TOMB CACHER II "Forbidden Castle" Mt Buffalo, Victoria, Australia
By TeamOaky & Unluckycharm on 02-Jan-12. Waypoint GC3AFYQ

Silly me I thought it was about the cache

This is a sad day.

Fear is an unknown quantity.
The kids had none. They didn't care if they were scratched. The party boy loved giving advice to the bananas as less than formal safety measures were part of the preliminaries. Fear was here by the truckload.
Mums leaping over Australian version of Hilary's Step with little issues. The rocks were wet and the clouds consistently covered us in fog.
But the bananas were on a misson with masses of kids obstructing every path.
Sure the treasure is here somewhere but the bananas while accending to highest of heights to check locations..........
Found nothing.
Except fear.

Someone sooner or later had to knock this one off its perch. Thx to all the other finders that keep me inspired to place more caches

This entry was edited by ⓉⓔⓐⓜⓄⓐⓚⓨ on Saturday, 07 November 2015 at 08:22:55 UTC.

[Blue]Crikey! [/blue]
Wow - words cannot describe how cool this was. On a weekend away to the magnificent Buffalo and myself and Timmo98 met with Jamin and Skullracing today. Scrambled our way up top of the Castle and took in the breathtaking views. Every bit as anticipated. Thanks for taking me to this spot and risking life and limb - the wife had a long talk to me about 'what if you slip and fall and die'? Calculated risks baby!
Looking forward to more Oakey caches. A fave from me.

A day up on Mt Buffalo was planned and the goal was to get around all of the caches in this particular area. Lucky for us we had an expert guide for the location with us so it was a bit more direct to the GZs.

The second we tackled and another sweet view! This one had us doing our first scramble for the day but at GZ it was me who took on the tight squeeze to retrieve the cache.

TFTC

Thankyou to all that have given this cache a favourite point
Very much appreciated
Cheers
Team☯aky

Found with bucketeer
Apologies for the late log

17/12/2014 12:32:00 PM
I had planned to make the trip up here last year at this time but life got in the way and I had to postpone it for a year.
The good news is that it was worth the wait, without a doubt this is the best cache I've done in a long while if not ever
A nice walk to the end of the track was followed by a fun bit of rock hopping that soon had the 3 of us at the summit searching for the treasure that was found relatively quickly. We then had a lunch at the summit while admiring the majestical view before us.
Everything a good cache could be, I even finished my project 81 on this cache.
Thanks
Found with geogrrl and scouter 101

The Day In Summary

It was a big day of caching. On the road by 4:30am, then 780kms and 23 hours later I was crawling into bed, bruised and grazed but really pumped with how the day had unfolded.

I was looking forward to the challenging day ahead caching at Mt. Buffalo. To cache there has been on my caching wish list for a long time and when the opportunity presented itself, I immediately started the planning.

I’d been preparing the few days before hand, and the weather outlook seemed to change every day, so I just packed everything in preparation for any type of weather. Luckily I did as it poured rain the first half of the day and then by mid-afternoon the sun came out and it got pretty warm. By days end I had a shredded pair of rain pants, three t-shirts and a sweater soaking with sweat, as well as a rain soaked pair of trakkies and hiking boots. With the change in weather though, the spectacular scenery also changed. The valleys below that had fog and streams of cloud rolling through them in the morning later revealed themselves with amazing vistas, as far as you could see.

I had three goals I wanted to complete during the day at Mt. Buffalo : get a FTF, fill in a hard to get D/T combo and drop off a TB at the ‘Holy Grail’ puzzle cache, and I’m very happy to say I did fulfil all three. Having not hiked around Mt. Buffalo before I was amazed at the scenery and the ever changing landscapes as I made my way from cache to cache location. From the plateaus to the monolithic rock formations, each was worthy of a hundred photos. Thanks to the CO’s who took the time and effort to place the caches here and thanks for bringing me here. I look forward to getting back to explore further and find the rest of the caches still waiting for me.

The Cache

Making my way from The Sentinel, I followed the track to The Castle, and as I approached it loomed taller and taller. The prize was up there somewhere by how to get to it ? The path ended at the base but I pushed onwards, surveying possible ways to get up. I spotted a likely starting point and began to venture up, leaping from rock to rock, over crevices just waiting to engulf me. Working my way up to a point where I could go no further, the rock face in front of me and the bottomless drop below me made certain of that so it was back down to the base and continue searching for a good way up.

Working my way through the scrub around the base of 'The Castle' I soon spotted another possible way to the summit and once again began to venture up. After much leaping and clambering and squeezing through tight spots the terrain began to level out and I was nearly at GZ. The views were amazing and after a quick minute to catch my breath, it was onto the cache. I searched for about five minutes before realising I hadn't quite reached the top. A bit more scrambling required and then I was King of the Castle. One last tight squeeze and the cache was found and I signed the logbook.

