Quest! Strathfieldsaye, Victoria, Australia
By Romax (adopted by claybol) on 24-Nov-12. Waypoint GC41H74

Find No. 4857. Found with FUF009 at 1.00pm.Melbourne Cup Day holiday where we live, so we all decided to go to Bendigo for the day caching. (No holiday in Bendigo as they have their own Cup Day off). We went with FUF009 in his ute today.First up it was to pick up a couple of items, then it was off caching for the rest of the day.As FUF009 was the driver, he was driving around getting all the caches that he needed off his list, going here, there and all over the place. Luckily for us we also needed to find them.Wow, a cache we are finally getting to find that is a puzzle that we had worked out years ago now. Like most puzzle caches in Bendigo - we have them all worked out - just haven't taken the time out to find them. Parked the ute and off we walked over 550m to locate it. Now that was a decent sized cache worth finding and worth the walk. Log signed and back we walked. Being in the bush we decided to stay where we parked and get the table and chairs out and have lunch, before we continued on.TFTC claybol

Find # 16132Found with Tyred n Cranky With today being, Melbourne Cup holiday back home. I decided to go to Bendigo (as no holiday there )Had a couple of things to pick up before hitting up the caching map to make some more finds in the area. Have had this one solved for years, so long I've forgotten how to do it. Any way the coords were saved and still correct. After an interesting drive along the bush track we soon had to park up and legg it to GZ. So good to finally tick this one off the solved list. TFTC Romax (adopted by claybol)

It is not very often that I say this, "cache found and log signed by myself", but I was here on my own as I had the Hilux in at Bendigo Toyota for it's scheduled service, and my man was back in Tatura working .

Have had these few "luxury" Romax/claybol mysterie's on my list to find and sign for a while now, and today was the opportune time to find them.

Some I had a hand in solving, some slightly but I found them all on my own today .

This sure was a quest, not saying I didn't enjoy it.
I got to where I could with the car and with a salad roll, phone and stick in my hands for the spider webs, I went forth to claim my prize. There were so many spider webs that by the time I got back to the car my stick looked like a stick of Fairy Floss.
Goodness knows how many spiders I enjoyed with my roll .

This one gets a favourite as it was the most enjoyable cache of the day.

After dropping the car off, getting into the loan car which happened to be another Hilux, and heading straight to Eaglehawk Bakery for a coffee and some delicious Hot Cross Buns.
I was targeting caches that my partner dalerious has signed prior to us becoming a partnership .

Less the urban the more I love so any QUEST into the bush is embraced! Not being known for my undeveloped IT skills, this took some revisiting before the Penny dropped. Grrrrrr! Basic or not? Out and about on trusty treadles AKA the MTB having a great time exploring the fab GBNP - love the iron barks and carpets of wildflowers…then there’s the spiders…webs across tracks deter the arachnophobe - but there is a nicer way - creeping under them so their hard work is not destroyed. Had a few tests taking photos. TFTC and the FUN!

As others have mentioned, this cache has been a Quest in name and nature. It is difficult to impart our whole puzzle solving story without giving any spoilers away however suffice to say I employed all our learned wizardry skills systematically going through each of those varying methods to solve this puzzle. It goes without saying; knowing Roma and Max were behind the puzzle and placement of this cache you know it’s going to be far from straight forward. I didn’t know it at the time, but the numbers I needed were staring at me in the face from one of the methods I tried however having seen this type of field and numbers a 1000 times before I just ignored it. I would go as far to say the link to these particular numbers was so obscure for me I would never of connected these without assistance, in this case a chat with Cybergran V who I am grateful too.

