clear and sunny, we were at GZ in minutes; wading through soft sand over mud that allowed us to sink to our knees! Browngang quickly spotted the cache, but when retrieving it, it basically disintegrated after being so long exposed to the weather.
We came prepared with a replacement and attached it as best we could with non corroding plastic ties.
After finding the cache we enjoyed the rest of the morning fishing in the lake which has magnificent mountain views all around. The company was great and a very memorable cache was enjoyed.
Thanks Armidillo - cache should be ok now for another year or so.

Great hide, Found whilst on a fishing trip. Kayaked from Henry Kendall Reserve fished all the way up all the way back. Got one. Much easier on a rising tide.

Well, well 11 months after the first and second sighting, we were the third people to have found this cache. Our adventure started by using our 3m, 4.5hp tinny to get to the GZ. Our next problem was that I had entered the wrong co-ordinants, slightly off and headed us to the wrong side of the channel, where once out of the boat, my shoes were stuck in 30cm of mud. After extracting them from the mud, 30 minutes later, I decided to check the co-ordinates and once I found that we were in the wrong place, re-set the GPS and headed off in the right direction. We had chosen high tide and that is the secret. The cache is almost 2 mts above high tide mark, not low tide as indicated in the notes. Geohubby nudged the tinny as close as he could to the cache and I climbed up to it. No need to get into the water or get your shoes stuck in the mud.
Did I mention that the motor cut out during this exercise and took a while to start again. Once we knew what to look for it was a matter of looking carefully among the mangroves and eagle eyes hubby found it (yet again). I have been trying to get to this cache for the past 12 months but never had an opportunity to get there. Now I can tick off all caches in the Laurieton/North Haven area.....Yah, back to home to Sydney we go. This certainly has been an adventuresome cache. Many thanks.

Found this cache after school. Drove up to Camden Haven after school to find this cache. Found the quickest route to the cache. Parked near the boardwalk and started blowing up my inflatable killer whale. Went fro a short walked and then started paddling over to the cache. It wasn't to far and the current wasn't strong at all and there was a sandbar in between. The water was very warm. Found the cache pretty easily. No muggles nearby although before paddling over there was some on the boardwalk.
TNLNSL.
TFTC. Had a very enjoyable time. I would recommend this cache to everybody.

YEAH!! Back on-line!
1700 Found, (FTF) with young Fang Shaw swimming along behind on his 'Killer Whale'. Me, I just had a lilo. The rotten string is getting shorter already, so an extra shoelace could be brought along with the next finders. (I suppose I 'could' have taken the draw string out of my swimmers, but it wouldn't be a pretty sight).
Left: some Geocaching info
Brought through some coins that would have fitted by themselves, but not all together: Baa, Oink, CooCoo, and the B2B ingot.
TFTC Armidillo, even if it did take a while to get it back on line.

Best of luck

Replaced - and hopefully more securely this time!

Tanuka,

I do apologise for the delay. I have been overseas for some time and have just arrived back in the country yesterday. I plan to replace the cache next weekend when I will have an opportunity to visit the location (31 Jan/ 1Feb).

Tanuka,

I do intend to replace this cache. I'm afraid I haven;t had a chance to do so and won't be able to for some time

Unfortunately the cache is now gone for whatever reason. Will see what can be done about a replacement as soon as possible.

Oh, the heartbreak! I was looking forward to being the FTF for this cache as I have a kayak that I fish out of and relished the thought of using it to geocache as well. Unfortunately I got to the location of this geocache only to find (after some searching)the piece of string that was obviously used to secure the container...but no cache. (see photo) I think it must have slipped out of it's noose due to wind or perhaps it was souvenired by some fisherman passing by.

Published