#2 Hotham Valley Rail Trail Meelon, Western Australia, Australia
By jasenjanine on 18-Jul-14. Waypoint GC56FJ5

Hi there jasenjanine - After the Event cache in Pinjarra this morning I returned to Fairbridge to hunt the caches along the entry road and this is our find 3909. After leaving Fairbridge this afternoon KevelB and I found this cache. He had mentioned that he thought there was something at that point but could not see it. I noted the cache and retrieved, signed and replaced it where found. SL.Thanks to jasenjanine for the cache.

Set off early to attack the 59 caches west of Dwellingup still remaining left to do, with high hopes of completing the series today - but sadly it was not to be.
This second one was found with an audience of mooing muggles but another nice easy find.
Thanks for the cache and the series jasenjanine.

As a result of an incident between a geocacher and a person claiming to be the manager of Hotham Valley Rail reserve it has been brought to our attention that the rail reserve and the tracks(s) either side of it are not public property and geocachers are not allowed to place caches within the rail reserve or travel along the adjacent tracks even if they diverge from the rail reserve on occasion. It was further stated that the manager had already contacted somebody to have the caches removed.

Geocachers, rightly or wrongly, have also been blamed for all the damage that has occurred along the rail reserve in recent times.

As a result all geocaches in this series that have a final within the rail reserve or on the rail corridor side of the adjacent tracks are now being archived.

Nice weather today
So I headed for Pinjarra to unload the pushbike and have another crack at finding some HVRT caches

Yes !! I know the Choo Choo trail doesn't start in Pinjarra,
I just wanted a bit of exercise on the pushbike by warming up the legs a bit on the 10 km ride to the start of the caches

And about half an hour later, I was parking the treadly here at #2.
A quick cache find was mine
How far could I chase the caches today ?
I was aiming for the Scarp Road crossing

TFTC, I am chuffed [^]

Thoroughly enjoyed this series.
Dwellingup is a lovely place to visit without the added bonus of caching and camping with mates.
Found with Goorjus and Cachestro.
Cache was in good condition.
TFTH.

Out for a day of caching with NewBut and Cachestro. Thought we'd tackle the Choo Choo series and a few others before camping at Nanga.

Quick pull up and find.

TFTC jasenjanine.

jasenjanine, I found your cache #2 Hotham Valley Rail Trail on 20/04/2016 at 8:51 AM.
This is my find #380 and find #2 today.

While visiting our daughter and her family in Perth, we took the opportunity to catch up with jasenjanine and what better way to do that then by doing their Hotham Valley Rail Trail series We were pleased to have been able to do part of the first half of the series in their company and spending the afternoon with them

Luckily for us we found the track to be nice and dry and well graded for most of the way with only a few places where our paranoia got the better of us when we thought we might put a scratch on our son-in-law's car All was good though and we got through it all unscathed

Thank you jasenjanine for having placed the terrific cache series and maintaining them all for everyone to enjoy

Lots of lovely cows at this spot & they all came over to see what we were doing. Do we count them as muggles? Cache all dry . TFTC

Out on the road today with Loudy16 to grab as many as we can. Decided the Procrastination Installation and Choo Choo series would fit the bill.

TFTC jasenjanine.

jasenjanine, I found your cache #2 Hotham Valley Rail Trail on 8/01/2016 at 10:14 AM. This is my find #2097 and #50 today.

headed out today with KrabiBoy to ball over a couple of series we have had our eye now for a while jasenjanine, I found your cache #2 Hotham Valley Rail Trail on 8/01/2016 at 10:13 am. This is my find #986 and #49 today.

Find 23 of 30 @09:32:00 on a successful mission to complete the series by finding the remaining 30 caches.

After a practice lap of the MTB circuit at Marrinup nearby, this was a nice easy ride down the rail trail followed by a slog back up the hill into the wind on the road. All the finds were quick apart from #1 as it took me a while to work out it had moved from where my solution pointed.

After #9 I rolled down the hill on the road to start from the far end at #1, but DNFed there to start with. Only 8 to go, this was a quick one.

Thanks for a great series jasenjanine, I am thrilled to complete it but also sad that it's over now!

My brother and sister in law (Jackylegs44) invited me up to Mandurah to go geocaching with them on a 4WD trail. Sure thing love 4Wdriving. Signed the first half of the trail under Jackylegs44 but now have set up my own account and will get a gps as well. Thanks for a great trail and introducing me to a fantastic hobby!

Tftc nice spot

Tftc nice find with blaze169 and geo granny and grene11.