With the coordinates finally in hand, and on an afternoon with the temperature in the mid 30s, warmest for the year so far, Brian and I started our quest to GZ along a 4WD track that had suffered severe washouts and deep ruts from the recent rain a few weeks ago. Having looked at Google Earth prior to our trip, I naively thought we could drive almost straight to the cache, not a problem. We had to stop about 360 metres from our destination. (There was really no option but to walk). The mountain (hill) directly in front of us we needed to traverse was going to either kill us or be a good cardio workout. Fortunately we have both lived to tell the story, just. Large spiders at home in their webs crossed our path all the way to GZ. We wrestled these down with sticks. At GZ, seemingly for us at the top of the world, we found our reward. The cache, contents and log looked like they were new and had only been placed there yesterday. Everything was in perfect condition. In reality it had been there for years and last opened just over 2 years ago. Brian and I don't usually go in for swag but we were both tempted with the new Coca Cola yoyo still in its plastic wrapper but we left it deciding our yo-yoing days were well behind us. Thank you Clayton for maintaining this cache in our addictive game. Now, where is the 4WD geomobile from here? Greg.

Found with Cybergran V and her MuggleHubby.

Yep.... Quest by name and quest by nature as it really was a bit of a mission and a combined effort to get our names in this logbook. [:o]
Cybergran V was the brains of the operation. We would not have known where to start looking without her. [^]
MuggleHubby piloted the Rig that got us close.
I just helped out with the last bit.

My fav cache container and this one was found in excellent condition with quality swag as if it was placed yesterday.
With sanitised hands I traded an unwrapped cocacola yoyo for the tape measure found within. [8)]

TFTC Romax and thanks for looking after it claybol.

This cache has truly been a quest of mine for many years.
Today was the day to mark this one off the list and replace the blue Quest ion mark on our map with a smiley face.
With the intrepid Muggle Hubby at the wheel, and myself having found the coordinates, and navigated us here, it was left to dalerious to locate the cache, and I’m pleased to report that none of us failed to achieve our quest.
Thanks for the clean, well stocked cache Romax, and thanks Claybol for maintaining it.
A favourite point from us.

Re-enabling the cache now that lock-down restrictions have been relaxed again

Disabling due to new COVID-19 restrictions

Found thanks

Had a great time exploring areas that we haven't been to before. Have to love caching. Look forward to coming back and exploring more. Thanks for the cache.

Enjoying walking and driving around in this area. New to us but would love more time to explore further. Thanks for taking over this cache and bringing us here.

3:00 pm #9542
My fellow cacher had already solved this puzzle, so I was a tag-along today. However, when I got home I managed to solve this sneaky little puzzle.
Thanks for placing and maintaining this cache, claybol

After many fails to get concordance we asked for a clue and worked it out!
First big find of 2020!
Left hand sanitizer (Covid-19 Safe)
Took nothing.
Thanks for a great well maintained find.

Found at 1:56 PM GAFF1.
What a quest this was! Made it to within 260 metres by 4wd and then we completely stuffed it by going over a hill that we didn't have to do [B)]
A long way for 260 metres - should be a much higher T rating.
On the way back the sensible gully/creek route was taken and then a nice chicken broth for a late lunch,
Thanks claybol

Great day to have a stroll to pick up a few solved puzzles.
This one was a typical Roman puzzle with an easy find.
TFTC

16:17
Along with many like minded geocachers, we braved the wet and windy winter weather of International Geocaching Day to add a few more smiley tokens to our geo-map.
We made a detour on the way south and checking the weather, we made a dash for this one, which has been on our "to-do" list for too long. A FP from us.

Thanks to 'claybol' for the hunt and cache placement
23027

Hi there claybol.

We found your cache **"Quest!"** today. (This makes our find count 19150).

Another fine day in Bendigo, so we took the opportunity to finish some unfinished business and clear up an old DNF as well as visiting some solved puzzles as well as any other cache we happened to pass on our travels on our "next closest" run as determined by the GPS. This of course had us driving all over the place as there is hardly ever a direct route. We found 9 caches today & DNF'd 0.

Feeling quite adventurous, we followed a 4WD track south off Guys Hill Road to a spot quite close to GZ, and then strolled up the hill to find this well stocked and concealed cache. We thoroughly enjoyed our cache raid today. Thanks for placing the cache here, without geocaching as our guide we would never have found so many interesting places on our travels. Thanks also for placing a large cache container here. It made us feel really glad to find a large, kid friendly cache (with swaps) here.

***Coordinate Accuracy:** We found your cache around 2m from where the GPS said we should be looking.
**Cache Condition:** The container and log book are in good shape.
**Took:** Nothing.
**Left:** A Smiley Badge.

