Spirit of Salts, Jarrott Whitfield, Victoria, Australia
By chewinprickles on 12-Mar-11. Waypoint GC2Q3J7

We looked and we looked but we did not find a cache around here anywhere. We think it might have been muggled or it is not in its right spot as by pervious cachers. Thanks for putting a cache here anyway. Maybe the CO might need to check to see if its still here. Cheers.

Tricky

We were on our way to Dal Zotto to taste their Prosecco. We werent there to taste the stuff you can buy at Dan Murphys back home, but all the other specials only available at the cellar door. This hide took a bit of finding because the GPS was pointing me a bit further along. Some old logs told us to trust our instincts which didnt prove fruitful until I found the hide on the ground. tftc

Found while camping at Edi Cutting.TFTC

Just ignore the phone and T rating. Looked at phone GZ first but returned to where I thought it would be and it was.

Found this one 14m away from GZ, thanks to a previous cacher comment. Good job with that one ConnieandRick. For sure not a D2.5 for where we found it.

Found this one lying on the ground, put it back in place just above where it fell, but I did have a little trouble logging this one

Took the day off to go caching with jo2022AUS. After grabbing There's Something about Harry at Power's Lookout and taking in the awesome views we headed to Whitfield and beyond. Hoping to grab a few more of this series. Bit of a lucky find here but happy to add another smiley face to the area. Nice hide TFTC

And they just keep comn. Another one to the list.
TFTC might have been a quick park and grab but it still was very enjoyable

Glad we had a read through the activity log Big TFTC

Found the cache! Coordinates were off but we still found it pretty quickly.

A quick find today while out on a day trip to Powers Lookout. The cache was located, log was signed and replaced. TFTC

After spending a few days exploring the mountain ranges north of Mansfield it was time to get back to Melbourne. With the current "find 100 caches in 1 month" souvenir challenge it was also time to start ramping up the caching finds! Before heading home from the Edi Cutting campground I decided to explore this stretch of road on a glorious autumn morning.

After a quick detour up to Moyhu I stopped here on the way back south. This was the last of the Spirit of Salts series for me.
Definitely a 'touch of nastiness' here - I spent some time around fences and trees before finding the cache in the more logical spot.
Thanks, Chewinprickles.

Nothing had me on track here.. co’ords, picture, nothing… but found it by chance!

On a roll today, all good here. Now onto the next one for the day. TFTC

On to our last couple of caches in this series. Thank You so much for a great day of caches.

.

Nice hide tftc

I went to find this one but got electrocuted on the electric fence and left please be careful as it looks like a normal fence.

TFTC

TFTC

Termites don't understand road safety

Two TASSIES out and about for ten weeks. Two days to go before the big swim back home. Today being a rare spring day (of late) we are on a first expedition into King Valley wine territory and ...... wotdoyaknow ! there's a great string of caches to grab here and there as we go ! Must be knock off time or something. Road quite busy all of a sudden !

This one was attached to a tree branch which is now no longer there so I have placed it in a more traditional location about 2 metres west. Didn't update the coords as I didn't bring my GPS but I believe it will still be very close to the mark anyway.

GPS was out but after using our caching brains we found it.

We have finally moved on from the Mega Wangaratta and our target is to do the caches around Glenrowan and the NKH series. This one was right where we thought that it would be.

Found easily, cache all good. Gosh, can't get over the damage termites can do! And also the damage of a fallen tree branch which at this moment had fined the guard rail

Checked this cache today. It is in place. Log sheet slightly wet so replaced that. Otherwise all good

Had a look but could not see this one

Nope my phone wanted me in the paddock, I checked the Armco barrier and sign. Too good for me

No luck again !

Wow, trees down here, made finding this that little bit harder....but should have found it quicker. Cache was infested with ants inside and couldn't sign it. TFTC

This took way longer than expected! The fallen trees at GZ were the perfect decoy for any cache camouflage!!! After a good luck poop from the resident bird overhead the penny dropped, cache was located, signed and we were on our way!!! TFTC

Easier than expected! TFTC

GPS was out but after using our caching brains we found it. Log was soaked so couldn’t write our name and now the rain has joined us! TFTC

Owner maintenance required - needs new log.

Grub62 and I were on our way back home to Melbourne from a weekend at Wangaratta. We through that a few more caches on our way would be a good idea. TFTC.
Logbook replaced.