Made a start on the hotham valley series today.
TFTC

Wow what a cool series, love the artwork too! Had to wait for geoP's brother to come up from Manjimup as he has the 4WD we needed to undertake this adventure. We had an amazing time and turned the muggle brother into a caching one (he got hooked very quickly and was finding them in no time . Some sections were a little rough even with the 4WD but it was a great opportunity to sharpen those 4Wd driving skills for A who never gets to do this in Europe. Thanks for placing these caches for us and others to enjoy! Tftc sl tnln

We had set this weekend aside to attempt the Choo Choo Series, hoping for cool weather before the heat of summer set in.
Found a neat camp spot on the way up from Busselton then got to Dwellingup fairly early this morning after a beautiful sunrise.
We hit the track full steam ahead and made it through with some interesting finds along the way.
We had a few laughs with Geosmurfs as we followed the trail, no creepy crawlies and no slithery surprises anywhere to be found, thankfully.
Thanks for the series. TFTC

Had a very warm day caching with Pood. Off to a reasonably early start. Choo Choo what a mission that was. Cheers

The puzzles were solved in switzerland. and we found the caches here, thanks for this tour.

Tftc Cheers

What a great series. Lots of caches and puzzles in the bush with some wonderful sights. We did over half of the series in a 'not quite' 4WD. We had to turn around at one point only 10m from the main road and go all the back to another exit. Skipped quite a few on the last leg. There were lots of branches scraping the car on the tight roads. Lots of mud. All up. Excellent with great finds, great clues and accurate GPS.

Only one that we didn't find in Dwellingup. We skipped sections due to the muddy rough roads. We missed #1 due to a muggle parked at that spot. Was going to do it on the way back but forgot.

TFTC Series jasenjanine. Cut and paste from here on.

The geokid and I decided to take on the Choo Choo series. Started at 3pm and collected similes for the first 20 until the light ran out. This was the most enjoyable afternoon caching we have had in ages. Thanks Jasen and Janine.

Spending a couple of days in Pinjarra during the holidays and decided to start this series. Parked the car up and walked to get a couple before the station.

Quick find whilst waiting for a replacement engine for the steam train

TFTC

We took a ride on the Hotham Valley train this afternoon. When we arrived at Isandra siding, we grabbed the cache there and had a short walk. It was taking a little longer than expected for the locomotive to switch ends. We were then advised that the steam locomotive had broken down and we would be delayed here for around an hour and a half.

Well, there was only one thing to do. Work out how to solve the Choo Choo series. I quickly solved the first 3 and worked out that a couple were an easy walk down the track. I grabbed my eldest geoson, Expert Cach3r and off we went.

Managed to quickly find #2 & #3. The rest will have to wait for another time. As I am logging this it is 4:45 and we still haven't left Isandra. Probably won't get back to Dwellingup until nearly 6.

Wasn't how I planned starting this amazing series, but it has whetted my appetite to finish the rest.

Tftc

Parked the car at Dwellingup railway station then rode my Mountain bike to #1 of the series. I then headed back along the track/trail picking up these caches and the Isandra siding cache too. An excellent series and an excellent time had riding and photographing Steam trains.  


Now this is what I call a proper rail trail caching experience!

True mountain biking with MUD, rocks, trenches and the like in a forest, AND, A STEAM TRAIN which I met going up and down. 

 Took several photos, all in #1 log.  

Thanks everyone, excellent!

What a fantastic day, out with Peeted to find as many caches as possible on the Choo Choo line. This was a tricky little fellow. Fav from us. TFTC

Today was day one of the weekend to do the Choo Choo series. Set out with Happy Jacks55 to find as many as time would allow. This was one of them. TFTC JasenJanine.

Good one

I was enjoying the company of cows, going the same way as me, that I overshoot the cache by 150m. Easy riding. Left a Woolies domino. TFTC.

Originally logged under family name clan-wallace now relogging under new caching name pommieparkin2

I always said that I would not do a generic log, but then I had never found 45 caches in a day before! So I am sorry but here goes. We are very inexperienced 4x4 drivers so we thought we would just go & have a recconoitre to see what this Choo Choo was all about & whether we would be better walking, biking or driving. The intention was to do 5 or 6 but we were having so much fun we could not stop! We did 1-41 today when the geodog decided enough was enough! We both had a go at driving off road & the car survived the ordeal. Mostly dry with a couple of hair raising patches!!!! Well done Jasenjanine for a great series......so far. TFTC
Ants everywhere litlle ants, BIG ants & REALLY BIG ANTS.

Day thirty two of the WA road trip with BettyBoo3747.
Spent the day travelling around east of Mandurah doing the odd cache, and sampling a few series.
We had solved a pile of this series, but had run short of time on this visit, so we thought we would just sample the start and see what the roads conditions were like and the types of caches (for next time).
Being dry for a while, the road was fine, and the caches were nice to find and accurate co-ordinates. We will definitely be back.
Thanks for our sampler of this series, Robmc.

# 8064. Another lovely Autumn Day so Robmc and I head out to find some of the local challenges, puzzles, trails and other sundry finds. It's ANZAC Day so - "Lest We Forget"!

