7th of 50 Must See Places - GREAT BARRIER REEF Weston Creek, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
By Sol de lune on 20-Jul-12. Waypoint GC3Q0G5

Well, the end has come. It has taken a little longer to get out and collect the caches, but today was the day.

A fun series that a few people managed to find. Number 1, Paris, was found the most - a total of 324 times, while number 38, Prague - was only found 231 times. Bit of a difference.

All caches, along with the attachment system, have been removed, with only one cache not found.

Thanks to all who visited the area and found the caches.....hope you enjoyed your walk/ride.

Ty

7/50. Never been that far north in Australia. TFTC

(y)

#4503 @0727
I learnt, via the Geocaching Canberra Facebook Group, that this series was soon to be archived, and therefore, became my #1 caching goal for this weekend. I parked near the first cache of this series and started out at 0645. I arrived back at the car at 1102 having completed the series, plus the extra one and another nearby cache. As I neared the end the temperatures were getting quite hot, and I welcomed each opportunity to be in the shade for a few seconds before moving on. Overall, well worth the effort as I'm planning on doing the Canberra100Challenge in March (just 50km for me). As I'm new to Canberra it was good to see more of the countryside, and the Australian fauna - just birds and insects today and a few Kangaroos.

The closest I've been to the Great Barrier Reef, is diving off the Port Moresby coast. This is definitely on my to do list. Next year I'm planning on a road trip north.

My tally of places visited so far is 1/50. TFTC.

Missed this one when I did the series a couple of months ago - HH was not keen to go so far off track. As I figured I needed some exercise and before the sun got too hot today, decided to walk down the track and make good on the earlier miss. I did try to go over the fence when I was here a couple of days ago, but the fence was in very good condition and provided no slack - so the walk was on.

Even at 0830, it was a warm walk - LOTS of crickets - needed to remember to keep my mouth closed! Found a track near the fence when I got closer and walked along it until I needed to diverge, and then a short tramp to the cache. Had to tramp over blackberries - they are getting a good hold on the land near by.

Thanks SDL!

Did a suite of caches on the last day of the year along the 50 Must See Places power trail in an attempt to round out a middling year of geocaching - big plans for 2015, but not giving up on 2014 just yet! Met fellow cachers Liz and Bruce en passant and they were a team clearly destined for great things, particularly as they extended some cacher chivalry and dropped us back to our car on this warm Canberra day. Thanks for the set, we'll return one day and finish it off! TFTCs

With the end of the year looming and Brucie not needing too much of an excuse to push hard for our next major milestone the decision was made earlier in the week that if possible we would attempt this series to give us the numbers we needed. The day proved hotter than we expected but the walk was delightful. We did try a shortcut at one stage but ended up thwarted by a high fence. We saw one black snake, plenty of roos from extra large size to medium and lots of crickets. The hides were good and on most occasions we found them without any problem. A couple of the under rocks ones threw us till we read the hint. Happily I can say that many of the wonderful places on the list I have been fortunate enough to have visited in my many years of travel. A great series with a theme particularly close to our hearts [^][^] A few more caches were also found closeby to the series. Near the end of the trail we met up with a couple of Victorian cachers which was a lovely way to finish off. Thanks to Sol de lune for placing this cache.

I decided a while back it would be cool to hit 500 finds before the end of the year, but now just a few days out I found myself about 40 cache finds short. Time for a power trail ! Realistically, I have only two evenings to hit the mark - I'm still working during the break, and NYE is already spoken for. So I headed down to Coppins Crossing to give it my best shot. Luckily this evening was cool and being near the summer solstice, there was plenty of daylight left. I didn't hit the trail until about 1800 and was soon counting off the finds. I spotted a pattern in the way the caches were hidden which made the search a bit quicker - although not always easy. I think I found 25 in this run. I'll be back at it tomorrow - weather and opportunity hopefully permitting completion of this series. Thanks SDL for this series.

Found @ 7:50pm with Shadow! and Goo67

Finally Shadow! and I completed this series after DNFing this one back in March. A quick find this time around after negotiating the fence and the blackberries!

Thanks again Sol de lune

Found with Goo67 and allrounder

allrounder was happy to complete this series as she had been waiting for me to be available to find it.

