BSRT- Can You See The Signal Scarsdale, Victoria, Australia
By highrod on 14-Sep-13. Waypoint GC4N9G9

It's gone

please

DNF whilst exploring the area on bicycle
Love this trail, love the countryside
Cool spot,
No Go on this cache today

Probably didn't help that there were a few cycling muggles around.

We are staying in Smythesdale for a couple of nights. Being conveyed to Linton to do the BSRT back to Smythesdale plus grab a couple of others. Most grateful that I included the "LRT" (log recovery tool) in my pocket as it came in handy to retrieve several logs from their caches. The ride was pleasant, cool enough for no wriggly-sticks.

Trying to make a note for each cache with an average spacing of about 200M on one's own when cycling is virtually impossible and to recall each of dozens of caches at the end of a day just wouldn't happen. Sorry for the generic logs.

It is great (we don't think so) that we cannot get NBN and have to use mobile data internet. Our service either goes "down" to at best very slow. Sometime soon my finds of 12/10/2015 will all be logged.

Thanks to cache owners for the experience.

Enjoyed the flora and fauna along the trail.

Have just had a reality check - solo riding on a cache bombed trail is far more time consuming than estimated. From here on if a hide is not quickly found, it will be logged as a DNF to ensure the clock does not well and truly get me into further "time debt"!

Couldnt find this one no matter how hard we tried

No joy today, I looked where the GPS indicated and up the nearby tree.

Was unable to see the signal on our cache run this arvo. Thanks for the search

Couldnt find this one

Nope, now we could not. or the cache...

DNF #2 @ 12:10 with LouiseAnn, Annoying Tarbit, gmj3191 (and PamJ), and BernieH.

This was our second of #3 DNFs for the day. Not only could we not see the signal, we could also not find the cache. Despite it being listed as a 1.5/1.5, I climbed the most likely structure to have a look, but came away empty handed.

Thanks anyway highrod

Our second DNF on a largely successful bike riding day on this trail. We search high and low with SirJ-Oz looking where previous finders suggested. Alas, we could see neither signal, nor cache. Thanks anyway highrod.

12:06 pm Sun 27 Sep 2015
This one hasn't been found for a while, and we couldn't find it either.
Thanks anyway highrod

Travelled up to Ballarat from Melbourne to do the BSRT between Smythesdale and Linton with some friends. Met gmj3191 (and GeoWife Pam), LouiseAnn, SirJ-Oz and Annoying Tarbit at Smythesdale where we organised a car drop to Linton and then commenced or ride at about 10:30 am. Enjoyed some great scenery and cache hides along the way and finished in Linton at about 4:30 pm.
SirJ-Oz quickly turned this one into a DNF. Trusted with searching the location of choice he just failed dismally in his responsibilities. Confirmed the location with a previous finder, this one looks like it's gone.
Thanks for placing this cache highrod

[:(!] Thanks for an awesome effort.

I like it

Another one of the list

TNLNSL TFTC/TFTH/TFBUH High Rod [^]

Well a few days in Ballarat has turned into a fortnight.

Today though it was time to say Goodbye to Ballarat (well almost) as we moved to Smythesdale.

Was nearly 2pm before we jumped on our bikes to tackle some more of the BSRT.

We saw lots out and about today, including ........... wait for it.............. Some sunshine! [:o)]
Also saw lots of horses, cows, sheep, goats, dogs, muggles and even a dead fox.

The weather was fairly mild compared to what it's been so a very enjoyable cycle ride until the sun disappeared at dark o'clock then the last little bit of the ride was very chilly.

TFTC

Lucky for us Sean.75 and his geokid are taller than me and mine. A quick boost and the cache was logged and replaced! Tftc

9 mtrs away from original location. Get someone to give you a boost.

We set out today to finish the BSRT series.We parked at Careys Rd and unhitched the push bikes.The forecast was for showers and we came prepared.Luckily the rain didn’t eventuate. Another quick find.

Glad this one isn't buried or I might never have found it, tftc

A day out to earn a few more smilies with Shamus1, Cherad, Mi5sie & 08151605, caching the BSRT from Newtown to Smythesdale. It was my first time caching with geo-kiddies and what a difference! They were happy to do the scrambling, climbing and crawling. I think I might loan a couple next time I go caching! One of us gave the geo-kiddie a lift up and soon the cache was in our hands and the log was signed. TFTC

Found with Samus1, Geniejoan, 08151605 and Mi5sie as we set out to find some caches and enjoy a lovely walk. As geokid was hoisted into position the cache was soon in hand,TFTC

Found with geniejoan, shamus1, mi5sie & Cherad.

