Star Wars Cache Series:Darth Sidious Ballarat East, Victoria, Australia
By Shamus1 on 24-Jul-13. Waypoint GC4H00Y

After all this time I can finally tick this one off. The other 2 time I came here wasnt here do t know where I was directed to. Nice cache tftc

Beautiful day to be out & about after spending 3 days sick in bed. Found after a little searching. Tftc

Tftc fourth one down for the day.

Found but the cache was completely soaked, luckily 1 of the logs was dry enough to sign

Day 9 of my interstate trip. Today I left Maryborogh and headed into Ballarat where I met up with some locals at a morning coffee event and helped out at a CITO. After that I found some local Geocaches before I left town and headed towards Bendigo making it as far as Mount Franklin Reserve where I set up camp for the night. I managed to find 21 caches today and only 1 DNF.A quick detour while heading towards another cache close by.TFTC Shamus1

Found with Bullash on 15 March 2024

Thanks!

TFTC. GPS had us going round in circles but got there eventually! Log book wetSetting up camp for a week in Murray Bridge before the MEGA for 29th Feb!Moving to Ballarat for another week afterwards. Last hurrah travelling before wooding season at home starts!Happy caching and safe travels!

Little tough walk through the long grass on a hot day was not ideal. Eventually got to GZ where it was an easy find. TFTC!

Counts for today: caches 2, native animals 2 (echidna and bunny rabbit). Times rained on 1. TFTC and adventure

A beautiful spot for a cache! Found whilst in the area for work today. Thank you for placing!

Found thanks to hint! Early morning stroll waiting for others to get up. Thanks for this cache Shamus1 and to all the Ballarat area cache hiders. Appreciate your efforts.Regardskbucky

We are in Ballarat for a Birds of Prey Encounter today. Our AirBnB is this side of town so I headed out into the lovely mild Ballarat morning on the bike to search out some local caches. This was my last find this morning. I was a little wary of the difficulty rating, but it turned out to be a nice easy find. The logbook and bag were very wet, so I didn't attempt to sign it,but added a replacement waterproof paper log in a new bag. The natural camouflage was a little sparse, so I added some to protect this cache from muggles. TFTC Shamus1

Found it but log book too wet to sign properly. Needs to be replaced.

Found the cache after walking throg thick bracken. Cache had water iit and log soaked so much I didn't ven attempt to sign it.

Neds CO stenting desperately.

Se photos.

Easiest find on a cold, rainy Ballarat day: David, Meredith and Maddie.

Followed the road as long as possible and then took the walk the last 60 metres. Cache was found without issue, however everything was soaked and signing the log was with any resemblance to written words was impossible. Photo attached of the log book.

Thanks anyway Shamus1...been enjoying the themed caches...however this one needs a visit and some TLC.

Easy find with hint but soggy approaches. Lovely bush: David

Found on our way past while touring around Ballarat today. Bit of a walk through the bush and this one was found. Cache was full of water so drained out as much as possible, logbook is still soaked.

Find #5412 on 8 Feb 2023.
TFTC Shamus1!

Thanks found it after work this afternoon. love bush caches.

Found it.

Nice little find. Bit of a walk through the scrub to get it.

*Found on the 19 Mar 2022 @ 3:06 pm.*
*Cache find # 12610.*

After finishing up at an event and then a CITO, it was now time to see what else was around to find so off I headed.
Seeing that I was in this area and so was this cache, I parked the car and went for a stroll to GZ where it wasn't long before I was signing the logbook.

**Thanks to Shamus1 for placing this cache.**

TFTC smile 11088 out and about with miss millie geo dog Hatzofff RoddyC and Snickersallan great caches, great day ,col weather,
signing as Team 44 Qld
Thank you, Shamus1, for placing this cache for our enjoyment.

Day 10 of our southern trip. Ballarat, including the GeoTour.

Fighting through the bracken, we found the cache OK.

Log signed and cache replaced as found at 8:23 AM on January 19, 2022. TFTC, Shamus1

Staying in lovely Ballarat for a week caching with geo friends hatzofff, grannysmith1947 and RoddyC. To save space on log sheets we are signing as Team 44 QLD.
Nice walk in amongst the ferns where a quick find was made.

TFTC Shamus1

Day 10 of our southern trip caching around Ballarat.

Caching and travelling with RoddyC snickersallan and grannysmith1947. Signed as 44Qld.

TFTCache Shamus1

Found it with Silence49 and Cranky1 and Pwala while on Ballarat Geo Tour

Found it with lance51 and crank1

Out today to this beautiful area to complete the Ballarat GeoTour with Crank1, Lance51 & silence49. It is very windy and cold here. Shamus1, thank you so much for placing it and highlighting this area.