Time to hit the Hotham Trail. We have had many of these solved in preparation for this trip but knew we wouldn't have time to do them all. Ended up doing #1 through to 16 only today. Was pleased to pick up a few extagz and a couple of geocoins along the way. That is always a nice surprise. A lovely part of the country out here, especially after some rain.

Picked up a beautiful geocoin here to help continue its journey.

Thanks jasenjanine

With our last find being way back in January and the weather so perfect we decided today was the day to tackle the Hotham Valley Rail Trail. Solved the first 50 with the aim of completing them and off we set.

Found 1-41 with no DNF's before hunger got the better of us and we high tailed it into Dwellingup for lunch! The track was in good condition although muddy in places. The caches were all dry and the co-ordinates and clues were spot on!

We nearly had to pass on 26 as there is a dead kangaroo about 5m from the cache and the smell is unbearable!

Thanks for an excellent series jasenjanine and showing us yet another track! Looking forward to getting back out there soon. Dropped off a traveller we have had for way too long!

out with Granett, Megawatt60 and M4yb today to belt out this whole series in a day, we had perfect weather all day and took our time and had a really enjoyable day and alot of laughs and a great effort putting them all out, we found all 100 and no dnf's so we are so happy thanks for the series.

After our search team bade farewell to Granett, who had already found #27 down, we (Helbren, megawat60 and I) set off to find the rest. Most caches were easily found, quite often by Helbren, who got to GZ before we did!
TFTC jasenjanine!

After departing form Granett after lunch and the 76 previous finds of the day, Helbren, m4yb and me started on the last or first caches in the series. Holborn being in the lead mad most of the finds as he has the knack of finding without the aid of a GPS or smartphone!

What a great series jasenjanine, thanks for it.

I was a little bit excited to head out today, to find these caches. The CO was heading out on a maintenance run and asked if id like to tag along.... umm YES!!!!! They have been on my to-do list for quite some time.

So i spent a good portion of yesterday at the computer working out all these puzzles. Lucky for me they were easy enough.

We had a fairly successful run, until we ran into a tree across the road. 39/39 finds.
I think that may be a new daily record for me.

All the caches were hidden in the obvious spot, which is always appreciated. The hints were a great help too, now if only i could figure out this new fandangle GPS.

Thanks for the great series Jasenjanine, i look forward to finishing it soon.

The better half was going to see her sister who was in the city so as I was being left alone I decided to go for a drive and complete this series which I had started some time ago.

Only had a DNF on two of them. The rest were found without problems.

Thanks jasenjanine for this cache and the rest of the series.

Together with Albatros we started this trail. After a few km the road was not longer passable but we found about 30 Caches.
Thanks for hiding and greetings from Germany.

[green][size=1]#7086[/green][/size]

At Home i spend several hours for the right solutions, now we should get the reward.

First we try it with our 2WD, but after a few Km it was over !!
Now we search for parking places along the road and then we walked to the track.

The afternoon was so hot, and after 30 Caches we was at the end of our forces !

Many Thanks to the Owners for this beautiful Rail Trail, ALB_atros

My first find in the series. Parked nearby and began the adventure. 2 bikes, 1 2wd car, 1 GPSr and 1 person willing to find caches. Was a good 4 hrs on the trail. I logged #2-65 then logged this on the way back to Mandurah. Swim and lounge in the hotel a must to recover and now we're off to Simmo's. Nothing exciting in future logs so please don't bother reading them. We mostly rode, occasionally walked and drove to a few. I rolled my ankle at #22 which made for an even more painful few hours in the heat. The guy at IGA Dwellingup was in shock when I bought 2 1L sports drinks. For me, best $8 I spent so far today (although I suspect that'll change in an hour at Simmos!!). Thanks for the massive effort you've gone to in hiding all these caches. I found solving all the puzzles very tedious but I appreciate that it was necessary for you to get the CHOO CHOO on the map. It is certainly a lot tougher riding that track than sitting in a 4WD. Knowing I'd be caching solo, I planned to do 50 from 9:30am until 1pm but with vehicle access near Dwellingup, we continued on until 65. The scenery wasn't as spectacular as I had imagined from reading previous logs but I enjoyed hanging out in Dwellingup for a half hour since that is such a chilled little town. Accessing many of the GZs from the track (the final 10 or 20m from where I left my bike) proved slippery on the gravel. Great to see some decent sized containers. I photographed the clues and think I only need 1 more letter for the final. Thanks again, jasenjanine.

Found at 8:50:00 AM.

Today rudi63 and I hit the hills of Dwellingup to have a crack at this series. I had eyed this off ever since it was published, but work commitments meant that I could not attempt them until much later than I wanted to. [xx(]

That being said, I solved all of them with relative ease, the hard bit was my fat fingers when I was entering the data into GSAK. I only got one wrong.....