Found with Cherad, shamus1, genieJoan and 08151605. TFTC

A day out with Cherad,geniejoan,mi5sie and 081516105 to do a section of the BSRT. Nice big one! TFTC

On our regular Wednesday after school caching run with McLookers, Tomstache, Glanville Girls and Motndarg. This was the first find for the afternoon. Thanks highrod.

On our regular Wednesday after school caching run with McLookers, Tomstache, The Lookabouts and Motndarg. We could see the signal but not the cache! We eventually found this one about 16m away from our indicated GZ. Thanks highrod.

Did not see the signal and found the cache about 15m away from where our GPS said it was. Thanks highrod.

We couldn't see the signal and we almost couldn't see the cache. We found it approximately 16m from where our GPS was pointing. It does help to have plenty of eyes. Thanks highrod.

Caching on this beautiful afternoon with Motndarg, Glanville Girls, The Lookabouts, Nettie1234, 6hinemoa2 and Tomstache.

Out on this beautiful autumn day with McLookers, Tomstache, Lookabouts, Glanville Girls, Nettie1234. Took a little while to locate, GPS was a out somewhat. Anyway another find for us, thanks.

Sun was out and it was a great day for a bike ride. It's taken a while to log these, so no site specfic logs this time. (Sorry)

It took a while to find this one. In fact I'd been here before. Eventually spotted in a site I'd looked a few times.

This was find 8 of 13 finds for today, being found at 1:52:00 PM.

Thanks highrod for placing this cache and bringing me here.

Searched and searched and finally found it

At the last cache my GPSr reported Los battery - they were back in the car. I walked back and drove closer. With batteries in hand I return to find TaurusSix and Phoscdy searching. I started searching. Because I only just started I was more reluctant to give up. Then I found it, I had looked in that area before but missed it by that much.

Having a day off midweek meant I could come up to B'rat with Tess the geodog and Sorceysal and try to complete the series without the weekend crowd. This was a tough one, with a few cachers mentioning it was up to 15m out on their GPS's, which lead us to an obvious spot, but no luck after several laps of that spot. Thanks anyway for your contribution to the series highrod.

Tftgc

Well, we looked and couldn't see a signal here, but what we did find was that our Garmin showed us 15 metres away from our goal and we lost a bit of time searching a bigger area than we should have. All good in the end and we signed off and were on our way again.

Our 11th cache for the morning which gave us our 400th find since starting in late October.

Thanks highrod.

Another quick find.

Found by Mary & David at 1500. A great day on the BSRT at last. The views everywhere were just great, and the many information signs were fascinating. The ride took about 8½ hours, for 63 finds and 1 DNF. Our thanks to highrod.

This one took us a while and we still don't know what the signal was about.
Almost gave up but then all of a sudden there it was. Co-ords were out a few metres.
TFTC

(Tftc)

We were offered free accomodation in Ballarat for the weekend, so put the bikes in the back of the 4WD and decided to have a caching weekend in the Victorian goldfields.
we headed from Scarsdale to Smythesdale. We enjoyed this bake path. TFTC

K

Main reason for being in Ballarat was to ride this rail trail. Had heard about it from one of the CO's a couple of years when we met out Phillip Island way (on another rail trail) but these two days were first chance I had to get down here.

Found all caches bar one....which was towards end of the series. All up, a good ride and a fun way to spend a few hours grabbing a few caches.

Thanks to alll the CO's. Apologies for the generic logs.

Found at 18:29 with Olga. Found during a South Australian assault on Ballarat
Coords out 8m but easy enough to find

Found as part of a group assault on some Ballarat caches with Moneydork, Locuscache, Uni&Medusa, Semik and skippy.

Thanks for the cache Fergzter.

What else do geocachers do when having a weekend away geocaching[?]
Take some friends and make it a darned good weekend!
Moneydork, Tounga, Sushilord, Uni & Medusa, Skippy & Audra and myself headed to Ballarat and we had a blast!
Enjoyed tea with some local geocachers on Saturday night: Sully1, Bogong Hazy and Snaphappy [^]
Kayaked on Sunday and then rode pushbikes too
The things we do for geocache finds, I haven't been on a bike for years!

All up, I found 113 caches and had 4 DNFs
We even managed to find some that we had DNFd last time!

I apologise now for the generic logs on these caches. I am unexpectedly heading back to the area now, about 5 weeks later, and am madly logging so that I know what I have and haven't found.
Please understand that due to some issues this end, I have been short on time and therefore haven't logged these as I would normally do, with a seperate comment for each cache.

