#7 Sand Islands PT - Spectacle Island Swansea, New South Wales, Australia
By colleda on 07-Mar-13. Waypoint GC478YV

With continuing rain, and the island being regularly flooded, has taken its toll on this cache.

What lousy weather of late, wind, rain. Will hopefully get a fine day coinciding with a free day.

Weather seems to have settled, hopefully. Should get to it soon on a maintenance ru

Waiting for weather to improve.

Having health/fitness problems. Will get to it as soon as I can.

needs maintenance

On a roll here. Starting to think i should of gotten 2 singles, but then i would probably be towing Madrabbitoh anyway. We need to learn to read the map a little better, as we were headed for the wrong isle. Once back on track, and beaching out in the middle there, we made it. A nice nest in the trees, very close to gz. Wonder which of the many bird varieties it belongs to. A resonable quick find, once we broadened our search. We saw a pair of White Bellied Sea Eagles, on this very island, just East of here, on our way to the next. This log was just pulp, and not having any baggies on us, we slipped a piece of paper in, but it too will trun to mush, as it is saurated in the bag.

Hard going but we made it and found a place to stop. A lovely island with much bird life. Log was pulp but we put a piece of paper in the cache to show we had been here. Saw some beautiful Sea Eagles on leaving the island. May need a new dry bag and paper when next their. TFTC

TFTC!
Found with GeoJess, R2Beef2 and myself. We had a great morning paddling around to all the different islands and collecting these caches. Definitely one of my favourite trails so far

GeoJess and I headed inland and soon made the find. Cache in great nick. TFTC!

A little tricky to get to with the boat but got there in the end

Found with bedlem2 and toad008

Found

This morning we loaned the 2 person Canadian canoe from the owner and started our paddling tour. It was a very windy day with headwind.
TFTC

Checked today. All good.

Found today on a nice trip through the sand islands after borrowing a friends little tinny! Awesome caches!

### ***TFTC*** ###

#4036
For years we've wanted to get out and do this series, for ages the kids were a bit young, or we didn't have a kayak, then when we did try last year we butted up against winds that nearly blew us away. When I learned a work colleague had a little tinny we could use, and lived on the lake (next door to the CO) we knew what to do! So today we teamed up with Banj5150 for an early start.
As usual, I walked straight over the top of this, it was nabbed by Banj and the boys.... cache in good condition..... we added a little cover.... TFTC!

Found with Dad, Samuel and Banj on our morning in the boat at the sand islands, lots of fun!

## ***TFTC!*** ##

I joined Team 737 to find the Sand Island caches on this overcast Sunday afternoon.
We were borrowing a tinny from a friend of the 737s, and launched from very close to the COs house.
This was an easy find, a lot easier than getting over the sandbank and the seaweed.
TFTC

Found with My Dad (DJANT) and my Brothers (dart16 & Jedi Anakin) I have my own account now and am trying to catch up to the boys Thanks for the cache.

Gotcha - Found with a lot of searching. Eventually uncovered it. Replaced as we found it. Tftc

Changed the hint to reflect the changed conditions since it was placed.

Checked on this today. Wow! So much has changed here since I placed it. It was placed between two trees under some prickly pear and other grasses. Today I could not find it. After searching for about 20 mins, checking coords on both GPSr and phones I eventually uncovered it by finding the two trees which now had just bare ground for over a metre around them. My foot brushed some leaf litter and there it was, ground level. I'm guessing either the prickly pear had been eradicated by a Landcare group or has been killed off by being swamped by salt water during storms. I've left it as is for them moment until I decide its future.

Nice and easy find. Muggles close by thought we looked really strange huddling around a tree.

Boxing Day boating, fishing and caching. Awesome. Had to be careful getting in to this cache but a successful find. TFTC.

New cache in place in new spot.

Good to go again.

Coordinates changed from:
S 33° 3.900 E 151° 37.977

Coordinates changed to:
S 33° 3.905 E 151° 37.894

Distance from original: 424.3 feet or 129.3 meters.

Replacing missing cache in new spot

I have been in hospital. Will fix this as soon as I have recovered sufficiently. Sorry for the delay

Cache check today. This one has gone missing. Will replace soon.

Today we decided to tackle a few caches in the Lake Macquarie area so we hired a double Kayak from Lake Mac Kayak hire and headed off at 8:30 am before it was too hot. Our 1st stop was number 6 and we worked our way in a clockwise direction finding 5 out of the 6 caches and this was one of them

The wind was up so off we went full paddle ahead enjoying what the lake had to offer. There were many boating/fishing muggles about making the most of the hot day.

