HMAS #30: ARARAT Holder, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
By Cankid on 14-Jun-14. Waypoint GC56YJJ

CITO Retrieval- Collected.

This series has come to the end of its life. With pine plantations being cleared and new suburbs encroaching on the area, it needs to be archived. Thanks to all who helped with the CITO this morning and to all who have supported the series. Special thanks to Cankid for the research and original placement of the series.

Found during HMAS Pickup CITO event. Fantastic series. Thanks for keeping it going for so long.

Thank you for letting us log the caches at the event Smittengranny
I had the chance to do the caches 80 to 90 a few 50ies and a 20 with Fred yesterday. This was a nice series.
Would have liked to do the others as well but couldn’t because I had a sour leg.
Thank you for putting out the cache Cankid

Dino

Thankyou Smittengranny for both maintaining and letting us log the series, as well as the CITO event.

Thanks also to Cankid for the initial placement.

I was devastated when Angel27 told me that the series will be gone by the end of the week! Horror!
I was overseas when the came out looking forward to do them ever since. Even though we have been back some weeks now I had left them as they are the perfect opportunity to go nearby with the dog and the entire family. So I was waiting for the right opportunity to come here for a nicely planned dayhike or two. (Not realizing that their days were ending of course).

So since this is final opportunity to take on the HMAS series before it's archived I am making a late effort now.
This is the second day effort, this time an early start, important as I was taking on the northern side today.

Found this on at 12:36

A beautiful hike here today! Thanks.

TFTC Smittengranny and Cankid for the great series, will be sad to see them go.

My final opportunity to take on the HMAS series before it's archived. Need to get through 20 traditionals in the northern section this cold morning, plus 3 stragglers in the south.

TFTC Smittengranny and Cankid

Making good time but estimating I'll fall 2-3 caches short of my target before I have to head back to the car. Sense of humour much improved since I administered a dose of chocolate.
TFTC, Cankid and Smittengranny

Out and about with Happy Uke again for a big weekend of caching. In Canberra with our sights targeting the HMAS series before it vanishes over the horizon.

This proved to be a great walk for the both of us through some nice countryside.

I do enjoy these historic caches.

Thanks!

Sorry for the generic log but Finalf29 and I found seventy two for the weekend. We came down to Canberra to finish the HMAS series before it gets archived at the end of the month. We found the last HMAS puzzle as the sun set on Sunday afternoon. We were very tired after walking goodness how many kilometres, but had a fantastic weekend and enjoyed every minute of it. Thanks to all the CO's for your caches, but a HUGE thanks to Finalf29 for joining me in this crazy game... you are the best walking buddy a person can ask for!

Not as hard to find as I thought it was going to be. Lots of options here.
TFTC

Bahahah Minniek has it fast in hand. I was waaay off track. Good thing I found a stretching log.

Out on our hunt to clear out some HMAS. With botmun and Minniek. Great day for it. So glad we started uphill!

Headed out with nibletricecakes & B0tmun in the hopes of collecting the rest of this series....well for me atleast. We managed to do it.....just. The sun was just setting as we finished but still had to walk out from #12 to the road. Thankfully we had a car waiting to collect us. Legs definitely sore by the end. The puzzles will have to wait for another day.

It wasn't there were I expected!

This was a very nice walk which took me most of the day. I didn't have time to do the whole walk but got the majority of it done. Most of the finds were easy apart from a handful which took a few minutes to spot, plus 1 DNF. The weather was nice and sunny but not too hot. The walk took about 8 and a half hours including a few stops for drink and snacks along the way. Thanks for setting the series and a more detailed log at No. 1. TFTC.

Darn, starting to run short on time and GPS really jumpy on this one.

Going to do this series with Eldritch97 before it disappears. It's been on my to do list for ages...TFTF

TFTC! Found with legocacher79. GPS was jumpy but we found it eventually

Found with kralcm. Thanks

Found with HampusMS. Great weather today! TFTC

A nice quick find at 1049, with everything in order. I'm still finding prickles in my hands after crawling under the fence back at #25!

Thanks for the cache Cankid / DRT / Smittengranny.

Thanks for the hide

Found with mistysoho thanks for the cache

Tftc!