Thanks for the hunt today,

Regards

Ian & Penny.

Quest! was transferred from The Morris to user claybol

Quest! was transferred from Romax to user The Morris

On a maintenance visit to two of our nearby caches today we decided we had time to pay a visit to this GZ as well.
On 4 wheels today we approached GZ from Pioneer road using the second track branching north from Guys Hill Road end and parking our vehicle at the walking track intersection 300m from GZ.
An easy climb from there to our destination where we found container and contents were all in good condition.

It's been way too long since Square Pegs and I cached Bendigo so today we put a fix to that with a list of solved mystery caches to turn into smiley faces. The weather today was fantastic, hot and ultimately quite physically draining.This cache was number 20 on our itinerary and I do believe this one cache was our primary target for today. Solving this puzzle started years ago and when it finally was solved it was moved to the solve list where it would sit for way too long.

Thanks Romax I really like where you've placed this clever hide and it was an awesome adventure in getting to GZ to find my favourite type of container.

This puzzle was one that we pondered for some time, and eventually I tried something which was a slight variation on something that I have seen before. What a relief when the checker agreed! The journey to this one was rather warm on this hot afternoon, but well and truly worth it. It is good to finally have the quest completed.

Thanks to Romax for placing this cache.

After being troubled by this elusive puzzle for quite some time, eventually with a bit of a help I was able to make the checker turn green. Today I was in the area so, bright and early I enjoyed the walk to GZ where I found the cache very neatly hidden away. Thanks Romax.

After having a hiatus from caching for the last 6 weeks due to various injuries, we spent our time solving a few puzzles that we would do when we came to Bendigo. These ones were also targeted because each one of them had about a year of unloved which we need at this stage.
Another interesting Romax puzzle to solve. We found a good way in so it was not too hard on the knees. After a short walk up the hill we were able to find the well hidden cache and then we managed to find the right way back to the car again.
Thanks for the unloved and keeping this cache going Romax.

While others have found this puzzle easy, it was far from easy for me. I had at least 18 failed attempts going down many wrong paths. Eventually I ran out of ideas and contacted the CO and a recent finder for a couple of nudges. Funny - I'd actually applied the method used to solve the puzzle before in one of my failed attempts, but not quite the right way. While simple, the correct solution was only one of many other possibilities which is basically what had me stumped for so long. With the puzzle finally solved about a week ago, I waited for the right opportunity to make the find and this evening after work was perfect. With a spare 40 minutes and ideal cooler weather for a good walk, I made my way to GZ, parking off Guys Hill Road. Fantastic walk this evening in the wonderful bush-land surrounding Bendigo and a quick find at the end made for a great way to end the day. Find no. #750 for me!! The cache, log-book and contents were all in great condition. Thanks for the puzzle, the journey and the cache Romax!

Today I was out and about in the big smoke of Bendigo when I decided to put a few puzzles to bed.

This one I had solved some time ago; thanks to about 2000 attempts and a bottle of single malt.

Anyway, today I was in the area and drove past on a made road a location which came within 590m of GZ. I pulled up, grabbed a bottle of water and made my way along a motorbike track. Soon enough the GPSr counted down until a slight deviation to the left took me within 50m.

A good sized, well stocked cache was soon revealed from its hiding spot.

I signed the log and off I went.

Now, that's what happened in summary form. The reality was that the day was so beautiful and clear that I took my time to wander towards GZ, stopping for extended periods to enjoy the sounds of silence. Plenty of birds were making themselves known and the bush....well, the bush. What can I say, I love it.

I would much rather invest time and effort in getting a cache like this rather than pick up a power trail hidden in guard rails!

Thanks Romax, this was a great puzzle and a top walk.

TFTC

The final test of car and driver. Drove as far as I was confident and then walked to GZ. I think I am losing fitness as I was starting to puff a little. I also marked regular waypoints along the way which were used successfully on the way back to the car.
At GZ, I happily found another large well stocked container and my name is now in the log.
After completing log finds, my car will be washed in readiness for Christmas. Grey shows all the dirt.
This was a tough puzzle for me. It was started way back in March 2013.
Again thanks for all the brain stretching exercises with the caches that I found today Romax.