I thank each and every cache owner for the wonderful caches which we found in the suburbs and in the bush!

TNLN. SL. TFTC highrod

I did this series with the Super Seven Team from South Australia.
We had a great time and the series certainly increased our find count for the day after a morning of doing kayak caches.

We set aside today as a caching day to boost our wellbeing and our cache numbers. We walked up and down a couple of sections of the BSRT Rail Trail and found some more caches in the Skipton and Ballarat areas. We ended up walking nearly 20 km and are now glad to be home again. Thank you to the COs whose hides we visited today! It is always great to have caches lined up where no motorised traffic will bother us. Not only that, we did not even see a pedestrian or a bike muggle during our quest. On a trail, of course, there is always "one more" ... something we were saying and thinking a lot today.

By this stage, our legs knew what was expected of them today!

A rail trail worth doing.
TFTC

Today was the day we finally made it it to this part of the world to ride this trail. With the combined power of The Tritonz and myself, it made for a very enjoyable day. It had been a while since we had ridden, but it all came back to us very quick. We were spoiled with perfect weather and an abundance of wildlife. The scenery and the flora were well worth the trip up from Geelong. There was only 1 DNF for the whole ride !! Thanks to all the CO's for a great day out. TFTC

The day was looking good and caches where calling our name, so David (DAB) and I set off on a mission to do the Ballarat-Skipton Rail Trail. The weather was in our favour the entire day, with the sun shinning, the birds chirping and with good company it was a very enjoyable day. We only had one DNF on the trail so we were happy with that. Thanks to all involved in setting up this series with the great variety of caches.

Found with Misschief18 on a beautiful afternoon.
SL TNLN TFTC

I went out today caching with Dunko and his mate Slink1. I am new to this but it is a lot of fun and the hides were good. thanks for the cache SL.

Couldn't see the signal-probably looking in the wrong direction! But did find a cache. Found with The 2 Wanderers. TFTC

Out on a bit of a road trip with Dunko and Joseph. We drove, rode and walked our way to collect
a modest number of caches. Big thanks to highrod for the caching adventure today. SL

Slink1 and Joseph (our newest and youngest cacher) and I decided on a bit of a road trip today. We ended up driving, riding and walking to collect a a number of caches in our travels. Thanks to all the cache owners for the hides without which we would have nothing to find TNLN SL.

Fallen down tree TFTC

Find 3:07 at 2:30, our two teams were searching on either side of the track for this one as we couldn't get an accurate reading! Then we said hello to the goat natives Well, this morning we got up early, had a quick breakfast and then packed the car ready for a full day of geocaching. We stopped at bannockburn for coffees and then hit the road heading for Ballarat to complete the trail that we had started a few months ago. We still have 3 at the start to complete. Big thanks to CO's associated with these caches. The scenery is breathtaking and we saw a lot of animals, horses, goats, sheep to name a few. What a GREAT day!

Too easy. TFTC

Good hide. TFTC

Could not see signal, however I could imagine a lot of scurrying around 150 years ago near here. A few telltale signs of a lot of broken dreams and backs.

Headed out this morning to walk from Scarsdale to Smythesdale on the BSRT. Picked up all 14 of HighRod's caches - thanks so much. All are nice and easy to find. Perfect to bring kids as they can swap til their hearts content (pity I didn't have them)!

This part of the trail in particular is beautiful. Small houses starting in town, to houses on a few acres and more established farms. The track shows wide spaces, a pine forest, lots of natives and plenty of animals. Today I saw heaps of birds, plus sheep, cows, horses, goats and alpacas.

The multi-cache in the cemetery is also very easy and adds something different on the walk back!

Thanks so much for this series - very much appreciated.

Lots of cones where this one is.

Follow the signal. Great hide

Our forty seventh find on an afternoon of mud, caches, rain, birds, beasts, more mud, great fun and a myriad of fungi on the BSRT with Jacko83. Hmmm...not sure we spotted a signal, but we certainly spotted the cache!
Thanks highrod for a great afternoon riding along this lovely trail !

Camr out with buckleysbabe today to smash out the bsrt. Rainy day however thats caching for you! Nice little trail.

Tftc. Quick find again beautiful old trees along here!

Took friend and boys here. They found it. Swapped like for like tftc

TFTC!

Brought the bike to Ballarat today to complete the rest of this series. Unfortunately with a dodgy hip and groin it was too painful to ride so I had to turn these into drivebys where possible. Some of the 1.5 terrain ratings were a challenge with a dodgy hip but managed to scramble to most places, sometimes on my behind. Thankfully no muggles around to see me scrambling around.