We spemt a long time searching for this one so we were happy when we made the find.

Thanks "colleda " for providing this challenge and placing and maintaining these caches for our enjoyment.

The lid pictured is not a piece of this cache. The cache is a systema with two clips, not four.

I found a few odd things... But the nearest I found to a cache was a lonely sistema lid lying in the grass/etc next to where I took the photo... I am guessing that is the remains of the cache?...

Needs checking.

On looking at the picture of what neke70 found, it is not one of our containers but will check it anyway.

Hubby found a lid a few metres from where we think it was supposed to be. We couldn’t find the cache.

Holidaying in a waterfront cottage we took advantage of their kayaks for a day of caching

Our fifth find of the day. Plenty of hint items around but after searching what felt like all of them geohubby laid eyes on it

Tftc

Cool hide

Found while in the area for the Mary hyde event, thanks for the great series - will have to come back and finish the rest.

found with little roo mighty minions and team novo with a very cool hint we all learned something on this one. we spotted a large star fish just off the island.

Heading over to the Event it was good to see the two disabled ones up and going again. We launch from the south as we tried to catch up with Team Canary and Purple People Eater who had launched before us. Good conditions for padding as we made our way around. No problems with this one. We completed the signign duties and re hid. TFTC

Headed up to Swansea to attend the Event and took the chance to complete the Sand Island series. A beautiful morning for a paddle and a really enjoyable set of caches. This was 7
SL TFTC

had so much fun finding this cache TFTC

After finding number 4 in the series we cut straight across to this one. team novo had already made the find when we arrived but stood back to let us search as well. After he showed us a photo the find was soon made. Then we saw a really cool large starfish on the way to the next cache. Thanks for the cache Colleda tnln sl

Out today to attend the GC76ZBV **Mary Hyde & Seek?** GS MaryHide pirate event on Pelican Island and after hearing that CO colleda had offered up the use of their canadian 2-man canoe we jumped at the chance to attend a water event and to come and do these Sand Island series of caches!

This #6 in the series was the next cache on our agenda once the event wound up. We put a number of faces to names today which was brilliant. Mighty Minions, Bryzee, and Little Roo were three such teams and they suggested to us why not sail as a flotilla out to the remaining Sand Island caches as they too had come from Colleda Bay and had the same ones in the series left to do as we did. Great! They went off to do #4 first while first mate novo and I made a head start for Spectacle Island. We quickly spotted the hide and then I realised how the hint worked (not quite spring yet) only after the fact as I had googled a pic while the others were landing. We all signed the log and re-hid as found. What a fantastic spot for a cache. We looked across the water to the next island where #7 must be and then set sail. TFTC, colleda, and thanks again for the lend of the canoe. We had a most awesome day of caching with good company on what was a fantastic day on the water today!
#463

Our eighth find on the water with Purplepeopleater.

A quick find as we made our way back after the Event.

TFTC.

Found while attending the 'Mary Hyde & Seek' event. Launching the kayak at the recommended coordinates and doing just under 8km visiting all the required sand islands to find all attempted caches today, this was the 7th one today, After #1 i moved to this one after coming here this morning without any luck. TFTC colleda

# 933

Replaced cache with new and slightly larger one.

We have a new replacement ready to go as soon as time and weather intersect. As there is a cache still there to be found we have enabled it.

Will try and get this fixed soon weather permitting

This geocacher reported that there is a problem with this cache.

Having lucked out on #3 and #4, I paddled south to this island, trying not to run aground on the many sand bars here. Realising the cache was on the opposite side, I paddled around in an anticlockwise direction, which of course was the long way around.

Eventually drawing level with GZ, I found a convenient gap in the mangrove roots to beach the kayak and soon had the cache in hand.

Sadly the container is no longer waterproof and there was a fair bit in the bottom which I tipped out. The log bags hadn't been properly resealed either and the log was quite wet although I was still able to sign it. In the process of putting it back in the bag, though, it started to disintegrate so some TLC is needed. I'll set the NM flag on this new logging page, but of course it doesn't let me put anything in the NM log so I hope you can trace it back to this.

Many thanks for the hides in this series and I'll definitely be back again sometime to do the ones I missed out on.

Another one to attend to after #3 & #4.

Log too wet to write on unfortunately.

Log too wet to write on unfortunately.