Finally got to finishing the HMAS series with Runner5ive. The other Zombros did not join us this time. 27km and 65 caches later we had this all knocked off. A fair bit of backtracking through the first half due to some bad navigation. Sorry for the generic log but it has been a big day. Thanks for maintaining and looking after all of these.

Finished the HMAS series (traditionals only for now) with aramil. Also did some incidental nearby ones. 65 caches in one day, and not a single DNF! It certainly helps having two pairs of eyes. Thank you to the series creator and the current series custodian, sorry for generic logs, CIH TNLNSL TFTC

3 of 30 today.

With an indeterminate time between my old and new jobs.. I've taken the oppurtunity to just treat every day like it's my last day of leave.. so with that, I've come down here to finish up the HMAS series.

Started today's run by going off the back side to collect the unfound caches in this series west of the arboretum

From there, I headed down along the molongolo back towards coppins crossing (where I had stopped my run some years ago!). Turned around to collect a tankengine cache, then headed back and scooped up the rest along here.

With only 1 DNF, I was stoked to have to have over half the caches done here!

TFTC CanKid, SmittenGranny & DRT!

### A beautiful sunny day ###

----------

I have already planed the walk of the HMAS series.
It was beautiful weather so I’ve started this tour with enough food/drinks to keep me going.
I’ve met many cows along the way and was happy about the tranquillity and the nice caches along the way.
I was able to find all caches and bonus numbers despite the heat of 40 degrees on that day.
I’ve watched many kangaroos in the afternoon and a big echidna.

I got back to the car after 10 hours of walking 38km. I’ve had a nice day and I was happy to convert all the caches into smileys.
Thank you for this nice tour.

Team sissifalke

I will look for the bonus numbers tomorrow.

Found at 12:11:00 PM

Headed out today to find a slew of HMAS series caches with ZimbaW, Joolay and JM383. Some cache maintenance was done and clue collected. 15.5 kms all up, so it was good exercise too.

Thanks Smittengranny

Geocaching today with Joolay, ZimbaW and Noikmeister. Despite the many potential hiding spots, this ended up being a very quick find.

Out with Cacher (geopup) for a walk and a few more caches from the HMAS series.

TFTC!

Found today with JM383, Noikmeister & ZimbaW on a cooler day to cache for summer actually it was down right cold with that very chilly wind coming straight off the mountains. Decided to try finish the HMAS series and got it done. Great walking with everyone. TFTC

F(H)ound It! #2385 @ 12:10 PM

A nice long walk with JM383, Joolay and Noikmeister.
We did 15kms in about 5 and half hours.
Thanks for the cache, SmittenGranny and Cankid.

Found it!

Spent the day caching with Geo Daughter Crash1970. SL TFTC

Found with 2N's. TFTC

This is our fourth trip to the northern island this year. The first three were primarily for family events but with some opportunities to do some caching along the way. The fourth trip is different as caching is our focus. After getting off The Spirit of Tasmania we are heading north to cache at Wangaratta and then Yass before heading into the ACT and Queanbeyan for a week. After that we will travel to Jindabyne for a few days with summiting Mount Kosciuszko being our main target for this part of our trip. Then we will visit Cooma and Tumut before heading back down the track through Wangaratta and Mansfield as we make our way to Alexandra for the MEGA. After the weekend we will continue to make our way south and back onto the Spirit of Tasmania for the “drive” across Bass Strait. We are really looking forward to three weeks of intense caching in great areas and, hopefully, catching up with some geocachers in each of the areas we will visit.

We have been working on the Canberra Mapping Challenge (GC5KB4J) for some time, taking the opportunity of reducing the number of suburbs still required every time we come through Canberra. On Sunday and Monday we concentrated on nine of the ten suburbs where we still had to find at least one cache. We waited 24 hours before the Project-GC Challenge checker confirmed that we had satisfied the requirements for another nine suburbs, leaving just one to go (Forrest). We will try to meet that requirement tomorrow. Today we had a different focus. We spent the morning on the HMAS series of caches in the Weston Creek area. In the afternoon we looked for some GCA caches and any other caches that were in the areas we were visiting. Thankfully the weather was much better than yesterday.