Thanks for the fun Sol de lune

I did this entire series with my geomum and geodad. We started around 10 am and it was almost 5:00 pm by the time we got back to our geocar. All the caches were in good condition except for a few that weren’t hanging. When we first arrived at the start of the series we thought that it was not possible to do this series. We were going to turn back when we noticed the recent log entry the day before saying how it was possible to do this, so we decided to give it a go. It ended up being a bit of a disaster. We were forced to jump over one fence and had to turn back and come along the same path back to our geocar. It was not possible to do this as intended as we couldn’t find a trail from the last cache back to our starting point without being blocked by fencing, so we ended up having to cycle all the way back to the starting point. Maybe someone with local knowledge is aware of trails that are not on maps and can lay out a few waypoints to help other cachers.

I am 9 years old and I managed to do this series. So, while it’s possible, it’s a lot harder than it appears on the map due to the construction and the fencing. I think the only reason we were able to complete it is because it was during holidays and no one was working at the site. This trail is now more suited to our geofriends artemidorus1 and midmy7 who are regular cyclists.

Sorry for the cut and paste log. Thank you for placing this fantastic series of caches. Hopefully this series will not be lost to the construction.

Found the ENTIRE series today 1 through to 50 and then the extra one as well

I brought my bike down and started the ride at 9:30 am. I was not confident that I would find every cache in this series as due to the previous logs the nearby construction seems to have proved difficult for some people, and the series was talked about being archived a few months ago.

However to my surprise I did not have much trouble at all and found every cache in the series in about 4 hours

Thanks for this series, alot of work has gone into it. All caches seemed to be in good condition apart from a few that were missing their hooks and are no longer "Hanging" but they are all still at the correct coords.

Have barely been to any of these places as I am still quite young. So sorry I don't have much input Hopefully one day. (sorry for the generic logs)

Woo hoo, finally managed to complete this series

Tftc

Ventured down from Sydney to complete this great series with geo friends Bluewattle & Fit02, TFTC.

Tftc. Already loving this series. Friendly wallabies abound.

Finally got this one off my DNF list, caching with the geokiddie...This one was the only DNF of the 50 which I'd done previously...probably didn't approach this one the best way but found nonetheless..as per previous post the hint needs updating ...TFTC!

Easy to find and a lot of fun riding around here on a still sunny day! TFTC.

Enjoyed myself walk around the loops - took 6 hours to complete - saw many kangaroos, birds, river - the weather is very nice for me to walk... Signed the log. Thanks SDL.

Went for a caching hike on a nice Sunday afternoon with Gumby Maca. Realised we weren't alone when I noticed a travel bug on the window of a car in the same parking area.

The hint for this one should be updated as (I assume) it refers to the original location.

I really should visit the Great Barrier Reef sometime, given it's one of the closest "must see places" to home...

[green]If I were to pick my 50 Must See Places, I reckon 46 of them world be in Australia, and the Great Barrier Reef is most certainly up there Exploring the Lower Molonglo with [blue]Sumbloke[green] provided a great opportunity to ponder other destinations on our planet, whilst appreciating our own locale. This one was found at ground level, very much in the domain of the termites [^] [blue]Thanks for the series Sol de lune

Couldn't find the track to this one so had to head bush. Hard work pushing the bikes but at least the terrain was flat on the large scale anyway. The cache wasn't where the hint said it would be but we found it close by so it is still there.
Growing up in Townsville I have been out to the reef a few times .
Thanks Sol de lune

Nothing here, I'll have to come back up here to get this one and no's 1 & 2. Oh well I'll keep one going

This entry was edited by Tanso on Saturday, 26 July 2014 at 08:48:42 UTC.

Oh No, not another muggled one.

Looks like this one has been muggled with all the tree felling that is going on nearby.

Second round today. Took a while, but its there. Hint is not valid anymore!

For some reason we did not find this.

On the GZ there was nothing. Obviously the cache is few meters off...based on the previous logs and later finds....will have to come back later....

Decided to do this cache trail after the Haunted series the night before. Dug out the trusty MTB again and spent about 2 hours out in the reserve... the afternoon followed a pattern of: memorise landmarks from static maps on the phone, pedal a short distance, stop, get off, find cache, SL, check phone... and repeat over and over

Went cross country for this one to avoid the closed off building site. It meant walking with the bike in one hand and a phone in the other. At this stage, I was hoping I'd leave the fenced off areas behind, as I was half expecting a security goon to come out at any moment and demand to know what I was doing!