While out on the trail today in my 4wd, I can happily say that we managed to navigate to all of the cahes with relative ease. There was one place that was a bit dodgy, [B)] but I think that was my inexperience [:o)] with this style of driving as Rudi was quite comfortable with what was going on. [8)]

We had a lot of fun with the searches. Most finds were relatively easy, but a couple had us scratchign our heads for a while, but that was mainly due to the tree coverage playing havoc with the GPSr reception. We pretty much shared the actual number of times that we said "got it", with each of us going through a streak at different stages.

Overall I had a fantastic day with lots of finds, I can't think of which caches to give a favourite to so unfortunately it will probably only be the final one, sorry

Thanks for the cache jasenjanine

Cheers

[8] [8]
After a long absence from caching for various reasons, today was the day where I got to go out for the day, and as it turned out it proved to be a very successful day.

Mr. Wileyclan rang and suggested we attempt the CHOO CHOO (Hotham Valley Rail Way) power trail; armed with the Nissan XTrail, lots of water and a determination to complete this series in a day, off we went.

We found that all of the caches were within less than 10 metres from the posted co ordinates, and the hints were helpful, once you got to the correct location.

Thanks for the cache [^][:o)]

This is cache 2 of 106 for today

This is my find number 3020

What started out as a day of exercise for Bindi the 12year old black pooch turned into a premium membership by the end of the trail.

Caching with my nephew and his wife (Usshfam) for the first time - and instigated by visitor V-ixen.

Caching was much like gold prospecting except we were using coordinates and not metal detectors.

So after two years and a couple of good finds we have switched to geocaching. It gets you out and about in the open air and is good exercise for Bindi who was an inheritance from a 92 year old neighbor.

Bindi used to be terribly over weight and with the correct diet, medication for her thyroid and exercise has already lost 7kg.

Doing 98 caches in one day was a challenge for her and us - but very rewarding! The cachemobile's name is Kermit as in the frog and will soon travel to many more caches.

TFTC. TN. LN. SL.

Find # 6. Find # 2 of 98 for the day.

This was our first full day of geocaching - We had just joined up the night before as premium members as my mother (Vixen) had come from South Africa on holiday and asked us to join her. So we were thrown into the deep end so to speak.

It was a fun day had by all, even myself who was bitten by a spider on my leg at one of "the fallen log ones" (keep your trousers rolled down at ALL times. I rolled mine up to cool off at our lunch stop and forgot to roll them back down.

It was 10hrs of solid geocaching. In one day we learnt all the different sizes of caches.... Micro, small & regular. We thoroughly enjoyed our day hopping in and out the car seeing who could find it first (even our 3 year old son found some before we did).

The cache that was next to the Hotham train was the most mind boggling it took us by surprise. Our team of 3 groups were all on the prowl.... (Usshfam, Vixen & Bindi)......

Pack lots & lots of water, especially if you are doing it on a hot day as well as some trackables if you have kids with you... A 4x4 is a must.

The only one we could not find out of the 99 was #89.... But it did not put a dampener on our spirits. We made note of all the clues but did not have time to solve.
So we toasted with a nice cold beer and headed home.

We have now figured out the final (thanks to TechnoNut) and will make a date to go and sign and say a toast to the logs of the 100th find.

Thanks for the day of fun on the trail!! And thanks to TechnoNut for solving the series!

TFTC. TN. LN. SL.

Find # 142. Find # 2 of 98 for the day.

This amazing cache series was spotted before I left South Africa to holiday in Perth. TechnoNut had a busy time solving 99 puzzles. And then loading them on the Oregon for me.

I hosted an event the eve before to exchange TB's with fellow cachers in Perth and during the event Fairways Drivers gave me a few pointers for the Big Day ahead.

We were all packed and ready to go by 5am. A good hour and a half drive (checked my caching bag a 100 times over to make sure I had my GPS - a bit like checking your passport when traveling abroad). Heaps of frozen water, food for a week and a heart skipping a beat knowing the challenge ahead.

I am just past the newbie stage and now I'm guiding newer newbies - a muggle and K9 Bindi on a power trail of 100 caches. Gosh talk about pressure.

The first find was around 7. 30am. Took a little while as we were over-thinking the hide but once found high fives all round and the adventure was on the road

Soon discovered a 4x4 was a must to do these caches. The guys had their moments of fun getting in and out of situations and assisting a fellow cacher out of a difficult situation. Not accustomed to the Oz bush, I had a moment or two but spirits were kept high as we took time out to enjoy the scenery around along the trail. I saw my first Monitor and Bobtail which was a real pleasure.