Accompanied with pwala, silence49, and lance51. We are doing with geo tour Shamus1, thank you so much for placing it.

Awesome find

Nice wander in the bracken.

Our mission to find the Dark Lord of the Sith was a success, thank you

Nice little walk through the bracken, which probably wasn't the easiest way to go! But got there in the end.

Ram with pig

Found!

Nice easy one a little hard to find the right path to get to it though tftc

Tftc Shamus1. I went exploring this area on my bicycle getting a couple of smilies. Log book was a bit damp. Nearly fell off my bicycle on the way to this one. Very bumpy tracks.

Off on a walk and come across 1thish star wars cahe on the way we spotted an echidnea having his lunch TFTF

Parked the cache and made the nice walk along the trail to this cache. Cache was found all in good condition

Today was all about just caching around Ballarat and collecting a lot of the new caches that had been placed in the last few months. Despite the heaviness of the rain early to the middle of the day 40 finds were made and the 11,000th find was ticked off.

Thanks for the cache

Day 4 of the Bromance St Arnaud Handicap, and sadly our last. A whirlwind tour of all types of cache types, shape, sizes and effort. Thanks to all the cache owners for making a trip like this possible. We hand picked caches that met our team needs, high D/T, wherigos, virtuals, eartchcaces, high FP's and interesting ones! This cache met that criteria!

Today was the final day of the 2019 Bromance St Arnaud FIFO adventure. The serious cachers (Seffnjarah, Swellerfungus, JeznDez and I) headed out at sparrows with some a little dusty after last nights birthday celebrations for Seff.

We figured we would grab a few interesting high terrain Ballarat caches early, then grab some bacon and eggs for breakfast before heading out for the day.

No problems here - apart from the drizzle trying to make things miserable. Many thanks Shamus1

Pete

#5,206

The Bromance (seffnjarah, Crookedpete and Swellerfungus) conducted a successful fly-in-fly-out mission from Brisbane to Melbourne for last year's mega event at Parkville, and decided to return again this year for the The Bromance Mega FIFO Adventure 2019. With the addition of Dez of JezNDez as the all new-and-improved Bromance, and sayWOT? joining us as caching 457 visa holder, the expanded team flew in for 3 days of caching around Melbourne and regional Victoria, with a visit to the St Arnaud Mega thrown in.

With a trip out to the Mega yesterday, we had returned to spend the night in Ballarat in some rather spiffy accommodation. While the rest of the group had a Sunday morning lie in, Swellerfungus, Crookedpete, Dez and I headed out to grab a few caches before breakfast. After a nice sunny day yesterday, the morning was cold and drizzly but that didn't deter us from working our way through The List.

A short walk through the light drizzle and we arrived at GZ where the cache was soon found. Signed "The Bromance" in the logbook to save space. TFTC

This one has been on the to do list for a while but it had to wait for a time geo hubby could come too ( big star wars fan). After a bit of misdirection and not looking at the map quite the right way it was a quick find. TFTC

We were lucky that when we arrived here today, there hadn't been too much rain as it may have made our retrieval of the cache a little more difficult. Might also be possible that we took the wrong way in, although I'm sure that never happens to a cacher. Thanks for the cache.

Probably not the time to admit I have never seen Star Wars...? A bit wet getting here today but jumped a few puddles and made it to GZ. TFTC, TNLNSL, CIGC

Caching a bit around Ballarat for the day.
TFTC

Found it

It was the start of the name of this one that caught our attention. We parked as close as we could and made short work of the find.

TNLN SL TFTC

I grew up with Star Wars
Episodes 4, 5 and 6

The prequels while interesting,
are rubbish and do not do the originals justice [:o]

And what's with that Ja Ja Binks ??
Most annoying character ever created for a sci-fi movie

Mesa Tinks thtat George losta the plot,
and got too involved with Princess Leia !!

Nuff that !!
I found this cache in a suburb of Ballarat,
far far away,
from me home towne

TFTC.

Today we found Star Wars Cache Series:Darth Sidious on our travels. On a mission to get to 10K before the sun sets. This s one popped up on our map on the way by and we made a detour to come sign the log. One of the Earthbound family’s favorite franchises.
Thanks Shamus1 for being part of our geocaching fun.

It was going to be a massive morning and day for me today. With other things already planned, DAB asked if I wanted to join in for a very early morning cache run. I couldn't pass it up before I met up with others to enjoy the rest of the day.