Find 15 for Bunadoorian and I on our trip today. We replaced the log book and signed Beavar and our names in it. Thank you for bringing us here, the enjoyment your caches have given us today and for the series about the railway. TFTC chewinprickles.

tftc

Logs a little damp
And like many other found once I expanded my search a little

Another find. Cool location. TFTC.

Found (again) under torchlight (again) this time with the company of catnap777 on our way home from a bit of midwinter fun in a dinghy on Lake William Hovell.

I can't believe how busy this road can be in the evening. [:o]
I wonder how much less traffic it would have if the train was still running.

TFTC Chewinprickles, my apologies for failing to log my visits on your excellent series the first time I was here.

After having no success in the last cache, I was getting very close to giving up on this one. As I was about to leave I noticed it! thanks for the hide.

Geohubby made a quick u turn to park safely. Quick find by Geowife. Geokids not happy with that! Haha TFTC ️

As per other caches, I widened search to find this sneaky one.I crossed the road back to my car and realised I'd dropped my keys, oh no! Thankfully the key search was quicker than the cache search. Thanks for the series chewinprickles.

Day 17 and the final day of this road trip! Packed up camp on a beautiful sunny day, second guessing whether I really should go home or not. Now making an extra long journey home via a few caches.

Found this one after expanding the search area a little. Easy to spot once you know where it is .

Thanks howjen567 for the cache.

An extended easter weekend camping trip, with a few caches along the way.
After an extensive search, we had to expand the search radius a little to spot this one.
Thanks for your contribution to our gameboard, howjen567

Had a bit of trouble due to gps but persevered and eventually found it.

Found after a lovely lunch at the winery across the road. Bit of a sneaky one, thank you!

Really enjoying this series, with the hubby finding the long abandoned railway history also of interest.
Thought I knew where this one was, but was not correct but the actual cache was soon spotted. Tftc

Another good find

This one was still in place and ready to go. Just needed a new log.

Placing this entire series on hold, mainly because there is much needed maintenance required and I am unable to legally attend to this while the Covid restrictions remain.

Great hide! I couldn't find it but my 9 year old grandson did. Thanks.

Catnap777 & OZREG formed a team on 10 May 2020.
Logging FOUND Caches as individuals on approximately same dates since 07 July 2019, this
is one of those found Caches, and backdated as shown.

Team OZCAT on the way home from a busy caching Victorian adventure. Thanks to all the cache owners

Team OZCAT on the way home from a busy caching Victorian adventure. Thanks to all the cache owners for their efforts.

good cache. lots of cars

A quick find on our way to Mansfield

A quick find on our way to Mansfield.

Sneaky sneaky! Tftc

I didnt really look since i was worried about snakes, but I spotted it anyways.

With a hint from a previous log I was able to turn a sad face into a smilie. Thanks

Wet and miserable day to be out caching but a FTF is out there waiting.
I was driving past this cache and figured I’d stop for a look for two reasons.
1. It was a DNF last time I looked.
2. It was a clue cache for the current GCHQ promotion.

I wandered back and forth like last time, not getting a great fix on GZ. After about 5 minutes in the sideways rain now I finally laid eyes on the hide. It wasn’t as devious as I’d expected it to be either! I was checking in the guardrail but turned around and spotted it!

TFTC
Now off to see if I can find a blank logbook in the hills.

Thanks #reesfamily

A day trip to the Sicilian wineries in the King Valley with some fam and friends ahead of a trip in September. Was here 12 months ago and had a great day before the rain came in. As the designated driver I got to stop the car where I wanted! Part of the deal and power to the driver. You could say they humoured me somewhat but they kind of like the random interesting info provided by CO’s. TFTC and series.

Ilukaperi and I were on a mission to bring ammo cans to the big smoke. Well, we were heading up to Wangaratta to pick up a delivery of ammo cans for people back in Melbourne. Anyhoo, why head up the boring old Hume Hwy, when you can take the back roads? So we decided to cache between Mansfield and Wangaratta, via Whitfield. I took over the driving at Mansfield, either because she was scared of driving on dirt roads or she wanted a good laugh at me trying to drive a manual car for the first time in 10 years. Whatever the case, I had done a bit of caching along this route before, so she had more finds than I did today, but not this one.

TFTC!

