Hunting DROP BEARS at Night Waanyarra, Victoria, Australia
By tigersden on 26-Mar-11. Waypoint GC2QZ65

TFTC

Found it.....kind of. Found some of the tacks but there seems to be a lot missing. Didn't find many drop bears. May need maintenance.

Found it.....kind of. Found some of the tacks but there seems to be a lot missing. Didn't find many drop bears. May need maintenance.

Found it.....kind of. Found some of the tacks but there seems to be a lot missing. Didn't find many drop bears. May need maintenance.

Needs to be sorted out, but tfth

Only saw about 5 drop bears but some possible places they had fallen from. Maybe we didn't see many as our Czech friend Lenicka.second had studied techniques for avoiding them!! A fun cache, thanks!

Found with lenicka.second, membsec, Ainstar, We only found 5 drop bears but saw a possum and ants but it appears this cache is in need of some maintenance. We found a fire tack on the ground. But it was still cool and we solved it. Great fun to come out here. TFTC

Found it together with membsec, omaster and ainstar on our night gc-trip. We had good headlamps with us so we didnt expect any problems. As the listing was read I decided that I wanted to be the person counting dropbears and being protected by others . I forgot tootpaste or swim-googles so I was in a real danger. Unfortunately (or fortunately for me) we didnt find all reflexes as we just saw 5 dropbears. Really nice listing (love it)! FP. TFTC

Wow this was a lot if fun. We found this cache with Ainstar, omaster and lenicka.second. We thought this cache was very appropriate for our overseas visitor. Luckily we had some strong torches which picked up what we were looking for but we only found 5 drop bears. We did manage to see a possum and some huge ants. Thanks for bringing us here. A favourite point from us. Some maintenance will be required.

TFTC

Great night hide with patrolling 4x4 just starting to rain
Tftc sl. Drop bears are getting a little tired we found 36

had fun doing this with the toonies we counted 37 incluing the 4 that are having a sleep on the ground tftc lntnsl

Made it to the start point, I had a head torch but it was too weak to support my drop bear hunting activities. The full moon also made it a bit tough to make out reflections, as the bush was so well lit up. It came in handy for setting up a tent 15 minutes later, but not very handy for night caching.

we had a lot of fun walking around the bush at night looking for fire tacks and drop bears,we only found 39,thanks to kia1 and geo wives we found the last tree[no fire tacks]and then the cache what a bright idea.TNLN.TFTC.

Found in the company of Carrrots3
I have been anxious for about three weeks to have a go at this one.
It was only my second night cache.

I must say I was very impressed with this cache, especially the work put into the preparation and planning.
Hunting for those Drop Bears in the dark gives you the sensation of walking for quite a distance.

The search was dampened by the approaching thunder storm and the Geowives petrified that we would not be able to find our cars, EVER.
Finding the final GZ was satisfying and a BRIGHT idea.
There was some confusion whether we had missed a tack, but the count of bears was about 39

Left small car, Took Big Foot Geocoin
Thanks Tigerden for a fantastic cache.

OOOOOPPPPPSSSSSSS

Just realised that I missed logging this one from when I went to the pre easter event.....

Don't remember how many I counted, but I remember it was awesome fun, we caught up with the group in front, and the group after us caught up with us.

we had to do the spider dance a few times throughout.

TNLNSL

TFTC Tigersden

We had a 6 year old in tears at the thought of the scary bears in the dark, Once she saw a few baby ones she wasn't too scared any more. We loved this cache. The best night cache we have done so far ( this is our fourth ). I'm not sure if a drop bear is classed as a monster but I left the bigfoot geocoin (it's travelling to monster themed caches)

Just a fantastic nightcache. Very fun, very well set up (with the technology at the end as well) and just a great cache! A fave for sure. I counted 35 Drop Bears. Thanks for a great cache tigersden

found it with Graham54 and micaparamedic very cleaver set up i counted 44 drop bears

Hadn't long got out of bed after a nightshift when I decided that i would head across to attempt this cache. I rang graham54 to see if he was up for the experience, then it was off to meet up and then go looking for drop bears. On the way someone decided to turn on the water works with a bit of precipitation hitting the windscreen. Arriving at GZ we started our trek through the dreaded drop bear zone and by the end managed to locate a total of 44 drop bears. Surprisingly we were able to dodge the other nocturnal hazard that is quite prevalent at the moment, the Orb Spider and it's web, however there were plenty to see and we also provided plenty of insects for them to gorge on.