Thanks for placing this series - it gave all of us on the trail a day of fun in the bush! A new caching team Usshfam and then Muggle with K9 Bindi to want to be future cacher thanks to TechnoNut for solving the puzzles and being our support this end. Plans are being made to head for the magic 100 find on new years day and what better way to celebrate the new caching year of 2015 with the ultimate prize.

TFTC. TN. LN. SL.

Loaded the geobike in the boot and set of to find some of the Choo Choo series. It was a warm day and soon realised we wouldn't be completing the series all in one day especially by push bike. We still had a great time finding caches and also picked up some odd caches we didn't find on the last trip down SWH.

TFTC! Had solved a fair chunk of the series a while back, so had decided that it was about time to collect on my solving expertise. I got up early today to solve the last of the series and upload them all to the iPhone. Cravo10 came round and we loaded the geo bikes into their respective cars and made our way along the trail collecting the caches as we went. We were struggling with the extreme heat today and at #19 I realised I had made a critical error! The keys for the car at #60 had been left in the first car at #1 eeeeeeekkk!

We backtracked to number one along the main road which was much easier, and decided to tackle some ones near Dwellingup. Starting at #60 and heading back towards #1 in the geo cars. After reaching #50, Cravo10 had to get home so he turned around. I however decided on " just a couple more ", well I didn't get too far. I had 49 on the map next so made my way towards that before I ended up beaching my car on the side if a very sandy part of the track. Luckily a guy in a 4wd came to assist, just with no ropes. Then some other people turned up (lucky me) and I was pulled out. I noticed on the lady's shirt the name Vixens, who's name I had seen in logs earlier that day. Asked if they were catchers and they were, what are the odds!

All in all was a great day and I look forward to coming back to do the rest of the series. Thanks Jasenjanine. Can't begin to think about all the hours of planning that went into this series.

We are having a great day caching with jacaro44. 4 pairs of eyes helped us to be able to finish the whole series today. Left a Kookaburra TB here.

We teamed with FairwayDrivers to tackle the Choo Choo series on Wednesday. Picked FWD's up at 6.30am and had our first smiley around 8.00am. We made good progress until #60 where we bogged down for a while walking in circles. A vote confirmed that what we required was sustanance so a lunch break was undertaken to recharge the energy packs. We returned to #60 where, after another 10 minutes searching Mr FWD's made the find. Nastey little nano!!.So again with high spirits it was off again gaining smileys along the way. At #74 the GPS took us to a recently burnt stump but no cache was found. Our only DNF for the day. Having eventually found all the clues for #100 we back tracked but could get no cleser than about 150m in the vehicle. It was time for some serious leg work. Great views of the forest from GZ and a lovely big cache to welcome us. We all had a great day and were back home around 6.00pm.
Jasenjanine, you have excelled yourselves establishing this series. The coordinates were bang on and the track -- interesting. All caches in good condition (except maybe #74) Apologies for the generic log.
Thanks for a great days outing and fav from us for # 1, #60 and #100

After scouting out the choo choo series on Sat we attacked it on Sun starting at 6am and this was one of our finds. TFTC.

Found it,
After working out the first 20 of the Hotham valley rail trail puzzles, We set off and found all 20 with two extras along the way that's 22 finds and no dnf! very excited about completing this series great caches so far!

The way was dry, but its defiantly snake country so watch your step !!

This is a ditto log, I think Gypsy Roaming covered this last part of our Hotham Valley adventure very well

Huge thanks to Steve and Graham who appeared as if sent from heaven to pull us from the bog, [^]

We are loving the series.... ....so there really isn't much more I can add except the driver remained reasonably calm all the way through and was very pleased to reach the main road again.[:o)]

TFTC. jasenjanine

Heading home after a great couple of days camping and caching along the rail we stopped in the trusty camper to check out the track for our next attack on this series, of course we just had to grab this one as it "was just there" then of course we just had to explore a bit further
Then a bit more until we had 1-6 found. Just a bit further was just a bit much. Trusty camper slipped in what appeared dry and down she went bogged[8] Oh well it happens
We had just started trying to get ourselves out when up rides a 4 wheel bike from the neighboring farm who calls up the 4WD from the paddock.
Had us out on our way in no time and even made sure we got to the end of the track
Another great caching adventure Can't wait to get back out there and find the rest of the series

Thanks Jasenjanine for a great series and the effort you have put in to set this up

Geodad promised me to do the CHOO CHOO series one weekend and this was the one. Started on Friday night and got #59-#41(DNF# 53) then we called it a night. Got #1 at 7am then to #28 ,as we headed back to the campsite. Then we got #29-#41 and picked up #53 on the way out and back to Dwellingup. #60 was the best of them all, so we went all the way from #60-#99 then to the final. The weather held off so it was an easy adventure. Most co-ords were good. It was great scenery and many memories were well spent here. No one else would see this awesome scenery if they didn’t geocache here .Sorry for all the generic logs
TFTC and the great series jasenjanine

Promised the kids a camping trip before the end of the holidays, and dwellingup was the destination. With the idea of tackling some of the choo choo trail.