On a drive up to wangaratta to pick up some ammo cans with day1976.

DNF at 14:17

Your touch of nastiness managed to elude us today. It ws just too difficult.

Thanks howjen567 for the cache, anyway

Today we have moved to Malawa, staying at the Brown Brothers RV area. From here we will cache from Wangaratta and Beechworth areas
This morning we drove along the Spirit of Salt trail & in the afternoon into Wangaratta.
This was a good way to visit your area.
Thanks for placing this cache howjen567

The GPS directed me into the paddock so I wandered over. Lucky for me, I didn’t need to climb any fences or trees, it was just a hit of a reach to get this one out of its little container. Old log is wet, but new one is good. TFTC!

Compass sent us into the paddock

No luck for us today, all four of our GPSr's had GZ 5m into the farmers paddock

Another in this lovely journey along a now abandoned rail line. Last time this one escaped my notice but this time I spotted it very quickly and it made me realise how easily cache blindness can frustrate. TFTC. Chewinprickles

I needed a cache outing and so begged dalerious to come out for the day!
OK so I didn't really twist his arm all that hard before he jumped up and said 'yes'
We had a brilliant day travelling far and wide and made 35 finds and only 2 DNFs which made for a great day
Finally I've found all bar 1 of the Spirit of Salts caches after finding my 1st one of the series in April 2015 at Whitfield when I came across to Vic and did the High Voltage series [^]
Oh and there were 2 FTFs found today as well and the stunning views and the fun of snow caching in the dark made the day a day that will long live in my memory [^] ... and that's saying something as my memory is screwed!
We found the 1st cache at 11.11am and the last cache at 6.46am... the following day! [^]

As I am about 8 months behind in logging, I'm resorting to template logs to catch up.
My heartfelt thanks to the COs who have placed some tricky, funny, exercise required, scary, interesting and devious caches in some amazing spots! [^]
Rex and I have had some amazing adventures and enjoyed some incredible moments thanks to this fantastic hobby

TNLN. SL. TFTC howjen567

Quick find whilst in the area today.

Cheers

it was great to discover that these caches are along an old train line tftc

Nice and easy. TFTC

Mega as over for us and heading back home. We stopped and picked up caches along the way. Beautiful morning and the weather looks great for our journey. TFTC

Great quick find on our way back from the mega event in Alexandra.
TFTC Wilbert 67

This is our fourth trip to the northern island this year. The first three were primarily for family events but with some opportunities to do some caching along the way. The fourth trip is different as caching is our focus. After getting off The Spirit of Tasmania we are heading north to cache at Wangaratta and then Yass before heading into the ACT and Queanbeyan for a week. After that we will travel to Jindabyne for a few days with summiting Mount Kosciuszko being our main target for this part of our trip. Then we will visit Cooma and Tumut before heading back down the track through Wangaratta and Mansfield as we make our way to Alexandra for the MEGA. After the weekend we will continue to make our way south and back onto the Spirit of Tasmania for the “drive” across Bass Strait. We are really looking forward to three weeks of intense caching in great areas and, hopefully, catching up with some geocachers in each of the areas we will visit.

After staying in Corowa overnight, we headed over the border into Victoria. Our first task was to visit another waypoint of a multi which started in Canberra. Then we visited a section of the Warby-Ovens National Park to locate a trig point which was required to meet another step on the GCA Local Government Area (LGA) Trophy Challenge. Whilst there heavy rain started and much of the walk to and from the Trig Point was in the poor conditions. There were three GCA caches closeby and we took the opportunity to look for those. Then we headed back to Rutherglen to look for another trig point before going to Wangaratta for lunch. We took the opportunity to look for a small number of caches in Wangaratta. With the rain persisting, we then headed south towards Whitford looking for caches in the Spirit of Salts series. At times we sat in the car on the side of the road because the rain was just too heavy. From Whitford we continued south through the hills and finally arrived at Mansfield where we stayed the night. By now the rain had stopped. We checked into the motel straight away so that we could get out of our wet clothes. Despite the inclement weather, we still managed a reasonable days caching.

During previous visits to the area we had found a small number of caches in the Spirit of Salts series. Unfortunately we hadn't kept a record of the clues we had found in those caches. So today we revisited the caches we had found previously and then continued to find other caches as we headed south towards Whitford. Despite the inclement weather, we still enjoyed following the rail trail south. We could appreciate that in the days when other transport options were very limited, the railway line was the very important link between Wangaratta and the communities in this valley.