My last find on Mt Buffalo for today, and this cache was one of the best and more adventurous caches I have found to date. A real challenge and a great location. A favorite for me and thanks TeamOaky.

Wow!

This cache is now in its third year and according to Project GC is now in the top 10 caches on a 100% favourite points.
Thx to all those that have found this cache, the fantastic logs and fav points given are very much appreciated
Stay safe and happy hunting

[green]Merci beaucoup

Cheers

TeamOaky [/green]

Had this one on our list for nearly 12 months as we tried to fill in gaps in our D/T grid. Was going to come up in Jan, but didn't make it. Was in the area with some of team SNAFU. Heard Skullracing & Lostmonster talk about this when it first came out & often liked bouldering in my younger days. Had Skullracing as our tour guide & the Lost Wanderers also filling a hole in their grid. What a majestic view for celebrating only one hole to go. A Fav from us. TFTC.

Spent a wonderful weekend caching with a wonderfully adventurous group of cachers from the area. Had an enjoyable time hiking, crawling, scrambling, jumping, getting cold and wet and warming up again. Enjoyed the caching experience this weekend, thanks to all the cachers who put in the effort to place all these wonderful caches out.

Woohoo!!!! Another cache where I could scramble, squeeze, jump and climb on some rocks, potentially shorts weren't the best choice in attire for todays outing, but a bit of claret means the experience was worthwhile, right? Great cache that will not be forgotten in a long time. TFTC

After finding Underworld and a few other caches it was onto the Forbidden Castle. This one was the goal that The Lost Wanderers really wanted! Another find on the way to completing our D/T grid. Being cautious around heights we brought experienced climbers and cachers with us. There where times I was thinking why do we do this (little did I know the experiences in store for us at the other caches in this series)? However I was thankful for the jeans that I was wearing as it enabled me to do a lot of the scrambling pain free (well relatively). As this was the first one in the series that we completed I was feeling rather good when we had finished it. TFTC Team☮aky

This one has now been upgraded to an ammo can, should help in the harsh environment. Logbook was a bit damp so added a waterproof book as well
Cheers
Team☮aky

TB drop

Date: 2 January 2014
Time: 3:05pm
Find # 3534
Streak: 155 Days

My caching buddy SedgwickDave and I decided it was time for a bit of a road trip and a couple of nights on mount Buffalo finding all the caches we could there as well as some others on the drive there and back.

Well, two down, one to go. This one gave us most trouble and had an extra unwanted search element to it. We stopped at the paths end and attempted to find a route to GZ. The first attempt had usending in one of the spots where ropes are required, so we made our way back to the start again to find another way. Our second option was good and before too long we were within 10 metres and thats when the trouble begun. Dave had taken his wedding ring off to avoid it getting scratched (Married less then 2 months) and he pulled his phone out of his pocket to check distance and he then heard the dreaded noise... Ding, Dingding, dingding ding. Yes, it was the ring falling from almost the top of the castle down into the crevice. There was initial panic.. "She's gonna kill me" he said. After some long breaths, we persisted towards the cache and after quite a bit of scrabbling around, I finally spotted the cache... But, how do we access it? With Daves mind on other things, I jumped in and eventually managed to extract the container from its hole.

It was then the second search begun. We headed to the location of the incident. Started heading into the cave and Dave soon yelled from above... I can see it, I can see it and I think I can get to it. A now happier Dave managed to retrieve the ring and all was better in the world again. A happy walk back to the car

Thanks to TeamOaky & Unluckycharm for the cache. TNLN

Found @15:06 #3404
Up here on the Buffalo plain for 2 days with Ahomburg to complete as many of the epic caches which have become legendary and highly regarded by those who have done them. This part of the world is truly unique and perfect for the obsession which I call geocaching. The weather over these 2 days were ideal for caching as temperatures were mild and the sun was not always out. An epic geocaching trip which was simply one fantastic overall adventure.

This was one amazing cache which took me on quite an emotional rollacoaster but ended well in the end. This had it all and now in hindsight looking back writing this log I am finding it difficult to describe this experience. First of all having completed the two other caches in this epic series (1&3) I was buoyed by my confidence of rock climbing these very impressive rock outcrops; I was finding it easy and impressed by my goat like balance and cat like reflexes. The terrain on this cache was however starting to push me a little out of my comfort zone as we initially headed the wrong way to realized that equipment would be required. But checking the details we realized that there was a way we had just not found it. So we got back down and bush bashed around to where we initially started and decided to start again but make a different turn further in then before. The agree approach was to look for the easiest path and just keep following it and ignore thinking of taking the "direct approach".