So with the Friday off and the car packed we headed down and started on the trail around one o'clock with the idea of caching to three then heading into lane pool to make camp.

Didn't miss a hide for the day until time ran out (but we get to that later).

What a great series with varying styles and great scenery to make things interesting.

The geo kids had a blast playing n the old train and driving the track

Tfts jasenandjanine

Teamed up with ~Tango~ to do this series.

Having just read his logs, I think he described our adventure most eloquently. Nothing more for me to add, except that I thoroughly enjoyed the journey.

Sorry about he generic logs, but I do appreciate all the effort that went into getting this series out there, not to mention the ongoing maintenance.

Well done and thankyou jasenjanine.

Mistraluna and I had a wonderful day out doing this fun trail. Not only a chance to grab a cache or hundred but also to do lots of exploring of the railway's history, check out some good wildflowers and of course experience the best of the river with plenty of water flowing over falls and rapids. The orchids were still good even though it's late in the season. Plenty of birds serenading and displaying. The rail infrastructure and locos and rolling stock kept this little boy very happy. Not too sure that Mistraluna shared my enthusiasm when I got lyrical after spotting an S class. Great views along the way. Plus the weather could not have been better. Spring is ideal for this adventure.

The track was good. A bit wet but no real problems with the 4WD. Good excuse for other teams to team up and share a 4WD experience. Our only disappointment - the apple place had finished its season and we were too early for the berries.

Have left the caches to last, but of course the caches are there to get you out experiencing all these amazing bits of history, scenery and nature. We found and signed each and every one. As good a variety as is possible over so many hides. Loved the tricky little mongrel which seemed to have a few less signatures in it than others. There was great rejoicing every time we found "a big one". And because we found all the big ones, we were able to enjoy that final hide - a great spot there.

Thanks jasenjanine for all your work and I hope that everyone who gets out to do it has as much fun as we did. You have found a wonderful area to share with us all.

After seeing this series published I just couldn't wait to get in and cross it off my list. So at the Let's get Jaded Event a few of us got talking about doing the series in a small group. A facebook event was created and long story short we ended up with 4 teams meeting up at the Pinjarra Bakery a few weeks later.

Teams Granett, tmrwtt, Luna Maya & myself all headed off in the 4WD's eager to get started and we weren't disappointed, what a great series!!

Most caches were easy to find, some a little more challanging and as the day wore on, and our energy levels were slowly dispersing the hints came in handy. The variety of containers and hiding locations also kept it interesting.

A huge thank you to Jasenjanine for a wonderful series and to the teams who I got to complete this series with. It was a memorable day and my first time to ever to the the 100 finds in 1 day, plus the couple of other caches we grabed along the way.

A few weeks ago it was suggested by tmrwtt on the Geocaching WA facebook page that a group assault be organised for the Hotham Valley Rail Trail series. It suited me down to the ground, I was approaching a major milestone and the cache that I had picked out for the magic number was down this way as well. Put the date in the calender and convinced the muggle wife and daughter to come along as well, the geodog Charli, as always, was very excited to join us on our caching day.

The plan was to knock off 27 caches in the morning and after a picnic lunch we would head off to make the milestone attempt with our 28th find for the day.

So after meeting up at the Pinjarra Bakery and explaining that we wouldn't be with them for the whole day four teams in three cars set off in pursuit of some train spotting. It was a fantastic morning with some great people, tmrwtt, Luna Maya and Ladyjet86, Although they won't admit it I reckon the muggle wife & daughter got a kick out of it as well.

A great series jasenjanine with a good variety of hides and some enjoyable 4wding to boot. Thanks for the supreme effort in putting it all together and providing me with one of my best ever geocaching days so far.

Apologies for the copy n paste logs, individual comments below...

tmrwtt came up with a quick find here.

SLTFTC

The much waited for " The Choo Choo Express " facebook event finally arrived. Four teams participated - tmrwtt, Ladyjet86, Granett and ourselves. What an " awesome " day it was. Great location, fun and eventful 4x4 driving, trains and excellent hides.The weather was sunny and fine so perfect. The wildflowers were in bloom - beautiful We managed to find every hide and really appreciated the hints later on in the day as energy levels faded The caches were all found in good condition. The variety of containers was good to keep us challenged. Logbook signed and off to the next one
Thanks for a great adventure and series Jasenjanine !!!
Also thanks to our geo-companions and families for your much appreciated company
* I will add variations to cut and paste logs in an asterix *

Found this one whilst on a trip with others to grab all in one day. What a mammoth effort!! Thanks jasenjanine

Our last camping trip to Dwellingup before the enforced camp fire ban and what a cracker of a weekend it was. Weather was glorious, camp site at Charlies Flat perfect as usual and we 'chugged' our way through the first 'choo' of the Hotham Valley Rail Trail. Congratulations jasenjanine on a fantastic set of caches, the time and effort was not lost on us. TFTH.