This morning we divided the caching between us. Mrs y’stassie started at “GC4V3TF HMAS 01: ANZAC” and after parking the car at Dairy Hill in the National Arboretum, Mr y’stassie walked to “GC56YK2 HMAS 44: SIRIUS” and started looking caches from there. Accurate coordinates and a familiar style of hide led to a quick find. The cache and contents were in good condition. Thanks Cankid for the cache and the series.

***** We are currently writing detailed logs because of a challenge provided by Project-GC. "The Author" Badge challenges geocachers to average one hundred words or more in each log. On 1 September 2017 our average was 86 which seems close to the 100 target. However given that we have found so many GC caches, we have to write many logs with well over 100 words for a long period of time to get our average to the target. Apologies to anyone who finds the logs tedious but it is the only way that we can strive to attain this challenge. After 228 caches (which includes all cache finds up and including yesterday), the average log length is just over 91.65. Progress is being made but there is still a long way before we achieve our goal.*****

Found with LittleSparr0w. TFTC

TFTC

I went for a nice walk with my parents and dogs to add to my finds today. We saw lots of cows and roos and were able to get quite close to a flock of black cockatoos. As well as all the caches we found a small turtle shell with some ants clearing out the last little bits that they could scavenge. The sun was a bit warm and my younger dog was tiring out so we headed back a little earlier than planned, taking a short cut by wiggling under a fence while the cows watched curiously. Overall, a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.

Spent the afternoon doing one of the major loops of the HMAS series... I think after todays effort I only have about 4 left to do and the bonus ones of course, which I unfortunately only have coords for 6. I guess the others have been rplaced over the last few years, god knows I have seen a few cow smashed ones. Sorry for the generic log... I have about 30 something to log

Sixteenth for the day

Found it

Found with Danryn!

On the way to 8000 finds... only about 300 to go!
I have a plan to find my 8000th cache on the 29th of July, in two weeks time. So I have a lot to find before then. So I planned a couple of weekend trips to Canberra of intense caching. Today the HMAS series was the target! I brought my bike with me as suggested... but when I started this morning at 8AM it was minus 4 degrees! Frost covering everything and ice on my car windows and bike. On top of that all the layers of warm clothing made it a bit difficult to move freely so I decided to go by foot.
By the end of the 8th hour I found the last cache, and had another hour walk back to the car. In the end I walked 30Km for 8 hours 50 min and found 99 caches in the area ( a few of the HMAS caches were offline and 1 DNF). Followed by a nice 3 hour drive home!
I'm still short of my goal so I'll probably come back down again next weekend.
Thanks for all the caches!

This one took a little while - it was well hidden. Found a little soldier and left a baby.

With dty73 we came this morning to see how many more of this series we could complete. Having started with a good few over the far side a few weeks back it was time to see to the ones from this side, with 40 found today. Lots of hiding places but the good coordinates had us in the right place, just needed a moment to spot. Thanks for the cache.

1:53pm completing our figure 8, we then headed back down to no. 10-19 to finish off the day. Tftc!!!

Tftc!

Found with Decrypter while out for a walk around the arboretum. TFTC.

Easy find while out on a walk through the arboretum with Trodectus.
The sky remained partially overcast all day and the temperature did not get up to 10C.
On the way back we came across someone replacing trees that had died. I must say I was impressed with the way he was preparing and mulching and the special drill equipment he said he had designed for the job. The soil where he was working was hard clay full of rocks.
Thanks For The Cache Smittengranny and Cankid

Found with sami_180

Tftc

Tftc

Third trip to the area with Lola1983. We were able to finish all the traditional caches from the HMAS serie today. Another 12km trip that totsls up to 35km by foot for the serie so far

Finished off the traditionals in the series today with Maris4.
Thanks Smittengranny.

TFTC

TFTC!

TFTC

I went for a walk to find a few more in this series. A quick find here. TFTC Smittengranny.

Pquick find

With the cache easily found it was a quick wave and moo to the furry-kind-of-muggles nearby and kept moo-ving to keep up the pace. A great day of cache finding today

I wanted to take my new mountain bike out for a spin, and the HMAS series was recommended by some fellow cachers. After parking at the coordinates given, I began my journey at HMAS #1 and completed the first 32 of the series.