Mr Roo ask me come to Sand Island PT 1-7... He go to Bushwalking with his friends first then meet me ... Had so much fun doing this series of caches. Thank you Mr Roo for let me borrow his Kayak.. I love his Kayak to island.... see Mr Roo comments...

Thanks colleda... put fav for you... WINK!

Out today with All7 and my bushwalking club. Today was a club event and I invited All7 to join us. The bushwalking club hadnt done much geocaching before but had heard about it from me. They all had a turn on finding one, even the ones who were just there for the paddle. We had a great time going onto the sand island that they had paddled but not stopped on the many times they had been on the lake.

This one we got out and walked to gz and the clue made sense once we got to gz. There was a tent on the island so didnt spend to long on it TFTC

Will try and get there soon and replace log but I have a health issue at the moment which is preventing me from going out on the water.

Tftc. Quick find

Found it. It needs a new log it has been very wet

Needs new log

Found it needs a new log

By now we'd tried for 5 caches in this series and found a measly 2. It was nice to have a fairly easy find for a change! TFTC
Cheers.
The Hancock Clan

Out with the Geodad for a kayak around the lake from Wyee point to Swansea and back. Found on our lunch break on one our practice paddles for our Whitsunday adventure! With caching not really our priority today, we chose to have a quick look for just this one (70m from lunch) and the one on the island less than 100m across the water. With evidence of last weekends rain that had washed over this island, we were most surprised to actually find the container! No pen, so we had to photo log. Excuse our kayaking finery! TFTC!!!!

As MrsG hadn't come prepared with extra joggers it was one careful step after another in thongs. It would have been nothing short of a spectacle on Spectacle Island if she'd made contact with one of those prickly pears. Eventually MrG pulled up the kayak and joined the hunt finding the cache in the first place he looked. [xx(] TFTC colleda.

The quickest find of the whole series!

Thanks for a great series!

Had a quick look around and had CIH. T4TC

Ready for action.

Finally, a dry, relatively calm, sunny, winters day. A chance to do a maintenance run after the recent storms.
This was washed from its hide but found it close by. Good to go again.

Still waiting for some decent weather so's we can go check on this series.

Due to the storm conditions of the last few days we are disabling this series until we can check them out to avoid disappointing would be finders.

A quick find. Log in great condition. Today makes day 50 of my current streak, and also calendar day 199 of 365. Getting there! Thanks for a fun day (2 hours) on the boat. TNLN TFTC

Thanks Colleda. Nice new log. Good hide for me and my kids.

Came to replace log today but found muggles camped within a few metres. Will have to come back.

Found

TFTC it needs a new log it was full of water I could pure it out

We towed the kayaks most of the way to this island. There was only a small channel right near the island that would have been too deep to walk across. We went a bit further to the left as we approached, to get as close to GZ as possible. We pulled up and I saw a channel just behind GZ and said we could have pulled up in there. We quickly used the hint as the area is so grown over, the area also has an introduced species of cactus close by. Even with the hint this took quite a while, we had figured out the clue, and were searching everywhere it matched, but were getting ready to leave when I found it. It is a simple hide, but we found it very hard to spot. As we were leaving and continued clockwise around the island I looked for a way into the channel I had seen earlier. But there was no way into that body of water. So what I thought was a “U” shaped island, was actually an “O” shaped island.
Thanks for showing me this great island, you have to wonder how it formed the way it did!

Part 2 of kayaking with Tombi to find the ones we didn't get the first time. Also brought the mrs along.

Out and about for a couple of finds today. This one was soon located and our first find of this series is logged. Thanks for the cache colleda.

Found it with Rollse. Came in on the wrong side of the island but had a good trail so all is good. TFTC.

Enjoyed the stop. TFTC

Landed the kayaks on the other side of the island and followed a trampled track to GZ. Gave the GeoDog a stretch of the legs who came charging along beside us. Very accurate coordinates made this a simple hide, TFTC

We started our Sand Islands PT paddling over from the boat ramp at the end of Naru road, collecting #8 first. This one was a quick find. Good camo on the container. Thanks Colleda for placing these caches out on these sand islands. So much fun paddling around admiring the wildlife on land and in the water.

First finder for 2014!! Once we worked out the type of plant we needed to find the cache was easily located

Luckily I had Grub Fred [the botanist] with me to identify the plant life so as to find GZ!!
Thanks colleda.