We had a great time out, I had already collected a quite a few of today's finds. We were able to park the geo wheels close by and the find was made quickly.

**Thanks to Shamus1 for hiding this cache for us to find and enjoy**

With nothing planned this morning, I put the call out to Na'wal last night. I asked if he was up for some caching. He had to be in Melbourne later in the day, but if we left bright and early he might consider it. So that is exactly what we did, we hit the road before the sun had even poked it's head out !!

We had our eye on a few solved mysteries ( and some challenge caches for me ) as well as a couple of trads. Luckily we had no DNF's and all of the caches were found quickly. We smashed out the hides and were back in Geelong mid morning. A very enjoyable ( albeit brief ) trip up the highway.

I hadn't driven this area before, but it was very enjoyable. We parked nice and close to the hide and it was soon found. TFTC Shamus1

We were on a mission today and as we approached this cache we thought that we may have been going to make it a DIDO but soon realised that we were going to need to hoof it, no problems. SL TFTC

My last find for the day and I finished up with a quick find in a quiet spot. TFTC.

Found while out with boydclan

I feared it might be a little wet underfoot, but fortunately I can jump puddles! TFTC

Nice stroll to GZ where we found the well blended coloured cache container. Sorry, we are not really fans of Star Wars but do appreciate your notes.
TFTC Shamus 1

**Found whilst in Ballarat for a couple of Events**.

*Out and about with The Empire*.

A thoroughly enjoyable day with some great caches, some not so great music and many laughs.

Thanks for placing and maintaining this cache for our enjoyment Shamus1. Appreciate your efforts.
-P

Stamped and returned as found...

**Took**: *Nothing*
**Left**: *Nothing*

**#12673**

Cache-On!

Found by The Empire with Snap Happy
After the CITO at Warrenheip Creek and a coffee at the afternoon tea at Eureka, we had some more time for caching. I don't know how many I have found and have to find in this series, I'll need to look into it. Thanks for the cache Shamus1.
- M

Tftc

Nice location except for the blackberry and seeds.
Perhaps the recent rain contributed to our arduous access.
TFTC

Made the trek up North with sims family and Neville Devil to grab some caches we were keen to find.
After rain and warm weather the grass was waist height with no clear path in the dark. Thankfully a suitable route was discovered to lead us to the cache.
log signed and replaced as found.

Thanks for the cache Shamus1
#3,707

Nice find

When I got a message from Ausfox; today to see if I wanted an evening caching I couldn't refuse. Where was the only question. We had a few solved mysteries in the Ballarat Area and one of them was one I needed for my next D/T loop so that is where we headed. Neville_devil who is always keen also joined us for the trip.
In the dark it was a little difficult to find a suitable path to GZ but after a few false starts we found ourselves at GZ. Soon after we were signing the log.
Thank you Shamus1 for the hunt

Beautiful part of Ballarat - love taking these dirt road and having no idea where I'll end up. TFTC ohhhh ....note to self .... there are always more than one way to get to where you wanna be!

We have been cooped up, keeping warm and nursing our colds for a couple of weeks and we thought we would head over to the 'rat and celebrate Mica's birthday
After settling into our accommodation we though twe should head out for a few more otherwise we would both have had a snooze.
We had lots of fun today - thanks Shamus1

I was heading to the Lunch@Eureka event in Ballarat, but managed a number of caches both before and after. This was my second for the day and was a short detour from my drive to the event. Found nice and quickly.

My thanks to Shamus1 for the cache.

Wish I had packed the gum boots.. at least geo son was asleep or he would of ended up on the mud. Wish I had packed recovery equipment so I could of ventured further into the park

Bit hard to find track in thought we might be on private property had to climb over fence didn't seem right but continued on following cords soon found it

In Ballarat with Kazzacosmo to do some caches and this one was in the area, felt like another world walking through those pines TFTC Shamus

Found with MazzyMay on an afternoon drive. TFTC

Found with SciFiRulz on an foray into the unknown . TFTC

Came back today to claim the smilie here after an attempt back in August was called off due to the high water level and i just couldn't be bothered taking the long route to the GZ!
But today there was no water and the mud was nice and firm for an easy foray to the quickly found cache. Hint and co-ords were spot on.
Cache in good nick and only a little condensation inside.
Tnlnsl.
Thanks for the seasonal challenge!

After a DNF earlier in the day, I was glad to have spent a bit of time in the Canadian Forest and find this cache. There has been a bit of rain recently and the puddle mentioned by others had grown considerably - nothing a couple of hundred metres of traipsing through the bush couldn't get around. Cache had about an inch of water in it. The book was okay though. Replaced it with a mind of keeping it dry.