Found in the company of Glanville Girls while spending a day in Bendigo, another tricky Romax puzzle to add to my found list

TFTC

TB drop

We've looked at this puzzle on and off for some time. We finally got a set of numbers that looked good and satisfied the checker. Today we made our way to GZ with ST37E. We parked 500metres from GZ and made the walk in. It was a nice quick find at Gz today. Thanks for the hide Romax.

Up in Bendigo today with some earmarked puzzles, multis and trads to hopefully add to our found list.
This puzzle was a lot easier than we first thought, after trying several different things we finally got the numbers needed for the green light. We weaved the Triton as far as the track could get us to GZ then made our way by foot through the interesting bushland where we found the cache snugly hidden and in good condition.
Thanks Romax for the mystery hide.

Finally worked out the co ords for this cache this morning after much puzzling! and with a quick check again this morning, I was on my way for #232. glad it was a cool morning and thoroughly enjoyed the search at GZ. took time for a sit down for a bite to eat and some photos after the excitement of finding this one,before heading back the way I came. signed log and swapped a camera case for some smilie badges and an Oklahoma magnet. all good at GZ .. #232 Thanks Romax, it was a fantastic journey of learning about puzzles.

found it.
TFTC

Found with some help getting browser to play ball. Thanks to Romax for assistance. I like these bush locations. Saw a wallaby close to GZ.

In Bendigo for a few days to add some smileys on as many mysteries, multi's and a few traditionals. Plus a few caches needed for my A to Z challenge.

The suscoe cachers and the ageing Bushfire have the full range of caching gear with the exception of the kayaks and the wheels to get us to most locations, carrying all the technical gear you could think of.

We were surprised at the small number of cachers that have found this guy so we have for-filled another part of our Quest to find every mystery in Bendigo.

As suscoe has stated we drove fairly close and then walked the rest of the way. I guess the CO used a off road bike.

Thanks to Romax for showing us another part of the bushland around this location.

Well this was going to be a day out finding some of the caches that have been on the list for a while and a couple of new ones.
We were in the great company of Bushfire today as we were enjoying the delights of a late Winter visit to Bendigo

Bushfire and Suscoe had worked through the puzzle and now today the visit to GZ took place!!!!!!
An epic Quest indeed.
We walked the last 300 metres and found the well hidden cache just waiting patiently in the cool morning air.

With the lure of coffee awaiting we made a hasty retreat and went on our own Quest in search of the source of the coffee aroma from over there.

With the warm coffee on the inside we felt a sense of achievement with this cache.

Now which way do we go???

This was find #6 of 7 during a 12-hour 501km road trip from Geelong to Bendigo.
The main aim was to get away from urban micros and muggles, and look for a few bigger caches that required some bushwalking. And this cache sure fitted the bill - a 4km walk in the rain, getting dark and without a torch, and I even got lost so had to resort to my many marked waypoints to find my way back as I was on no marked path most of the time!!! I was just hoping my GPSr batteries would keep going, which fortunately they did.
I usually go prepared on my hikes, and take enough kit in case of an unexpected overnight stay (space blankets, torches, batteries, food etc.). In this case, somehow expecting a drive-by like at a previous cache, made me stupidly leave my backpack in the car - so lesson learnt.

But this was the exact reason why I was here - for some bushwalks like this which I really enjoyed despite the mild panic when lost and unprepared in the dark. Even the 70mm of rain earlier wasn't going to stop my "quest" here . The cache was in perfect condition.

Thanks for the adventure, Romax!

I received a hint for this one, only to find out I had used the method before to try and solve other Romax caches! We parked 700m from GZ and bush bashed to the cache. It must be the start of the Orb Spider season as I got tangled in webs on a couple of occasions! TFTC

Eventually, after many twists and turns, I managed to work out this puzzle.
As with most puzzles, when you know the answer it is easy, and having seen something similar some months ago things slowly dropped into place.
I'm surprised that nobody else has worked it out.
Thanks Romax for a cunning puzzle, excellent co-ords and a pleasant morning out in the bush.

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