A day out with Yella Belly who was kind enough to invite me on board the mighty Yella Belly 2 to cruise the lake for the Sand Islands series, nice lilies (or is that lilys?) but not bromeliads? My beloved has bromeliads galore and we have some of these lilies (or is that lilys?) around our house, it's kinda like The Day of the Triffods! TFTC colleda!!

Came for a paddle out here today to find a couple more in this series. Found this pretty easily after a nice walk along this island. I come fishing out here a fair bit but have never actually walked on these islands. Thanks

Tftc great hide

Done. 2 down. 5 to go

We were staying at Blacksmiths Caravan Park for the weekend, so we packed the canoe for a day on the water. Wish I had my phone's satellite views for this one. We made ground on the northern side and dragged the canoe into the lagoon, then paddled across the stench and dragged the canoe across the land again. This was the toughest one yet for us and by now the kids were over it. They stayed in the canoe and waited...and waited....and waited....
Thanks colleda for a great morning out on the water.
Cheers from Browngang

Tftc tnln no pen took photo

Reperio at 1020.

As pprass was staying a couple of days in Newcastle, we both had today free to do a spot of caching, so a plan was hatched to head out on the water and find this series...however...without access to a water craft, we were fortunate enough that the CO came to our rescue to lend us their kayaks.

It was at this point on our paddle today that we noticed the dark clouds off in the distance, and wondered if they were headed our way. Fortunately for us the cache was found quickly.

Gratias colleda.

Found at 10:19 AM GAFF5 in the company of Marcus Vitruvius. We were fortunate to have had a chat with Colleda the previous day when doing their Victory Bay cache and an offer was made that we could use their kayaks to do this PT series - and rubber booties would be thrown in as well! We jumped at the offer of course [^]
The only problem was that we had to provide our own muscle power , which on a calm and still day would not be an issue, but today the weather had changed and there was a bit of a breeze and the tide was flowing quite strongly - the wrong way of course .
Gosh - the breeze is really picking up now and there is a very dark cloud south of here. That better not hit us as we are wet enough from just paddling
Thanks colleda.

Thanks Colleda for all of the laughs we had today. We started with this cache because it was the closest to where we moored. Not knowing this island well enough we just picked one side and went for it...the family made it through the mangrove swamp and thick mud in the middle, I was left knee deep in what felt like quicksand at the time. Found the cache and really loved how well it was hidden with the cammo nearby. Moved on laughing and smelling like rotting sea creatures.

Came back to finish the pt. Great day for it

By this stage the sun was dipping down a fair way, and it was time to hurry up!
Beached near a broken 'surf ski' which would be handy if someone was game enough to try the reverse direction sans boat.
After checking a few different possibilities we found the cache - dry and intact. TNLN
THANKS for the Paddle Trail colleda

1700 GAFF2 REALLY enjoying this Paddle Trail! Pulled up beside a broken 'surf ski', but not sure what it is doing here. It would be very handy if someone had come in reverse, tho I'm sure it wouldn't be me!
There were quite a few spots to check here, and soon found it.
Left the last 2 x AA batteries I had brought with me - while slightly used they have plenty of power.
Will include this for the Challenging Cache bookmark
Brought through for mileage: 3 Bros, Aust Light Houses, B 2 B ingot, I Bashed at MidWest 2007, Iconic Bridges, cache critters Baa, Neigh Neddy, and Oink, and trackable shirt.
TFTC Paddle Trail colleda

Another great island and a Great Cache, TFTC

Woah! , what a great little trail for us paddlers ! Spotted these just a few days ago when passing by on my way to work.
I never even knew these islands existed, I kept looking for Gilligan, The Skipper, or more importantly Ginger , but had no luck there. Plenty of signs on most of the islands that camping is going on, and littering [:(!] Watch out for broken bottles!!!
All hides are right on for accuracy, and you'll need about 4hrs to complete this trail in comfort. I found you can take a few shortcuts by simply going straight over a few of the islands instead of around them in annoying shallows .
I did this trail in reverse order and an incoming tide, the wind almost helped me on my return to the boat ramp.
All in all a most enjoyable day out, with huge rainstorms to the south threatening all afternoon, a multitude of birdlife, and Flora, not to mention huge tri-hulled cats, and even one I could paddle under
Only one minor gripe, the speeding boat traffic....so take your kayak skirts, towel, and change of clothes

[green] - Found It ... at 3:47 PM ...
TFTC! - colleda ... [/green]
Total Finds now ... 561


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Love these islands!
Thoroughly enjoyed this PT series - well done, colleda, for putting it together.