It took me a few caches to get into the rhythm of pedal a couple hundred metres, hop off the bike, find a cache and continue along to the next. I left a dinosaur in every cache, and collected some great loot from a few along the way.

With the sun growing hotter by the minute and my water supplies beginning to run low, I decided to snag a few more finds on my way back to the main path. TFTC

I needed to find my daily cache, and felt like a nice walk, so I decided to come down here and find 1 or 2 or maybe even 3 or 4 or 5 of these HMAS caches in the little bit of evening in between "not long before Sunset" and "oops it got dark" ... so I parked (over the road) near #1 and walked past the first 3 (already found the first 7 or so a couple months back) and then I wiggled/slithered under the fence and headed for #33 because starting there meant I could do about 3 and head back, or maybe even 5 in a nice little loop ... The Sun set as I found that first one ... found a couple more, then I realised something odd/funny -my brother was in the NAVY foe 20+ years ... and today is his birthday - lol ... so I figured I had to do at least a couple more ... It was dark by about the 4th or 5th one ... but I had a torch, and I was having fun ... So I decided to do a loop of about 10, then maybe 3 more along Pipe Road as I walked back ... did the loop ... and realised there was no easy way back through the blackberries, and I was already too late to do what I was going to do on the way home (shopping at Aldi) anyway, plus it was a nice warm night and I was still having fun - so I did an even bigger loop and ended up finding about 21 of them (plus one DNF that I suspect has gone missing) and I got back to the car at about Midnight - lol
TFTC - this was the 10th for the evening ... I looked in the most likely looking spot, and didn't find anything ... checked some more places ... ended up climbing over/on enough rocks that I thought I was climbing MOUNT Ararat ... then had another look in the first place I had looked and found it there ::)
(hidden a bit better than I had looked for it I guess - lol)

Snaffled whilst on a planned route through the arboretum. Another good hard working, WA built ship. Found this one while carefully pondering the various features before one spot looked more likely than others, then hay presto! TFTC cache and series.

We finished the lower half of the HMAS series a few weeks ago, so came back today to complete the rest! We started around 7am, finished at about 4:30pm, and found 64 caches, including the HMAS puzzles, and some nearby unrelated caches. Some VERY sore feet today (and one exhausted Woofer!) but we had a lot of fun and enjoyed seeing the views. We left something behind in every one. TFTC Smittengranny - it was a great series!!

A quick and easy find.

One of 60 HMAS caches found today whilst enjoying the walk around the area. Looking forward to finishing the rest off some time. TFTC!
Cheers,
The Hancock Clan

Our current visit to Australia had been in the planning for over a year with the very significant help and advice from friends who live in Melbourne. The original plan was for a 2 month visit, but as things progressed we just couldn't help extending our trip to the full 90 days allowed on our visas - after all it's a big country and so much to see and do, especially with our favourite pastimes being birding, hiking and of course geocaching! Our journey started with our arrival in Perth before travelling on to Adelaide. We then continued on to Kangaroo Island, before heading to Melbourne via Goolwa, Strathalbyn, Coorong, Mount Gambier, Cape Bridgewater, the Grampians National Park, Port Campbell, Cape Otway and Lorne. The second leg of our journey was a fabulous 9 days in Tasmania. Having returned to Melbourne we then set off on the third leg of our journey, which is to Sydney via Wilson’s Promontory, Lakes Entrance, Mallacoota, Pambula Beach, Thredbo, Canberra (where we are at present) and Fitzroy Falls. We then travel on to the Gold Coast and the nearby mountainous birding hotspots before flying from Brisbane to Cairns for a week in the area. We then fly to Alice Springs for a week on the circuit to and from Kings Canyon and Ayers Rock before flying to Darwin from where we will spend the last two weeks of our holiday making our way to Broome before flying back to Perth, from where we connect with the flight all the way back home to Zimbabwe via South Africa. We already know we can't wait to return!