Well what a wonderful series of caches. We did them with our two geokids aged 3 and 1. Caches easy to find and the 3 year old loved finding them before mummy and daddy did! The geoparents loved discussing the places that we had either been to or would like to visit. We felt quite pleased that we have been to 23 out of the 50 already which we felt pleased with. Yep been to this one too!

8 of 78 for the day. Great series of caches. Fun day. Lovely place, but haven't done any caches there. Thanks Sol de lune for this series.

Was up for a challenge to do this along this track TFTC.

Found with Swifty on a nice day out.

The great barrier reef was where I learnt how to scuba dive and I'd highly recommend it if you are considering to learn it one day. Plenty of dive companies to choose from but I'd recommend doing one of the live aboard boats ones.

Geocache is right near the ant hill, watch out!!

7/25 found with GeoTerps on saturday 19/4

Found with PNLE on a very pleasant Sunday morning walk. And have to agree with PNLE - a live-a-board dive cruise is definitely the way to see the reef, although try and time the calm weather to avoid sea sickness (I didn't!)

Thanks for the cache Sol de lune.

Got it thanks!

Surprisingly (since I love water), I have not visited this famous reef. I have visited QLD and also been to my home state's Ningaloo a few times but I do hope to visit this reef one day. Thanks Sol de lune.

Cache found but not exactly where expected.
Cache at ground level

#2,534

Much as I dislike cut & paste logs, I'm going to have to resort to them or I will never get the logs for this trip (now over 2 weeks in my past) finished.

Bikerbuddy & I drove to Canberra today specifically for this series of caches. We hadn't had much time for riding lately, and thought this series would give us both a fairly easy ride & some good caching.

We had a great time, found all of the caches, bikerbuddy had an easy ride & I got very tired.

Thanks Sol de lune

I've been to the Great Barrier Reef a few times, back when I used to dive regularly. Wonderful place, with amazing diving.

Most of the power trail was straight forward, but this one presented us with a little problem. There is a construction site blocking the road where we thought we had to ride, so we turned back down the track to look for an alternative route. But as we rode we realised that we weren't getting any closer. So we turned back, checked if there wasn't a way around the construction site gate. No. So we turned back and returned to where we had already stopped. Then we decided that the only thing to do was to go up the hill, across country, pushing our bikes. It wasn't too far and we eventually found the cache easily. Thanks

Just clearing the maintenance log....co-ords have been update by reviewer on 10 March 14......thanks

Coordinates changed from:
S 35° 17.943 E 149° 01.909

Coordinates changed to:
S 35° 17.964 E 149° 01.785

Distance from original: 628.5 feet or 191.6 meters.
moved out of the construction zone.

As per our logs, the original spot is within a construction site and the cache couldn't be found at its new location (we did use the new cords and the description of the new hiding spot)...

Disappointingly Shadow!, Liv81 and I couldn't find this one as we attempted to find all of the "Must See Places" series (including the two extras) on bike in what turned out to be quite warm and muggy conditions. We did them in order so this was 7th of the 52 attempted, taking 4hrs from start to finish.

I snuck under the fence to look (oops) but then read past logs to see that this one had been moved. We went to the new location and were unable to find it - it would be too close to the next in the series anyway.

Have I been to this location: No

If not, would I like to go to this location: Yes

Thanks again Sol de lune

This entry was edited by allrounder on Tuesday, 11 March 2014 at 10:18:16 UTC.

Searched everywhere with allrounder and Shadow! Couldn't find it in the new location...

Will definitely see the Reef one day!

TFTC...