Time: 2130
Items in: Nil
Items out: Pirateute pathtag

Who: graham54, that559

Thanks tigersden this was a great experience and did this with micaparamedic and that559 we found 44 drop bears - lots of big spider webs and the fire tacks were really good must have taken some setting up - well done

Found with MRX2, diablo1234, Topthat and others on the Pre-Easter Weekend Event. TFTC

Found with MRX2, StreetO, Topthat and others on the Pre-Easter Weekend Event. Great night hunt. found these thing in the bush. thanks for the weekend. TFTC

Found with Princess Amy, while tagging along with Tigersden (Andrew) TNLN TFTC SL

Found with Tigersden (Andrew)'s assistance, as Chaplain Mike (Dad) woosed out yet again, found with Stick Kid and Pirateute

We were in one of the later groups and joined forces with the Go-getters. Just as well as Alex had a deadly eye for drop bears and found 38. Spent a bit of time trying to find the right track into the area distracted by the puzzle hunters out night caching.

A mild evening to be wandering about and we admired and tested the technology at the end. TFTC

This adventure started quite a while ago. The Crisp Image team had been training to search for and avoid these Drop Bears! There were drills and tactical planning. We needed to know what to do if we were attacked. We are aware that you never know if they are the right way up until they land on your shoulders!
With the training completed we traveled to the other side of the state and set up camp in a nearby declared safe zone. While working through the final preparations we met up some other teams that were on the same mission. They were BPJTHillas, Whits Wanderers and Romax.
So with a mix of youthful exuberance and mature experience we formulated a plan.
We set off traveling the short distance from the safe Zone to the known area and the last sighting of Drop Bears.
The entry point to the zone was found and we moved ever so slowly into the unknown.
The night air was thick with anticipation of what we might see.
Look Out!! There were some large spiders appearing right in front of us.
We kept moving then a shriek of terror (or delight) when the first drop bears were spotted. We kept following an amazing path lit with bright white insects of some sort that reflected when our torches were shone upon them.
The young ones were confused by the number of drop bears that we found and differing opinions were argued. If it were not for our voices of experience (Romax) we would have not settled on the number of 42.
The path lead us to a spot where a large drop bear was sitting in a tree waiting. We carefully approached it and were able to observe some numbers attached to it.
They looked like co-ordinates. We thought it might be the location of a large gathering of drop bears so we entered the numbers in to out trusty navigation devices and discovered that it was not too far away.
We set off wondering what we might find. We moved slowly closer to the final destination being careful not to disturb the spiders. It was not long before we were at the spot.
We were surprised when we looked into a hollow log expecting to see a drop bear lair only to discover that there was a Geocache there waiting to be discovered.
With the log book signed the cache was returned and we retreated to the safety of our camp.
So may be these Drop bears are not so bad. After all they did lead us to a geocache but I would still be wary of them. May be we need to add some toothpaste to the caching kit for when we have some non Australians with us.

Regards Crisp Image (Drop Bear Hunters)

We headed out for this night cache in the company of Farmers5, bacPAQer and Wazza and Wenches. Having donated a bear in there or 6 I had an small idea on what we were searching for but never realised how much fun it would be.

Our thanks to Tigersden for a fun night cache.

Regards Mr.Coffee and the "I have an amazingly interesting story about drop bears at Kings Canyon NT" Coffee Clan.

Published

my first night cache, the kids were a little scared

If you go into the bush at night you're in for a big surprise,
If you go into the bush at night you'll never believe your eyes...
Well we went into the bush at night all prepared with a brand new spotlight (that didn't work because we forgot to charge it! )
Where to start?? What are we looking for??? Alright, no toothpaste behind the ears, no cork hat, no vegemite smeared on the face (will dirt do??) Where are these drop bears???????? Scary little blighters they are!! The kids were saying "There's no such thing!" but with a count of 42 I think they now know better! Lost count of the spiders though - please note, not advisable to go through close together trees - these spiders are nearly the size of drop bears. I think we are pretty safe from the drop bears though, being Australian - even saw a drop bear with an Aussie flag and one with an aussie hat, now where is this cache - "Don't race ahead kids and Always walk behind the tallest person". That is how to avoid the scary drop bear spiders. Where's the cache, where's the cache?? Thanks geokids, cache in hand, signed log, didn't make any swaps (as tempted as I was to put in our useless spotlight) and headed back!!
Overall a wonderful experience, enjoyed with a group of lovely geocachers. Thanks for a great night cache, fun for the whole family!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Good luck future cachers and mind those dropbears. Make sure you don't try to catch them and take them from their home!!!
Thanks Tigersden for a truly fun and memorable cache.