This was working well and soon we found ourselves way up high and within 10m of GZ and knew we had finally taken the right approach. I was very happy and was admiring the views to take a breath when I decided to take a bearing for the last push to GZ. Ding...... Nooo!!!!! My precious!!!.... I now knew how Gollum felt. That was the sound of my wedding ring which I had removed during the last cache as I had realized I had been scratching it on these granite rocks. I had cleverly (not) placed it in my front pocket, same one as the phone. Bad luck had caused the ring to be drag out with the phone at this moment. Several other times this had not happen.

Releasing the situation was probably a lost cause I took a moment to curse my stupidity and think how I would explain this to "she who must be obeyed", I didn't know how and I had this gut feeling it was lying in a dark crevice completely out of reach which would never see the light of day. I felt sick in the stomach.

So in this situation why not find a cache, this should cheer me up. So we continue on and as we search for the next 20 minutes as the hide was not obvious at all, checking the logs and the hint I came back to where we started and yep there it was. I let Ahomburg retrieve the cache as I was still distracted. It was great to find this cache at last and was probably the toughest of all the tomb raider caches. I would say the best in the series.

So with the cache found the mission now was to find another piece of treasure. Once back at the location of the incident, we headed down following the gaps to see if hopefully the precious could be seen. Initially nothing, but then there it was!! It was about 5m below but up high on a protruding rock next to the cave wall with it only centimeters from another gap which would of allowed it to fall even deeper. Knowing it was there was a massive relief but was uncertain if I could reach it without equipment. Nope I was going to get this back, falling down and couching on the rock like Gollum I crawled in and hopped and leap across to where it. Wow this is high!, Placing the ring of power on the finger once more I leaped across the void and scrabble up and out to blue skies. Yay!! All was good again. From now on I will be sure to remove it before any type of climbing.

I was very happy during the climb down and walk back to the car. Another favorite from me.[^]

TFTC TeamOaky & Unluckycharm

I have wanted to come to Mt Buffalo for a long timw and the stakes were raised when Team Oaky told me that I had to do this cache if I wanted to join Team Oaky. Last Sepember we came to Bright on our way to Mt Hotham and thought it would be a great place to spend Easter so we booked a Motor Inn a couple of months ago. A couple of other cachers mentioned they might be interested in joining us to do these caches so on Good Friday we went and found the Beaufort plane wreck cache. By Saurday we could put Mt Buffalo off no longer and this was our first goal. We walked up to the end of the path then started hunting around. I skirted around the base of the boulders and found a reasonable access point to higher ground. Slowly all six of us made our way up. Often there were spaces where the smaller people could go under and the rest of us had to go over. To his credit, even the stay-at-home couch loving 16 year old got into the spirit of the day. We got to GZ and everybody started exploring, including Robotic Chicken from Mars who squashed himself into a small tomb-like space. I was looking at him and straight away caught sight of the cache, which was a very welcome sight as I'm sure there are a million places to hide a cache. Photos were taken then we made our way back down, knowing there was more work to done.
This is an absolutely brilliant place to visit and a great cache for cachers who like adventure. I think doing this as a family made it all the more worthwhile but I'm not sure that I would recommend that others take their kids as it really is pretty tricky and all of us have at least a modicum of rockclimbing experience. And we are also pretty skinny, which is very helpful in this kind of cache. My thanks for Team Oaky for the challenge and for placing the cache in such a wonderful spot.

I've been waiting for the chance to come to Mount Buffalo and have a crack at this trio. I didn't realise it had a not recommended for kids attribute although it was clearly a serious undertaking. The route we took was a very enjoyable scramble along rock ledges and through caves, and up a little chimney near the top, with a bigger person in front and another behind, and although it wasn't easy we all made it up. The search was next but the josiey/RCFM search engine kicked into action for a surprisingly quick find. Next step was getting back down. This was achieved with minor deviations from.the route up but hey, no one died.
So we had six finders aged 8, 11, 13, 16 and XY and XX, more than a year of unlovedness, and my second last DT combo filled. Next step TC I.