I'm logging this with the kind permission of the owner who advises that the cache has been repositioned. TFTC

An overcast day was ideal for walking this series even if it was a bit humid. Started fairly early and had them all in hand except one by 1pm. The exception was No7 which is now within the bounds of a construction exclusion zone. The cache may in fact be a goner? Thanks for an enjoyable walk. I doubt that any finders of this series will ever be fortunate enough to visit all these locations. I am fortunate enough to have seen several. Have enjoyed the reef but couldn't reach this because of the construction site.
TFTC

This was the only one we didn't find on our morning out. We also went into the construction zone, saw the ribbon still on the tree near the workers chairs, so presumed it had gone AWOL.
Now I'm home to log my finds I see it was moved to a new location yesterday. That was bad timing.
The rest of the series we found.
Thanks Sol de lune

I commenced my walk starting at No. 21 heading towards 1. After dropping the car at the recommended parking area, Bill was taking his bike & riding from 50-22. He couldn't get his GPS to work so he walked to meet up with me. At number 7 the gate was open, Bill returned to get the car & we completed the rest of the series in air conditioned comfort.
We enjoyed doing the series, all caches we found were in good condition. Logged with permission.
I have been to the Barrier Reef but I also enjoyed snorkling on the reef from Exmouth W.A
Thanks for placing this series Sol de lune

Found 3:21 pm. TFTC I've grabbed this cache as it was in a construction zone that you couldn't enter (bad me). Found it laying in the ground near some white chairs. I've moved it to a pair of pine trees on the other side past the locked gate of the construction zone. At the beginning of the track going parallel to the road. CO can fix this better but rough coords are listed in this note. Placed in fork of tree. COORDS ARE NOW:
S 35 18.013, E 149 01.904 ( approx anyway). BTW the barrier reef should be listed easily in front of New York it is spectacular place to visit obvious bias by the list creators..


This entry was edited by MrDamage on Wednesday, 05 March 2014 at 10:13:22 UTC.

Found at 13:18 - TftC

TFTC

I didn't even realise until a few caches later, but this would have been my 100th find. Yay happy century.
Found with Carrumel and Dan.

* Been snorkeling up on the reef before, saw a turtle and got a sunburnt back. I was young so that's all I remember haha

Thanks for the cache!

Under construction

Good Find

Cache is there...all is good.

#7 needs a little maintenance - the D-ring has pulled off the container - but the cache is there.

A couple of hours on Australia Day afternoon was the perfect time for a trip 1/3 of the way around the world. Armed to the teeth with my trusty geo-pencil and geo-iPhone hooked up to a monster 15,600mAh Hyperjuice Plug (battery pack) (golly the GPS usage by the phone sucks the power), I tripped backwards from the 15th Must See Place to the 1st Must See Place. I'm beginning to appreciate the $ investment the COs put in for our enjoyment. TFTCs.

Found on a ride around the world with the geokids. TFTC

Attempted this trail as I needed to get some caches as I hadn't been caching for a while. TFTC

Another found to achieve our aim - 100 caches in Australia.

Thanks for the series
ciao, die Limbacher

This year we have a long winter holiday when we are travelling in the Pacific. We are doing sightseeing and geocaching. Now we will spend a six week period in Australia where we will drive from Melbourne to Murray Bridge and then via Grampians to Canberra, Sidney and Brisbane.

Before we left Canberra we wanted to take a walk and at the same time pic some caches. The weather was a bit grey so our choise became this trail. We only did a part of it (1-23, 46-50 and the two extra). It took us 2,5 hours and we walked 8,5 km.

We found all cache on our way, some of them on the ground.

We had visited a lot of the places in the list. For some of them we agree that it is a "Must see place" and for others we do not agree at all.

Visited the Great Barrier Reef 15 years ago and it was awesome.

Thanks for the cache. Greetings from Sweden / Geparderna

This one had fallen off its wire.

Thought I'd beef up my cache tally and meaning to do this for some time. Took 4.5 hrs by
bike and that includes all 50 and Ranger range/ All rivers Run/ and the Two extras.
Not sure how long these will last as civilization is quickly incurring on a few of these caches:-(
This series had the lot, Hills, rocks, nasty bugs, quick finds, harder finds, colour coded caches,
one or two with broken lids, one or two fallen off the wire, and for tall or short people.
A pleasant start at 7.15am to get out of the heat and by the end happy to finish:-) Cheers.

A quick find and we are off on our round the world race.No time to linger

TFTC

2013-12-17 10:28 With a few days here in the ACT to spare I took a look at the map and thought, that looks like a series. Sure enough it was. Set out this morning with the aim of completing all 50. Made it through them in about 4hrs15mins. It was getting quite warm out with a forecast of 30 so once the 50 were complete it was time to get out of the sun. My thanks to Sol de lune for the series.