We arrived with bacPAQer,Wazza and Wenches and Mr Coffee and emerged with our torches.We soon raced through and even passed some slower teams.
Found more orb spider webs than drop bears around the circuit and out count was xxx.
Enjoyed the theme and eerie still night.Many thanks to tigersden.

At Night
Found in conjunction with Romax and a number of other teams. We have had experience with these drop bears in the Grampians. Fortunately the 42 we encounted tonight were much less aggressive than their Gariwerd cousins.

TNLN . . SL . . Thanks for the hunt tigersden.

What a great cache we had so much fun with all the nice spiders around. We counted 42 drop bears. thanks for a great cache still laughing

Found by Roma and Max together with Pete & Helen of Phetlern.
There were teams ahead of us and teams behind us, we suspect the drop bears we found were nearly outnumbered by geosearchers!
We did count 42 bears in total but didn't record the number that were actually above head height, perhaps that is what you intended!
Thank you Cerena and Andrew for another excellent night time experience.
Romax.

An awesome night time adventure by the light of the full moon. Does this increase the chances of sighting Drop Bears? We soon discovered "Yes!"
It was a multi team effort. We fought bravely alongside BPJTHillas, Crispimage, Phetlern & Romax to the very end. A count of 42 Drop Bears were officially sighted (a further 87 Drop Bears blinded before toppling out of trees to their doom by Mr Whit's Ayup bike torch). Torches were very important in this challenge and it was important to "work as one" (where have I heard that before??) and not blind fellow team members with your headlamp torch (back to basic training for some of CrispImage ). Romax and Phetlern provided much needed protection and wisdom to all - especially with that fancy Drop Bear dualling stick (also good for big juicy bush spiders).

Thanks to all for a very memorable night!

Forgot to mention that for added personal protection we also carried Aussie Track-a-Bear PC4FP6 in our pocket

Found by David at 1955. A bit late arriving at the car parking area, but the teams were spread out and the start of the trail was easy to pick up. Tagged along with the nearest group and enjoyed following the firetack trail and counting the many drop bears along the way. They must have been exhausted by the succession of passers-by over the last two nights, because they all seemed to be asleep, and presented no danger at all. Loved the high-tech container. Final drop bear count was 41. Great fun all round. As always, our thanks to tigersden.

We where last on the list for the night so we could go when we wanted to. It ended up being on our way back from collecting the rest of the cards needed to solve gin-rummy. We started the cache with no trouble and it went along smooth until we needed to us the GPS. This is when the GPS went flat and we had to resort to the iPhone. Once the iPhone settled it was not long until we found the cache. thanks for another night cache.

A last night grab while attending the Pre-Easter event. This one had us searching far and wide for drop bears but we were in no danger as the moonlight kept them at bay.

Thanks for the cache and the adventure tigersden

Drop Bears - I'm not scared. I am of the pidies between the trees though. 42 of the critters were counted on our trek by geo-daughter.

A beaut cache in a wonderful location.
Thanks Tigersden for this great cache.

Found with Black Bunny, Candy Cane 101 and Mr_Roo.
It was a lovely evening, with an almost full moon. Great cache.

Did this cache on the sunday night of the event. Wasnt anyone there when we got there, and wondered what we would find. We found 37 dropbears on the way. Had fun following the trail TFTC tigersden

found nit with black bunny just a cacher and mr roo.
We found 37 drop bears and i was not aloud a gun ( to shoot the drop bears)
Thanks for the cache, tigersden

What a great idea for a night cache, and set up so well too. Not sure about how many actual "drop bears" there were supposed to be, but I kept my eye out and spotted 39 (I think, I may have lost count at some point
Nice final hide with some clever technology inside!
TFTC

Micheena - out with Bogonhazy and Sully1. Down there...not according to the GPS. Yes it was, back there. Cars, this must be the spot. Nice night for a stroll in the bush. LOOKOUT, drop bears, RUN. Our second night cache, and really enjoyed this one. Teams were enough in front to allow us to find our way. Thanks Tigersden, great way to finish off the night.