#2421 After a fantastic weekend with LoMo & Co hiking Feathertop on Australia Day talk turned to other such caches and trips - of course our interest in this series was piqued after completing the other TeamOaky caches last year. A date was set for today & the weather was absolutely brilliant for it. We had a Friday off a couple of weekends ago when these caches were new and seriously contemplated changing our Bogong hike in favour of this series but ended up sticking with our original plans, glad we did as we had a ball today. Hiked to the base of the Castle and the girls set up base camp whilst the boys did their "Man vs VERY big rocks" thing. One took a very unorthodox "there is no going back from where I'm coming from" approach whilst the other took a more calculated "yes, I can make it back this way" route.....of course they both returned via the latter . After reaching the castle turret they were very distracted by the impressive views they had to remind themselves of why they were there, so caching duties ensued and the well hidden container found in the second place they looked (glad it wasn't the 1st as it may have been a little tight!). This is certainly not a cache for the feinthearted but there was some embracing of the inner monkey boys going on today. Our thanks to Lostmonster & Co for accompanying us and being top company (we had a blast) and to TeamOaky for laying out these ripper caches. We certainly looking forward to more of them. Quite obviously a favourite from us. Cheers

Took: Nothing
Left: A couple of really cool pathtags

What an absolute CORKER.
After the Australia day adventure to Mt Feathertop with team Skullracing we were all a bit stiff & sore for a few days after, no-one was quite sure what this weekend would bring.
Untill about Wednesday that was...., it was then that Skully and LoMo got chatting,& after a quick change of plans we decided that Mt Buffalo was the GO.

We met at the usual spot at 8am, and with perfect weather we headed into the National Park, we parked the Geo-Vehicles at excatly the same spot almost as we did 12 months ago for the first of TeamOaky,s caches in this area.
We walked the walk to the spot, where the walking stopped, and climbing started.
We removed the backpacks and searched for away to the top.
Lex from Skullracing is really a human mountian goat, i have never seen anyone scale boulders and jump HUGE gaps like he does.....[:o]!!
Lomo struggled with the idea of going up that way, he did try but just.........LOL..........no way could he get up there, so after a bit of searching he found a safer way to the top.
Still it took a lot of rock climbing and scrambling and squeezing into crevies that seem so un-natural to try and get through.
Soon Lostmonster had made it to the top and was greeted by Dad from Skullracing.
Well the views from the top were fantastic and the adrenaline was pumping, how good was this.
The cache was soon found and the log booked signed.
We both took a seat on the top of the world relexed and enjoyed the views blind freddy would have loved.
Many thanks TeamOaky for a top cache in a top part of the world.
End of Part One.

I don't think today I'm equipped, brave or stupid enough for this one today. A climber heading straight up the side put the fear of god into me. Next time

Reperio at 2115. Joint FTF with Haveanez!

I was chatting with Haveanez during the week about coming down to do some bushwalking around the area, and when this series of caches were published, the decision was made to head out to Mount Buffalo for some adventure. We arrived to GZ with some daylight left in the day, but we soon realised that we would be walking away from here after the sun went down. We started out our search in the most logical spot, but soon ended up searching in many cracks and crevices until we eventually came back to the place we started in, and found the cache after having a thorough search of a spot we only poked our head in. We opened up the cache, and amazingly the log book was empty...

Once the sun was down, we tracked our way back to the path, albeit not quite the way we came in, and headed off to 'Corral Jewel'.

What can I say! This is exactly the kind of caching I live for! A wonderful location, and a great sense of adventure! Loved climbing over these massive granite boulders, and watching the sunset from up here was something quite special.

Gratias TeamOaky.

Whoop Whoop - Joint FTF with Marcus Vitruvius.

During the week we were having a chat with MV discussing a few bushwalking trips when this series of caches were published, soon put the plans into concrete for a trip this weekend. A bit suprised to see this one hadnt had a finder yet so a quick change of plans as MV arrived seen us heading to this cache first.

We made our way to GZ where the fun sure began.
We spent some time searching in logical & not so logical spots, in all sorts of cracks and hidey holes before having a better look at a spot already glanced at. We were happy to open up the cache and find a blank fisrt spot.

We were rewarded with a beaut sun set & had quite the adventure navigating the huge granite boulders, some of the biggest we've seen. Definately an excellent challenge that got the heart rate going.
This is the type of cache we are beginning to enjoy most.... A top spot for a cache, magnificent views & a great challenge. Couldnt get much better.

Many thanks for the cache & location TeamOaky & Unlucky Charm - we are really enjoying your caches and we look forward to many more. We definately earnt the stars today. A favorite from us. Cheers.

TNLN SL & Onto Corral Jewel.

This entry was edited by haveanez on Saturday, 21 January 2012 at 10:51:25 UTC.

Published

Due to a few issues in getting this cache published,a change in the name being one item. Will have to amend log book on my next visit, also the FTF certificates will need to be updated as well. Can mail a new one out if cache is found before I return.
In the mean time I hope this doesn't cause to much confusion.
More on the issue of warnings and safety, these caches are meant to be a difficult and  physical challenge, almost extreme geocaching. This cache won't suite a lot of cachers, so  please take note of the attributes & difficult/terrain.  Know your abilities and above all play it safe, it's just a smiley at the end of the day
Happy safe caching
TeamOaky

This entry was edited by TeamOaky on Thursday, 19 January 2012 at 09:35:02 UTC.