Our last camping trip to Dwellingup before the enforced camp fire ban and what a cracker of a weekend it was. Weather was glorious, camp site at Charlies Flat perfect as usual and we 'chugged' our way through the first 'choo' of the Hotham Valley Rail Trail. Congratulation jasenjanine on a fantastic set of caches, the time and effort was not lost on us. TFTHs.

This entry was edited by Nosky on Sunday, 21 September 2014 at 07:02:59 UTC.

Headed down here with the Italian Geo-Stallion to tackle the series and boost our numbers, found all but one, it eluded us well. SL TFTH

Out on a quest with TeamRoc

TFTC

Our second find for the day on this series, this one took us a while to find, we looked and looked, broadened our search area, went back to GZ, was about the leave when we have one more look, arrrgg, we found it finally in the obvious spot just well hidden. TFTC

This one proved to be a bit of a time stealer Talk about easy, but hard to find! We managed to get some cacher wounds here (nothing serious), just our zeal to locate the sneaky little bugger. After plenty of back and forth, round and round, Fussbit finally yelled 'found it' thank goodness! After signing the log I went to get into the 'black ninja' and stuck to the back panel was the magnet tool that Fussbit had bought for caching, stuck to the vehicle in its full packaging!! LOL We were already into a lot of laughter for the day. Keep an eye out for the beautiful wildflowers growing around here.

Well geokidlet and I made a start on the Hotham Valley Rail Series today getting the first C and H completed… our hungry bellies were calling too loudly to go find a BBQ and cook up our bacon and egg sandwiches by this point! All up we were out for a weekend of no plans, camping, hiking, caching - really whatever came along. You never know where caching will lead you if you have no plans and so we found ourselves near the start of the trail close to lunch time on Sunday. This was our mistake I guess! At the first cache we were out of the car looking around the side of the track when a white ute came up behind and a man started asking aggressively what we were doing. I tried to explain to no avail. He accused me of stealing rocks and demanded I back my car and (camper trailer) out right NOW!! ahha - alas I was not going to be able to back out so we continued on! That is one man with a serious anger management problem.. and I would suggest leaving the track clear on Sundays when he could be lurking! Suffice to say that geokid was crying in fear and I had the doors locked! After the angry man left us be we were able to finish our business and have a lot of fun taking the 4WD and the not 4WD trailer through the MUD SOOOO much fun! Thank you for this series! I can't imagine how many hours of work went into it! I very much look forward to getting it completed!

We had spied this series off for a short while now and Oo-yeh and I finally had a day that we both could get out.
Started off at # at 5.40am and got to the final at 2.23pm.
Along the way we grabbed a couple of nearby caches but it was the rain that slowed us down.
It absolutely bucketed down and mid way through, we just said "bugger it, we cant get any wetter"
We stopped a few times to let the stongest downpours pass us but most of the time we just "toughened up" and got soaked.
This is a magnificent series, Co-ords were spot on and the location itself is beautiful.
I would not have known this track existed otherwise.
Thanks for the series Jasenjanine and the company today Ooh-Yeh

I was overseas when this mystery series came out and I was cursing the CO,s ......... I then put a plan together , I called KYZABRA to see if he could wrangle a day off so today was the day and I was determined not to let a little rain put us off ...........PS did I say a little well that was a understatement as it bucket it down and the track was looking like a mini river the jeep managed to push through with ease and engaging 4x4 in some areas ...... Loved the day out with great company the caches were spot on with the coord's
Thanks Jasenjanine for the great adventure

I found this cache with Mum and Dad. It was really cool seeing the old train carriages and steam engines. And I loved that we were driving mostly on dirt not on the highway.
I got my first ever bee sting today and It hurt lots but I still found more caches.
Mum and Dad will bring me back down here to find the rest soon I hope.

Good drive and camped overnight. Can't wait to get back to finish the series.
A lot of effort placing these - thanks!

Hotham Valley Rail Trail take 1.
A long day chasing 1-59 numbers of the series. First we drove to Dwellingup and unpacked the geo-bikes. Then drove back to the start of the series and parked the car there and walked all way back to the town, about 17km.
We really enjoyed the series, especially the first part with the green fields and the small creeks. It took seven hours to go through the 59 hides with only one DNF. Most of them were very easy finds, some others took a little bit more to figure out. Once we got back to Dwellingup we jumped on the geo-bikes and rode back to the starting point.
Overall it was an excellent day, a new personal best for the daily finds as well. Thanks for all the effort putting this mega-series together.