I decided I wanted to increase my cache total and this looked like an excellent way to do that quickly - except it's hot. Thanks Sol de lune

Finally a 'must see' that I have personally experienced in real life! Many years ago with young children visited the reef off Cairns. Fantastic experience with a dive off the outer reef. Unfortunately another natural wonder that is being impacted by human activity - global warming and the federal government giving the OK for dredging to construct a megaport both bode ill for the long term future of this structure.

That’s one more find for me! Thanks so much for hiding this geocache.

That’s one more find for me! Thanks so much for hiding this geocache.

More spiky trees

Good quick cage whilst kids doing a Saturday morning birthday party

Wanted to do this loop and had thought to do it Tuesday 26 November but a quick check of weather changed my mind and am so glad as it was quite warm enough this afternoon. Thought I may have to break it into two parts but am pleased to have completed it in one go. A great chance to try to get to know Little Red Riding Hood (my new GPS) a bit better and I did but the clouds this afternoon set her off a little, but by then I was well on course to understand Sol de lune's methods. At first I wondered about the indicator for the hanging mechanism on some, but soon realised its importance when trying to replace the caches. Was actually taking more time to open, sign log and to replace it, than to walk from one cache to the next. (Well a little exaggeration maybe - but I managed to improve that eventually.) If I didn't find the caches quickly I realised that I had presumed that I knew where they were and soon rechecked and discovered I was at the wrong spot. Not surprising that some tracks are starting to show as people try to avoid the blackberries. I think it is going to take more time to complete this logging process than it was to walk the circuit as I try to strain the brain for comments on each location that we are fortunate enough to have visited. Many, many thanks for this wonderful circuit Sol de lune.
Loved the Smurf. Must remember to get some little treasure.

Great Barrier Reef: So vast that just one visit out to see it does not do it justice. But loved what I saw on my visit off Cairns.

The focus of today was the 50 Must See Places series. I had seen it on a map of Canberra and thought that I might do it in my holidays, on the way back from Port Macquarie. So today was the day. It was an excellent day for it to, with mainly sunny skies but not too hot and a cool breeze.

I did my dive course in Cairns with 3 - 4 days diving on the reef - amazing.

My thanks to Sol de lune for the cache.

The first in this series that we have been to. Visited the reef when travelling in North Queensland. Although the weather was not the best, windy, overcast and a little choppy we did do two trips to view the reef and were fascinated by the multi coloured coral and the great variety of fish. We even saw a turtle swimming beside the submersible. Definitely worthy of a place in the 50 places to visit. Plenty of wonderful experiences no matter what your preferred activities are.
Another quick find on our way round.

Set off around one PM after a late start to the day. Good walk! Remember to take sunscreen with you, the meeples are a bit pink after three hours wandering around in the sun.

Mr. Meeple has been to the GBR as a child, and has no helpful hints or tips about what to do there.

I set off with the intent of finding all 52 caches in this series. My aim was to complete this mission in under 5 hours. I wanted to find 10 per hour, or there abouts. A bike mount for my GPS had arrived in the mail just the day before, so I had to test it out. My bike hadn’t seen daylight for ages, but it should be OK. The weather wasn’t looking too good after the snap cold that had just set in, but I was ready to take a chance. I grabbed my beany instead of my helmet. The sky was dark with grey clouds, and at 8.28am I set off. Finding some of these caches reminded me of hanging picture frames on my wall, not sure why. Anyway, after cache #9 I sheltered from some rain under a tree for 9 minutes. Between cache #16 & #17 the brakes on my bike needed adjusting, luckily I had some basic tools. Then it was the bike seat, it became loose. Had to tighten it. At cache #22 more brake problems. This repair delayed me another 8 minutes. Cache #34 took me the longest to find: 15 minutes, but most caches were found within afew minutes. At cache #48 my GPS ran out of juice. Lucky I had a spare set. Cache #52 was logged after 4 hours and 15 minutes. Total distance according to my GPS was 14.4 kms. I enjoyed every second of too. Except for the thorns. And the uphills. Oh yeah, top 50. I won’t log each cache individually, but if you need a place to stay in Christchurch, New Zealand, Airport Birches Motel in Russley is the place. I stayed there in 2005 and the service and location are the best you’ll ever find. Thanks again Sol de lune for this series. Now I just have to jump back on my bike and do this another 51 times…

Done.