It took quite some time to find this cache, mainly because it blended so well into the immediate environment. The cache and contents were in good condition. When we replaced the cache, our GPS indicated that we were 7m from the published coordinates. Thanks chewinprickles for the cache and the interesting series.

***** We are currently writing detailed logs because of a challenge provided by Project-GC. "The Author" Badge challenges geocachers to average one hundred words or more in each log. On 1 September 2017 our average was 86 which seems close to the 100 target. However given that we have found so many GC caches, we have to write many logs with well over 100 words for a long period of time to get our average to the target. Apologies to anyone who finds the logs tedious but it is the only way that we can strive to attain this challenge. After 408 caches (which includes all cache finds up and including yesterday), the average log length is just over 97.0. We are now entertaining the possibility that we might be able to achieve our gaol before this trip ends. Progress has been better than anticipated.*****

Firstly apologies for my generic logs. I am staying with a cousin so can’t be too anti social but need to keep up with logging all caches before the weekend.

Most caches were found to be in good condition, though some that have been reported as needing maintenance still need some TLC. All caches were signed, many as SG, which is what I often do in small caches to save space.

Today we commenced our journey to the mega event in Alexandra with the daunting goal of achieving my next milestone - 4000 finds, with 99 caches still to find.

In deference to Pa, a friendly but often impatient muggle, I was up early, on the road by 6:20 am and didn’t start caching until after leaving Wangaratta. We travelled down the Wangaratta to Mansfield Road collecting 21 caches on the way. Some I sacrificed to keep Pa happy with our progress; some were quick, easy finds; others took far too long especially for caches that were only 1-2 difficulty and I had one DNF - again supposedly a relatively easy find but no luck for me. ????

Many thanks to all COs for placing these caches for us to enjoy during our travels.

**Find #11631...**

*Found on the way to Wangaratta to the 1 Month to the Mega Event*...

A beautiful day to be out and about with The Empire and Happy Feet as we head towards the event...

A short stroll, a short search, found the cache, stamped the log and returned...

Thanks for placing and maintaining this cache for my enjoyment howjen567...
- P

**Took**: *Nothing*
**Left**: *Nothing*

Stamped Log...

Cache On!

Suffered from your nastiness.

A gorgeous day exploring the King Valley, and picking up caches along the way. #5 for the day. From here we walked up the road to check out the nearby winery. Good for the parents, and plenty of animals to look at for the kids. TFTC.

No luck for us here today. Everything very wet!

The geomrs found this quite easily after our failure a few years back. Maybe it was more her height

Hard one to spot but we found it eventually

TFTC

Hard one to spot but we found it eventually

TFTC

Found with youngnils during a few days visit to this area. Took a little while to locate. A clever hide. Thanks

Took us a while and should have trusted our compass little more, but accompanied with Bill Gosse, who actually located it, we found this great little cache. Thanks howjen.

On our way home after caching around the Wangaratta/Myrtleford area and on out list of caches was this one, which we found along the way.

Thanks for the cache placement and for bringing us here.

A quick and easy find as we cache our way through the area today with mcsee&petal. Thanks for bringing us here and thanks for the cache.

13:55
Once the domestic chores were completed, our mission today was to complete the Spirit of Salts series; which much to our embarrassment, after using a one day pass to visit four locations in 2011, we have been denied an appropriate travel card for 5 years! This one took a little longer - so glad the train waited for us!

Satellites today had our GZ 11metres SE of where we found the cache.

Our thanks to howjen567 for placing this intriguing series.
17043

Found with misschief18 exploring around beautiful Beechworth area. Took a while but we did it!

Found with sunset62. Just about to give up when it was spotted. TFTC

Left the car over the road, which was for the best as it took us longer than I'd like to admit to find this one. Eventually discovered it though, despite the perturbations of the cows over the fence.
Found it while doing a run of the area with geobro and his gf. Really enjoyed the train line series.

Found it. Just as the cows started to rush us.
The paper was a little damp.

Checked the cache. All good.

We love these old station signs...the history behind them and the stories they could tell. Matter a quick search in the right spot, we soon had the cache in hand...nice camo. Thanks for the cache.