We headed off to do this night cache, and what fun did we have. At the start we worked out what to do, and headed off, after missing the cache guardians (spiders) who were working in conjuction with the drop bears, we fumbled our way around until we found the Cache. We counted 42 drop bears alltogether. Thanks Tigersden. TFTH...SL...TNLN

My 200th find yay. And my first night cache, made a little difficult hobbling around with one crutch. Fortunately we dodged all the spiderwebs, the torch lit up some woppas. Had an enjoyable time doing this one with The Morris. We counted 38 koalas. TFTC

Always love a good night cache! I think the previous group must have got lost as we caught up with them very quickly! On our first pass we counted 40 drop bears...but we had doubts as we got better at spotting the cunning critters as we progressed, so we did a second loop of the course before the next team showed up...and got a revised count of 42 on the second pass and another 2 drop bears had snuck into the cache itself!

They really didn't stand a chance against my AYUP bike light - a dual cree narrow beam setup running off a half-epic lithium battery. I had half of hades at my beck and call and all other torches (including a massive 1,000,000 candle power jobby) just didn't cut it against this baby! - really shone up the spider work well too...they are some big muthas! don't go stumbling around this place unprepared!!!

Kinkell1 has our numbers for the drop bears, but I know there were a lot of the little beggars. Great moonlit night, very pleasant weather, lots waving sticks to ward off spiders webs, didn't help Sandra though!!! Tilly enjoyed playing with the torch and helped hold Sue up. Love the tech in the cache. Thanks heaps guys.

Went with the Earthbound family (except Mum). Wasn't a big fan of the spiders, how dare they come out at night! Otherwise, we had great fun. I think my little brother was a bit freaked out by it all, which made us enjoy it more!!

Lots of drop bears out there.
The kids loved this one and were disappointed when it was over they wanted to go again.
Great Job !
Thanks

Found @ 748pm, find # 793.

We were in the first group to do so cache, we headed off from camp and made our way to the start of the trail in a roundabout way, but got there.
We armed ourselves with the needed tools, a torch and a big stick as there were a lot spiderwebs with huge spiders sit in them, we quickly picked up the trail and we were off finding alot of drop bears along the way until we reached the end of the trail where we received so new imformation, once that was entered we then made our way to the final location where we were rewarded with a nice big box full of goodies, we signed the log and made our way back to camp.

Thanks to tigersden for this great night cache, alot of fun and great for the kids aswell.

As we were one of the last groups off, we were able to sortof follow Mr Coffee's group for most of the way.
Great little adventure nonetheless. And it did turn out to be a lot of fun backtracking again and again to find another sneaky drop bear hiding on a different part of the tree.
Or did it climb around when we looked away, I don't know. Anyway, we ended up with 38 when some had 42, so maybe some had scurried away with all the noise, or had lost their appetite afetr consuming a few of the smaller children.
Our team were Micheena, sully1 and myself.
Thanks again tigersden, a favorite in my book, and the last of a long day.

Found during pre-easter event. Very nicely done. Gotta love night caches. I also would like to say i thought it was good how fellow geocacher, Highrod, involved the kids in finding and counting the drop bears. Spider webs were plentiful. If my cache notes are correct and my counting is any good I counted 38 drop bears. TFTNC

Set off with Micheena & bogonghazy for this one, armed with head & hand held torches. Decided we were on the wrong approach in, so back tracked
for the correct starting point. Another group were not far in front with their torches. Our group were convinced we had it right with 38 bears, but alas, we need
to go back to school to learn to count, it seems others had more........ Some of the spider webs seemed to be works of art. Safe flat ground saved for any falls in the night. Arrived at the final location where many others were already gathered. Enjoyed this, only my second Night cache. Taks were highly visible and easy to spot. Thanks to tigersden for the work put into this one. Well done. TNLNSL. And thanks to my other caching teams for enjoying it with me.

The Drop Bears breed well in these parts. I think I was more scared of the the Drop Spiders lol.
Had lots of fun navigating through to the night cache and surprisingly the big kids had fun too.

Cheers and thanks for the cache

What a great night cache! It was easy to follow the tacks, but you should have warned us: It's not only drop-bears to watch out for, but also massive spider webs with their makers (seems like a factory for volleyball nets ). Our final count for drop-bears was only 38, and lost count of the spider webs. The cache was very well designed for the night - nice bit of engineering!

This was find #21 of of the day at 20:30 with Indiana08.

Thanks for the fun!