There is a lot of activity going on across the road with the building of the new road.
TFTC

Smurfs up

Been there in '88, great place.

veni, vidi, scripsi

7 down

#954 - 07:45; The seventh in the series completed after an early start in the hunt for find number 1000. Having been abandoned by my fellow cachers mastahdemoli and Canberrachick and with Rapidlywild and specimenX running rampant in the Riverina I was doing it solo. It was a beautiful morning and just me, the roos and the birds while I headed around to see what I could see! I have travelled up to far North Queensland, but am yet to make it out onto the Reef. A definite 'must do' next time I head up that way. TFTC Sol de Lune

Now here's one I have been to. Beautiful area to sail. The snorkelling is good too.

A great day to go riding the some of the tracks of Stromlo. Plan is to find all fifty in this series plus any other nearby whilst enroute. Thanks Sol de lune.

TFTC

Geocache #544.
Found on Sunday, 8th September 2013 at 6:40 AM.
Conditions: clear.
Current streak #39 days.
Today's finds 8 of 82.

My 443rd find for The Great Scouts Australia Geocaching Competition 2013. With just over a week of the competition remaining, I had some leave owing and decided to take it for a geo-adventure in the Australian Capital Territory and Canberra. What a way to celebrate Canberra's centenary, as well as the Federal election!

Officially day one of my trip and the night before I made the plan to tackle the 50 Must See Places power trail to begin with. I set off from my hotel at about 5:45 AM and left the car at the suggested parking site to start at number one. Once at GZ, it was a quick find and I soon had the CIH and log signed. TFTC Sol de lune.

I found the cache laying open on the ground and not where it was intended to be. The CO may wish to check on it to see if some TLC is necessary.

"JordsAU

An early morning start for us and Delta Response Team and with four of us on bikes we had a great day riding around. It's a pity that this area will no longer be available caches like this but I am sure other will replace them.

Heading up our first real hill, but the bikes handled this one ok - TFTC

Cache # 7 for today,

A Plan was hatched with JuSoJaRa and Diamantina Stars to go out for a day of Power trail blitzing. Thins included the 50 Places and NRL series. A 6.30 pick up meant we had a nice early start.

Haven't been to the location but I very much want to...

TFTC

Yeah, you should definitely see the reef. It's amazing.

Found with ucanfindmojo and pirry after lego expo

Found this after the lego expo 2013

Found with Mandi and Pirry

Nice day to do this kind of trek. Thanks for the adventure

With Mandi and UCanFindMojo

TFTC

Nice day to do this kind of trek. Thanks for the adventure

With Mandi and UCanFindMojo

TFTC

Nice day to do this kind of trek. Thanks for the adventure

With Mandi and UCanFindMojo

TFTC

This entry was edited by pirry on Thursday, 15 August 2013 at 12:11:16 UTC.

Found and logged at 9:03
One of 55 cache for a day of caching while completing the Must See Places
I have forgotten how cold and windy can get
Thanks Sol de lune
Lgoody

GSAGC #619. I was in Canberra for an International Team meeting so planned to tackle the 50 Must See Places series of caches on Friday 2nd August. Had hoped to finish all 50 in one day but started out a bit late so decided to go in reverse order to give myself a Uriarra Road bailout option.

I began with #1 & #2 then jumped across to Another Extra, An Extra, followed by #50 to #17 - 38 in total and a new daily record Had to call it a day at this point but I returned for an hour to complete the series before my Sunday evening flight home to Perth. I thoroughly enjoyed this series and was most impressed that all the co-ords (with just 1 exception) were absolutely spot on. The containers were also of a good size and easily found. Whilst the scenery was somewhat bland, I enjoyed the invigorating walk through the rolling hills of the Molonglo Nature Reserve.

Missed seeing the GBR due to poor weather when visiting Cairns. I'll be back I've also rewarded this series with a FAV point and Scout Pathtag 01 at the 50th of 50 Must See Places - Zanzibar. Bravo Sol de lune for the great effort that you have put in to this very entertaining series of caches. However, I suggest that you subtitle this series "Scrambles through the Brambles"