We had our sights on this series months before we arrived in Australia, but we only had one opportunity to undertake the trail, and so when the day finally arrived and we woke to pouring rain we were not going to be put off - and so following on from a large breakfast to avoid the need for lunch we arrived at the parking spot, donned our waterproofs, crossed the road and found the gate locked! - but we were definitely not going to be deterred at this stage, and so we climbed over the gate and started what turned out to be a MEGA hike. We managed to complete the entire trail, covering a total of just over 32.9 kilometres in 11.5 hours, although it felt like much more as the rain didn't let up even for one minute during the entire day, so making the track very muddy and slippery so that it often felt as though we were walking on ice, slipping and sliding frequently. The last few caches we searched for by torchlight - and then for the hardest part of the day - the LONG walk back to our hire car, as the last cache was nowhere near the start point! Along the way we saw many kangaroos, lots of cows and a good number of birds including two 'lifers' for us - the best bit of all was we didn't see a single other person in the entire hike - this place is definitely a cachers paradise and very muggle free - we had a great day! When we had crossed the nearby road ford early in the morning the river was just a small babbling brook, winding through the boulders way below the road level, but when we crossed back in the evening the river was just below the level of the road! Being dedicated geocachers we then went on to find 3 more caches on the way back to our hotel to make up for the 4 DNF's of the trail, as we wanted one of our days in Australia to include at least 100 finds. Thanks also to the CO for the massive amount of information provided throughout the trail.

A nice quick find at Ground Zero. Thanks so much for the cache.

TFTC

Tftc

Having spent the past few days in the alpine area I returned to Canberra to grab a few caches. This series was my target and under clear skies today I set off on the bike to bag a plethora caches.
Starting down near the RSPCA I was nerved to find pockets of smoke coming from various parts the series…. It appears hazard reduction season is well underway.

After 8hrs in the saddle I had found all the caches. Thanks for putting this series together. I actually learnt a bit about our naval history and explored a nice part of Canberra. Sorry for the duplicate logs.

I'm not normally a fan of power trails but I'm trying to get to 3000 finds by the end of June and, if numbers are your goal, power trails are the way to go. So I came to Canberra for an overnight raid, doing the Majura Cycleway yesterday, and spent today tackling some of this series. Due to various shenanigans I didn't get started here until noon and got back to my car at 5pm, having picked up 47 of the series with no DNFs. I have to say I enjoyed the day on the bike, despite it being not really suited to these trails, and the finds were all sufficiently challenging and varied enough to keep things interesting. I could see myself coming back to pick up the rest sometime, hopefully with a more suitable bike. Thanks for adopting and maintaining this series.

As for this specific cache: This was a quick find as my eye had been drawn to this beautiful old log as I rode up. Took some photos of it and then made the find. TFTC!

ANZAC weekend caching with the Geokid Juculu TFTC Cankid & Smittengranny

Tftc Good day for caching cheers

#2004 16 of 23 today.

I've known my 2,000th find was approaching, but other things have been getting in the way & it seemed to be taking forever to get there. So today after the CITO event I decided to knock it off by finally completing the HMAS power trail. I started this what seems like years ago, but then a whole bunch of new ones appeared not long later.

I parked out at Coppins Crossing Rd & traveled by mountain bike. I was surprised how quickly I managed to grab the 20-odd caches remaining. I was back home in about 2.5hrs.

Thanks for the cache Smittengranny.

Out for a pleasant day on the trail with teamwhitedoggang, this is such a great area for a ride. Perfect weather for it, and we made good time around the park. Gave my legs a good workout, and they were about ready to drop off by the end of it all. I think we may have just missed a couple of other cachers out today, with some other logs for today in some of the logbooks.

TNLN - Thanks Smittengranny and Cankid!

Found this cache when out for a cycle around the Arboretum area bike trails with Winterdragon.
Beautiful day, kicked off at 7.15 & wrapped up about 2.15 with 60 finds in total.
Nice spot, thanks for bringing us here
Thanks for the hunt Smittengranny

#8058 Found and Logged at 11:20:00 AM
One of 41 caches for the day 34 HMAS series and 6 Majora Cycleway while in canberra for the week
A great day to be out in the great outdoors geocaching
Thanks for the series Smittengranny

On a find/maintenance run today having adopted the series last year. Replaced the log.

Our 45th find in Canberra..Doing as many of the HMAS and other caches as possible today and this is number 28....thanks for bringing us here and TFTC!

Found 6:15 pm with LuckyL10n. We had just completed an earlier HMAS cache and then by pedal power headed over to this cache. After a search it was found and shortly after we had the log signed and cache re-hidden. It's starting to get darker and it looks like our hunt and ride back will be in the dark.
Thanks for the cache CanKid and SmittenGranny.