Another easy find. Love the larger containers in this part of the series. Thanks highrod

Found! This was an easy find for me today. Finally the rain has eased

I enjoyed this 21.9km trail ride from Scarsdale to Ballarat. Wet to start with & a slight breeze along the way. For the trail I found 54/55 in 4hrs 13mins. A great scenic ride & plenty of animals along the way. Thanks to all the CO's for the placement & maybe some room for more...

TFTC

Find #767

We arrived in Smythesdale today, set the caravan up & then headed out to find a few caches on the
BSRT Rail Trail.
Hubby road his bike & I walked along the track.
Thanks for placing this cache highrod

Found by The Empire @ 11:25am
Great weather for bike riding! Thanks for the cache highrod.
- M
#5,609

Thanks highrod FTC.

14th for the day. TFTC

On our return from Adelaide last year we were ahead of schedule and took some time to start the Ballarat-Skipton Rail Trail. Today we returned hoping to find the remainder.

This was quite a sociable cache hunt. The black cockatoos kept us company (albeit noisily) and a muggle horse came over to the fence to watch. The cache was a quick find. The cache and contents were in good condition. Thanks for the cache highrod.

# 7669 Found on the 5th leg of our S.K.I.D.R.O. adventure,
while staying at Ballarat for a few days.
Another trip around with Team Robins for a few in town and another series.
No sign of any muggles around and a quick find.
Thanks for the cache highrod,
Roostaman.

Found # 9824


with the Roostaman we decided to attach this trail, good clues makes easy finds thanks for the trail

took : nothing
left : nothing

Thanks for the cache highrod

No I could not see Signal !!
Our mascot
Where is he hiding ?

With no Signal the Frog sightings I soon found me a cache though

Number five on the trail for me today
And what better way to tackle the trail than by bike [^]

I found a chain in the cache
Not exactly a bicycle chain though [:o]
Which twit left it ?

Obviously a cacher not very Stihlled at finding caches

This entry was edited by If on Friday, 14 February 2014 at 08:25:09 UTC.

With Lady Morris back to work on Monday it was our last chance to do a run over to the 'rat and complete the rail trail. we have wanted to do this for a while and start to put a dent in the 250+ unfound caches we have over there.

After a late start we set up camp in Smythesdale at the public campsite and headed off to do the first batch. Loved those regular sized containers.
TFTC highrod

Nice easy whilst on a bike ride along BSRT. TFTC.

Found with Trailrunning on another Monday caching adventure, We were both on Holiday so this gave us the opportunity for a big cache run we started around the city and suburbs and then made our way to Ballarrat where we enjoyed the rail trail caches. Thanks highrod for the cache.

After a big two days in the north of the state I drove back to Melbourne for a caching run with my good mate Rebel Acts. As we are both on leave we decided to hit Ballarat for another time and we both collected over 100 caches for the day. We started in Melbourne and then went directly to the main area of focus, western and northern Ballarat. We had a great time on the bikes with the BSRT series completed in just over 2 hours. Thanks to all the CO's for their efforts, and I'm sorry for the generic log, but time is short these days. Thanks.

Find No. 553. Found with FUF009 at 11.41am

Another opportunity to go cycling and caching at the same time by doing the Ballarat to Skipton Rail Trail.
Parked at Haddon and worked our way down to Scaresdale. Returned to Haddon for a short break then continued on back towards Ballarat. Some were tricky hides but with the three of us looking we were able to discover them all.

Only two hazards incurred for the day - prickles and flies.

Took screwdriver eraser - Left yellow car.

TFTC

Find #1209 @ 1141H

Found with Tyred n Cranky

Giving that today was going to be quite cooler than the past few days, we decided to head down to attack the Ballarat rail trail set of caches.

we managed to find all the caches with no DNF's today. A few were tricky hides but with 3 sets of eyes, it made the hunt a little easier.

Took Big Star
Left Yellow plane

TFTC

Boxing Day - I could have spent it fighting the aggressive crowds at the Boxing Day sales purchasing rubbish I didn't need, or I could spend it caching. Hmmmm, is there even a decision in this?

With the bike at the ready and a beautiful morning it would be a pleasant day to do the Ballarat Skipton Rail Trail. I've wanted to ride this trail for ages, and today it would be!

What a cracking tree! It's the type of tree that I would have loved to build a cubby in years ago. But I wasn't here for a cubby, I was here for a cache.

I saw a signal, then I saw the cache. Nice.

TFTC

Couldn't see the signal for a while at this one, and a bit of head scratching went on before I finally twigged to it and had it in hand. SL, and on to the next one! TFTC, Highrod

Find #53 of 62 today.