With our initial plans up in smoke due to kids sports on Saturday and a can't miss birthday party on Sunday we headed off Saturday afternoon to make a start on this series.
Found a good chunk of the caches then headed for the Dwellingup Pub for dinner and the All Blacks v Wallabies game.
Camped out the night then headed home in the morning.
Can't wait to get back out there and find the rest of the series.
TFTC

Teamed up with Iluvtrekking and Richlinks to tackle this great series, It was a beautiful day with mild weather and sunshine, Started about 9am and made our way through this fantastic series with various different hides, some were easy while a small handle prove to be more challenging.. We manage to find them all plus the final. Plus I had my best caching day , picking up 127 finds in one day. TFTC and this amazing series.

One word to describe the experience - Awesome. Awesome series, scenery, company and weather.
Jasenjanine you have done an amazing job putting this series together and we truly appreciate your efforts. Located all the containers with little problem - including #60. The track between #1 - 50 was the most challenging with a few ruts and large puddles but nothing a competent 4wd'er couldn't negotiate with a little care. #61 - 99 was a pretty good track and the only obstacle being the tree across the track at #73. Having a 4wd no problem crossing the rail track to get around it. Absolutely amazing day in the company of iluvtrekking and JacobsCrew - the boys revelled in the drive and as usual if they could make the car muddier, then they did! Thanks jasenjanine.

We completed the Hotham Valley Rail Trail with richlink and Jacobscrew on a beautiful spring-like day.

The first half of the trail had some rough sections and some decent sized puddles to negotiate while the second half of the trail was relatively smooth sailing. The track was blocked by a fallen tree between #73 & #74 forcing us to drive across the rail track to get around it.

All caches were found in good order. Some quickly, others not so quickly and we had to widen our search area to find them. Our favorite was #60 - you out did yourselves here.

All in all a fantastic feat, thanks jasenjanine, we had a day we will not forget.

Well well well......... I am so happy by not only working out how to solve the puzzles but by also completing all 99 of them in 1 day.

Managed to talk hubby into taking me as I wasn't keen on attempting the track on my own after reading about people being bogged.

The track today, overall, wasn't too bad with probably only 1 or 2 major boggy bits and 2 or 3 badly eroded areas. Lucky for me hubby is pretty good with the 4wd and we managed to follow the track all the way. I guess we were lucky as it hadn't rained for a few days so had dried up a bit.

Jason & Janine, you have done a fantastic job with the placing of this series, co-ords were great, fantastic variety of caches and a fun day out was had by myself, hubby and our dog Evie, who ran along the track in front of the car with the biggest smile on her face. So a HUGE congratulations on a job well done

Most of the caches I was third or fourth to find and on two or three of them, I was second to find!

Thanks and well done jasenjanine you have truly outdone yourselves with this trail of caches. I found all of the coordinates to be very good (no more than 2-3 metres in most instances) although a couple of the finds took me a little longer than the others

I had an RDO today and decided to have a crack at this series on my mountain bike. I set off from home nice and early (4.50am) and parked near number 1, the first dozen or so were found by torchlight The track was a bit wet in places but once the sun came up I was able to negotiate it with a bit more ease and confidence and my pace increased. I managed to grab them all, it took me 6 and a half hours from starting to grabbing the final.

Decided to solve a few of this series and tackle them on the mountain bike. Loved every minute of it and can't wait to move onto the next letter. Thanks for a great series.

Geo sister toy4jaws solved all puzzles and called me to go find them with her so we set out in the morning to find as many as we could to only go down the track from the wrong end and get bogged in mud thank god for a few of the boys from 4x4 club who came out to save us . We were only 800 m from first cache we followed gps and got stuck to later find out we should've entered track via another point so once we were unstuck we said to each other we didn't go through all if this to not even come up without a couple of finds so we continued to find first 2 caches and plan to complete the rest at a later date.

What an adventure. After staying up to solve the puzzles my geo sister MalNatBur and I headed off on our journey. 800 meters from the cache our gps was telling us to turn. We saw the railway and a grass service track so we headed down it in my geo 4x4. The track soon turned to slop but being adventurous as we are we continued. We were doing fine until the car hit a huge mud hole. Result = bogged. Being a member of a 4x4 club I quickly put a call out to the Facebook page and had offer left right and centre of members wanting to test their winches. The location took them some time to reach us. I got to meet some great members I had only seen in photos. Our first recoverer managed to bog himself too but it wasnt long before another member showed up with a winch and had us both out in a matter of minutes. What a great helpful friendly beer supplying bunch 4x4 owners are. After reaching hard ground we stopped for a well deserved beer that one of the blokes bought down for us... Aired up the tyres and bam made our first find of the series. Thanks for the adventure it was great fun and gave a reason to meet some great 4x4ers with winches!

After a quick find on the first Cache and knowing my co-ords were correct we made a quick find here on the second and were happy to manage some finds for the day after our boggy start to the series.

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