Found with highrod, smeghead and others during the Pre-Easter Event. We must have missed some drop bears cause we only saw 38. Tilly and I held each other up while Sandar found all the spider webs for us SLTNLN Thanks for the cache

This is the 880th find for WazzaAndWenches

Easter with the Central Victorian Geocachers....A fantastic weekend. Thanks to Tigersden and their helpers for all the work in making the event such an enjoyable one.

After an early rise and a few cuppas we wandered off on our own to find a few caches. Along the way we ran into a number of other teams and enjoyed some joint finds.

After enjoying a great meal at park we grabbed our torches and headed off to the starting point with BackPAQer, Farmers and Mr. Coffee.
We arrived at GZ armed with Drop Bear suaders including a long maglite and BackPAQers ultra bright Dual Barrel Daylight Creating Drop Bear Stunner.
The DBDCDBS was aimed into the great Aussie bush and the action switch was thrown. Drop Bears everywhere trembled in fear.

We advanced and were able to quickly count each bear as we rushed by every mindful of their keenness for an easy meal.

Soon enough we emerged from the bush with the required numbers and made our way across the road in search of the Drop Bear Headquarters. After battling our way through webbed Drop Bear Hunters traps we found their HQ occupied by a skeleton crew of Drop Bear Army recruits. We scrawled our tags across their property and made a hasty retreat before the hunters could return and capture us.

All up we estimate their strength at 42 members. Not a great number but maybe just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. I heard a whisper that the Drop Bears are seeking reinforcements from a nearby muggle township. With the savage tempers of the Drop Bears and the buck teeth and banjos of the new allies I'm sure we will be up against a formidable force if we ever venture into the bush around here again.

Thanks Tigersden for a great adventure.

1955hrs

MissBB and I teamed up with the Walenators and the Earthbound group to do this cache. I had a ball pointing out all the very large spiders hanging around.
The final count for Drop Bears was 42.

Found on the Pre-Easter Weekend Event.
Find 34/34 for the day, (breaking our previous record of 23!) no. 1056.
WOW! What a great cache! We won the raffle for FTF before we were one of the actual first to find!
We took the wrong turn into the bush and were the first car in the line to clear the path of (BIG) spiders and branches over the road (Aaron and Rob) and found the correct track.
Onto the cache walk, we set out and to hunt drop bears, we found the first point quickly, shone torches and walked on to the next few points counting the drop bears we found along the way…..
Ahhhhhhhhhhh ahhhhhhh ahhhhhhh….. Sandra’s stick was not good enough this time, and I caught a massive spider’s web! At least it was entertaining for everyone else!!
Found the cache and 38 drop bears.

Caching up on a hundred or so missed logs
Found with bucketeer
TFTC

Find no. 24 of Day 1. The Chief took the children on the hunt, I stayed back to get the marshmellow cooking fire underway (that was my excuse anyway). While I am not afraid of drop bears because I know they are only deadly on the third bounce, I am mortally afraid of spiders. Even though all logic tells me if I walk into a massive orb weaver's web the spider will not attempt to eat me and I know a drop bear will if it strikes on that third bounce, I go into spider web shock (kind of like anaphylaxis) and scream the place down! I didn't want to scare other people's children by running through the dark, dark bush incoherently screaming my head off. My kids wouldn't bat an eyelid, they have all seen me do it. They'd have a good chuckle at my expense but I'm sure it would be unpleasant for children unaccustomed to creepy night time bush noises like the yell of an arachnophobe in full flight! The older teens obviously enjoyed the cache very much judging by the evil glint in their eyes as they described to me in minute detail every single lovely and MASSIVE spider they'd spotted. EB Nano, age 7 was thrilled to have nabbed himself a drop bear before it mauled him but admitted the bush at night had been "freaky". Thank you so much tigersden, the kids had a ball with this one (including the Chief)! The Chief would like to add there were no tourists in their group so no really dangerous 'full grown' drop bears were attracted to them, I'd hate to meet a 2 metre tall drop bear in the dark!

Found with C@H at around 11.50pm as our last for the day.. my GPS died right at the important time, and it was through this issue that I also forgot what my dropbear count was upto.. never mind.. the very large cache was soon in hand.. thanks Tigersden for a great nightcache with interesting twists and turns and somthing to engage the kids.. TNLN dipped coins and bugs..

Found during the Pre Easter event.

It is not only the drops bears you need to worry about but the spiders and their webs.

A fun cache on a full moon. TFTC.

we did this as a Beta tester for tigersden what a bit of fun we had dodging the drop bears