After a DNF earlier in the day, I was glad to have spent a bit of time in the Canadian Forest and find this cache. There has been a bit of rain recently and the puddle mentioned by others had grown considerably - nothing a couple of hundred metres of traipsing through the bush couldn't get around. Cache had about an inch of water in it. The book was okay though. Replaced it with a mind of keeping it dry.

10:05
A trip to Ballarat, to try and tidy up a few errant caches to the east, turned out to be a freezing and somewhat frustrating day. Our first stop and we had to negotiate a water crossing or a forest of prickles to reach the cache. We chose the water!

Our thanks to Shamus1 for placing this cache.
16260

Out caching with friends Harrowang today with the aim of breaking our most finds in a day record. This is our 27th find which means we're over our target all ready at 4:28pm. SL Thanks for placing the cache.

Easy night find. Good hint.

11:00:00 AM. We decided to get out and pick up a few caches today as it was going to get warm. We missed the first one we were after due to a bike race and heaps of muggles. Went in the prickly way, but it is good to see they have been sprayed and are dying. The better half made the find and the log was signed.Thanks Shamus1 for placing this cache.

(Late entry) found while out enjoying a lovely day, have been wanting to collect this one for a while, but been unable to stop, until now... great area, and great hide, Thanks for bringing us here, and TFTC

Took the prickly path in and found the cache a little bit exposed , so hopefully we have rehidden it a bit better.
Thanks Shamus1 for the hide.

TFTC a quick find out hunting again this time on a not so warm summers night

Another great find while in the area.
SL - thanks for the fun cache!

A little free time this afternoon so I headed east to get a few caches. A nice quick find here though I tackled water and prickles to get here. Many thanks

Nice little Sunday drive.

TFTC great location. Navigated in with ClanMcStormy's GeoUte. Located very quickly by GeoJ. This would be a nightmare on weekends with it being a muggles wood collection area. Scratch another SW one for us!

Found with Misschief18. I think we somehow came in the back way to this cache. We did note the water hazard but we didn't have to negotiate it. The cache was still nicely tucked away in it's hidey hole, despite nearby wood collecting activity. Lucky we had the Geo-Truck. After finding the cache, we continued along this rough little track, but eventually came across a couple of large fallen trees. Chunk had to use 4WD to safely turn around so we could exit the way we came. Lots of fun. TFTC Shamus1

Found today with chooknchunk. Nice hide. TFTC

Mr Swaggie and I walked down the track to where we had to get around a water feature. After that an easy find.
TFTC Sgamus1

Found with Emthegem and TeamLauren. We had to make it through the water hazard and the blackberries to reach this cache before realising as we left we could have made the approach on a much easier path. Thanks for the cache.

Found on the way to the Black Hill CITO with Tagalong Wife. Tagalong stayed in the car whilst I negotiated the water hazard and the blackberries to get to the cache. There has been a fair amount of recent work done around GZ with a chainsaw (people getting firewood) but so far the cache is OK.
TFTC Shamus1

Found with Doormatt and Teamlauren. Thanks to Doormatt for solving the puzzle. Thanks for the cache.

Navigated a water challenge to get to this cache. Quick, wasy find. Found wirh emthegem and Doormatt during weekend in ballarat.

A slippery track leading in. Tftc

Star wars is not a series I have watched . I am certainly catching up on the character though.
It was a bit wet getting to GZ but I had gumboots to keep my feet safe. Prickles a pain though.
Once there I had to search for a while. I had been looking straight at it.
TFTC Shamus1

Nice deep hole if you try takin the shortest route.
The cache is in good condition.
Thanks for the cache.

We didn't see sunnies like previous finder, but unfortunately we found jocks and socks and a whole heap of other rubbish! The geokids swapped footwear and geoboy took off looking a treat in pink cow gumboots!! The cache was soon found and we were on our way!! Tftc

I'm going on a cache hunt. I hope I find a good one. What a beautiful day! I'm not scared. Uh-uh! A puddle! A deep, water-filled puddle! I can't go over it. I can't go under it. Oh no! I've got to go through it! Oh no! I'm attending a funeral in another hour and don't have spare socks so I have to go around it! Thankfully there was another route I could take to get to GZ although it was slightly less direct. I didn't find the cache straight away either. So many places, but then... Yes! TFTC and thanks for the hunt!

P.S. Before finding the cache, I stumbled across some sunglasses found several metres from GZ. If they belong to a previous geocacher, they're still there. See the attached photo.

This entry was edited by claybol on Thursday, 23 July 2015 at 11:39:46 UTC.