#4270 - 18:15; With MrDamage headed north for the winter, we decided that today would be a good chance to knock over a large part of the HMAS trail which we had yet to conquer. We had already logged 40 of 101 caches in the series, leaving another 61 on the 'to do' list. Fifty three of the remainder seemed doable today, but a couple of recent DNFs cast some doubt on that possibility. As it turned out we collected 51 caches, with 2 DNFs (as anticipated) and collected the coords for the remainder, following a couple of other cachers around for much of the journey, although we didn't actually catch up. It was dark by the time we gathered our last few finds and a rather slower cycle back to the geomobile in the absence of moonlight for assistance. TFTC Cankid and Smittengranny and apologies for the cut and paste logs!

A terrific day of geocaching in the company of the most excellent IamCoust. Our aim was to knock off the HMAS series, perhaps with a couple of extras in the way, using our trusty bikes to speed through the twisting forest trails.

While the goal of 100 caches for the day was feasible, it would have required a bit more emphasis on achieving the target and a bit less on achieving a really enjoyable outing with some great chats on the way. As it was, we covered 22 odd kilometres, found 71 caches (and recorded 4 DNFs - 3 of which had been DNFed by a few recent searchers) and had the aforementioned really enjoyable outing. Even allowing for the less than enjoyable blackberries.

Apologies for the generic logs. IamCoust was rather more organised and methodical than myself and made notes on the way, so his entries might have some more details. Sincere TFTCs to those who placed and subsequently maintained these caches.

Decided to give the HMAS series (and a few others close by) a go. Headed out early, met MJW1 at the car park. With bikes at the ready off we went. The goal, to complete as many as we could (had 100 in mind originally, but it was probably also going to be a little too many). A cloudy day to start, but as the afternoon went on, the sun made an appearance, which made it a comfortable ride. A few muggles riding and jogging along the tracks but didn't meet any fellow geocaches. A great day was had, thanks MJW1, we'll finish the remainder soon. 71 finds and 4 DNFs (3 of them already logged). TNLNSL TFTC

Out for a huge day caching with The Storm Man, with the goal of breaking his best-day-of-caching record by getting 200 caches. Not the easiest thing to do in the ACT, but we were up for the challenge.

We got up at 5am and drove out to the HMAS trail. With only a few DNFs and most of the puzzle caches found we were able to complete this series on bike by 1pm, then it was off for a quick lunch break before hitting the new CTF trail by car all the way to Captains Flat. We bumped into many different caching groups heading the other way coming back from the day's event. Only 1 DNF on this series and even some time for a few local caches.

We left Captains Flat at 8:30pm knowing we were sitting roughly on 180 caches, we still needed about 20 more to get across the line, and the sun had well and truly gone.

As we drove back I looked through the maps to see what we could manage doing and decided on a night time walk through the Kowen Pine Forest. So at 9:00pm armed with our head torches and iPhones we began our walk through the Cache Constellation Trail. Very still and pleasant this time of night, with only 1 DNF we got back to the car at 11:15pm. Enough time to pick up a few single traditionals around Queanbeyan before midnight just to make sure we were well and truely over the 200 mark.

All in all a huge yet fantastic day.

Thanks StormMan for the fun and thanks to all the geocachers who placed these caches for us to find today. (Sorry for generic log.)

Joelisa was coming up to visit and do some caching and left it up to me to figure out what we would do. Decided to try and crack 200 for caches in a day and after talking to some friends figured the HMAS series would be a good place to start. Armed with camelbacks, head torches, snacks and bikes, Joelisa and I started the trail at 6am (still dark). We finished the trail at 1pm with only 2 trad DNF's, 1 puzzle DNF and 3 other puzzles that we didn't find the coords too, probably because we forgot to look for them. Loved this trail. It wasn't too hard to ride and was really tight so made for some quick finds. Thanks for creating it CanKid and for maintaining it Smittengranny.

Once we had had a quick lunch break it was off to the newly created Captains Flat Trail. Bumped into some other cachers as we made our way through this trail. Very nice to meet you all. Only one DNF on this one, although some took longer to find than others. At the end of this trail we continued on into Captains Flat town where we found a few more before heading back into Queanbeyan.