What a great geocaching day in the Ballarat region!
The main aim was to do all the caches along the BSRT rail trail. The end result after 200km by car and 50km by bike was 900 photos and 62 caches.
Of these 62, 57 caches were along the rail trail which included all 54 currently in the BSRT series. There were 3 or 4 DNF close calls, but in the end it was a 100% find-strike-rate!

I had the glorious BSRT all to myself, with no muggle encounters whatsoever.
I divided the trail into 4 sections, where at each section I would park the car, cache out along the trail and then cycle back to the car.

This cache was one of 16 in the fourth and final section for today.
Now into the new section, with all regular containers. No clues, but very precise co-ordinates.
An unusually quick find here, and I "saw the signal" afterwards .

TFTC, highrod.

This was the 13th find of the day after meeting up suscoe and our aim was to finish off the last section of the rail trail, grab a few around Linton and then finish off the Thanks to Series in the Enfield forest and any other caches that we happened to pass.
Happy to say that we had no DNF's but some really tested us out.
We are back to complete this third section of the BSRT placed by highrod and pleased to see that they are all regular sized containers. As we found out sometimes this was a big blessing as some locations were hard to find.
Thanks highrod for continuing this wonderful series.

Suscoe's 10th find of 31 for today in the Ballarat area in the company of Bushfire.
It was the next stage of the BSRT today and so off we went.
Found at just after 11:55 am.
Log signed and all returned.
Thanks to Highrod for this cache and continuing the trail.
And in answer to the question "no we couldn't!"

I'd had set aside today for a big caching day and eventually settled on caching mainly around the Ballarat area, collecting a few caches on the way there and on the way back. It proved a very fruitful caching day with 112 caches found with only a couple of DNF's and a couple on non attempts due to excessive muggle activity.
Rising nice and early at 4:45 am, I was on the road by 5:10 and at my first cache, 185km from home, by 7:10 am. I moved through the northern part of Ballarat before starting the BSRT trail (which I thoroughly enjoyed) at around 11:00 am, completing it in its entirety at 3:15pm. From there I cached around the southern Ballarat area before moving up into Ballarat city itself. Some of the caches I probably should have done earlier as it was quite busy in town by then, being a Saturday night. As the sun set and it grew dark I moved through the eastern areas of Ballarat before starting for home, caching along the way and finding my last cache around midnight in Melton; then arriving back home around 2:15 am. In total it was a 20 hour and 40 minute caching run, 584.7 km traveled of which approx 40km were on bike and 26km on foot.
The weather was great on the day too, with it starting off quite fresh in the morning but by the mid afternoon it was sunny and warm. This was my second big caching trip to Ballarat since I started caching and the standard of the caches and the scenery once again made it a fantastic day. Thanks to all the Ballarat CO's for their caches, I had a great time.

Doing the BSRT was the highlight of the day and as I was on my own I wasn't able to go from one end to the other in one continuous run so I did it in sections that I had worked out would be most efficient before heading starting out today. The range of hides was fantastic and the coords for each were spot on. I got to see some great country side along the way. The Kmart special mountain bike proved itself but I must get a nicely cushioned bike seat before my next biking trip - my butt cheeks were a bit tender the next day!
Thanks go to all the CO's that placed the caches along the bike track. The effort is greatly appreciated and I highly recommend any cachers out there to get on their bikes and go for the ride.
Thanks.

Found during a caching run with 6hinemoa2 & tagalong. Thank you for your part in this nice little series.

Not sure where the signal was but I got the cache with mudbrick.
Thanks highrod.

Found this nice little hide as darkness was falling on a beautiful evening.

Found 2:09:00 PM, after a brief search, during our Ballarat cycling extraviganza.

TNLN, thanks highrod

Featherdown and I walked from Scarsdale to Smythesdale this morning picking up 13 caches along the way and returning with our haul to the car some time later. Saw no body else on the trail. No wind and mild temperatures. Perfect caching conditions. All good sized hides and good accurate cords.
Thanks for adding to the series Highrod.

I loved walking this section of track. Perfect weather, lots of birdsong and plenty of caches to find to keep us busy.
It would have been nice on bikes too or having a car at the other end but the walk did us good.
Thanks for these caches.

Found on a warm and windy day today.

No, I didn't see the signal - I was too busy looking for a cache which was duly found, thanks highrod.

This time, found by geoGirl. Thanks to highrod for the series here. We enjoyed our visit to Ballarat, on our caching experience along this trail. We shall have to revisit Ballarat to explore more caches; there are lots to offer here.