We still needed more caches and needed them to be close to each other. Joelisa made the call to go for a night cache of the Kowen Constellation Trail. By this point I was getting weary and was sceptical about this idea but went along with him anyway. Turns out it was a lot quicker than I thought and the walk was so easy.

We had about 45mins left before midnight so we made a dash for a few more finds in Queanbeyan just to top the day off. Don't know what the final count is but after a quick review of the day we knew we cracked 200.

Thanks to everyone who created all these caches and for the cool places it took us. Thanks Joelisa for keeping me going when I was close to giving up.

Day seventeen of the Southern NSW Lounge About with BettyBoo3747.
Fired up the deadly treadlies and rode the first part of the HMAS series.
Unfortunately, we forgot to charge up the GPSrs from the ride the day before, so we juggled two GPSrs and the phone until they all ran out about #42.
Thanks for the interesting ride, saw heaps of kanga bouncers, cows, and black cockatoos (and 200ml sistemas!)
We shall return for the rest of the series.
Thanks, Robmc.

# 10318. Wow, what a day! Rob's intention (misguided I might say) was that we would ride around and gather the whole series today. However, things went a little awry very early on. Firstly, we had to lift two extremely heavy mountain bikes over the gate - (15kg and 21kg) - not a good start. Then, after only a few caches Rob realised his GPS was on low battery and mine wasn't far behind. We forgot that we were riding all day yesterday too and that they hadn't been charging in the car like they normally do. Very foolish error. We used Rob's until his charge ran out, then we used mine until it ran out and then we used my iPhone until it ran out and then we picked up our bat and ball and went back to the geo-chariot.

This is my kind of caching day and all was right with the world. Easy riding on great tracks with great views and a lot of black cockatoos and huge kangaroos and wistful black cattle.

We ended up doing 41 of the series with 2 DNF's and one we didn't attempt when the iPhone was getting very low at the end and we still had to find our way back.

Thanks Smittengranny

On our first visit to Canberra we thought we'd try some of the HMAS series. After 23 finds the heat got the better of us. Many thanks to Smittengranny for all the effort of placing and maintaining the series.

I'm on holiday this week so I decided today to have a crack at the HMAS Series.

Managed to find 38 before I got the battery low wind-up on my iPhone. Most were easily found, some not so. Some were filled with water (#4, #5, #7, #27, #28), one was broken (#21) and one I suspect was a throw down (#36).

You should be commended for maintaining this series Smittengranny, its a big ask. Not something I would take up. I think the size of the log books in the small sistema containers is a factor to why some have water in them, the log books that you have replaced work a lot better.

Thanks for your efforts.

No problems TFTC

A well hidden cache, thanks for taking the time and thanks for the cache

Found on the 23/Nov/15 with Muppet95,
Now logging on my own separate account. Thank you.

Mountain Biking for 6hrs, got up to 50 but missed 2. Good day. Quite hot.
Thank you for the great powertrail, both to Cankid and now Smittengranny, thank you very very much!

A great series for its history, a great powertrail for the numbers & a great scenic location! Thanks to all CO's involved

A trip to Canberra - our main target was to do the HMAS series and a few puzzles we solved.

The day was quite warm, but we carried plenty of water and made our way around the first section.
We found 49 of the 50, but number 12 was a DNF for us after looking for half an hour.

Many thanks for placing this series of caches, Smittengranny, for us and others to find.

# 1978 Detailed log to follow

SL TNLN TFTC

Looking at the satellite view of this area and where I walked, the pines are not as thick as they look from the ground, there are huge open areas. An easy find tonight in the dark.

Tftc

I'll try and keep the Copy/Paste section short and add any additional notes (if any).

The basics:
Time - 9:30am-4:00pm (6.5hrs)
Transport - Mountain Bike
Caches Attempted: 1-50

A great series for its history, a great powertrail for the numbers & a great scenic location! Thanks to all CO's involved

---End Copy/Paste Section---

Nothing to report here

HMAS #30: ARARAT was transferred from Cankid to user Smittengranny

Fourth stint at this series and clearly the less frequented parts bout with the geokids on bikes parking at the arboretum. Thanks again for the series cankid. Tftc.