Puffing in Paradise Emerald, Victoria, Australia
By Pinkpiggy7 on 06-Jul-14. Waypoint GC589Z1

Walking from Sassafras to Emerald and back, it proved to be a extremely challenging walk through the rainforest which was has been neglected for many years. Once at Emerald we walked to menzies creek, caught puffin billy to Belgrave and walked the rest back to Sassafras, a 30km walk. The cache was wet and needs abit of TLC. TFTC

Again super fun hide!

We are out for a drive and lunch at Cooks corner, one of our favourites, nice to find a cache as we. So TFTC

Tanked it

Gps is way out, but reading previous logs made this an easy find

Not my day today one to come back too

Not exactly where the GPS locator is. Good find!

Kept going back and forth, sure it was there, but didn't see it at first

Thankyou! Some interesting gifts inside right now

This was my only find while on today's walk around the area. It wasn't until everyone was ready to continue the walk however that I realised that the cache was here. Oh dear, but a 1/1 cache was to good to pass up so I told everyone that I'd catch up to them and got down to the task at hand. The area was muggle central with kids escaping their parents who were dining at the pub but thankfully they weren't overly interested in what I was up to so with a read of the hint, there was really only place it could be, well within a couple of square metres that is , even though the coordinates seemed to be about 10-15 metres out. Luckily, the cache was in the first place I checked (phew) so I was finally signing the log at 14:30 and off to catch the others with a few looks over my shoulder to make sure no-one got too curious. TNLNSL. Thanks Pinkpiggy7.

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Thanks for the Cache Pinkpiggy?,It seemed a good central location to meet up for lunch at tha Paradise, The three Cousins and their wives.Nick and Julie travelled 25 km from Clyde, Victor and Carol travelled 40 km from Millgrove and Rob and Nan travelled 16600 km from Amsterdam in the Netherlands (I think they drew the short straw!).It was wonderful to meet them for the first time, they are Beaut people ( must be something in the Genes ) and strangely seemed familiar ( a nice blend of my Father, Brother and Sisters ).Unfortunately there was no Billy Puffing today due to recent Storm events. But the station provided a nice cool place to chat.Regards from Victourer

Thank you!

Great lunch at Paradise Valley hotel & a great find at the station! Tftc

The road to my 15,000 milestone.After an impromptu caching adventure yesterday I accumulated a few more finds than first anticipated and so my milestone approached a week earlier than expected. Not that I had really had time to plan anything anyway, but I had assumed that was next weeks problem.I was in need of some more T5 caches, so given the nice weather, a last minute plan was hatched with OzHockeyChick to hit the water and grab a few caches on the journey to 15,000.We swung by this cache hoping for a quick find but it was anything but. The GPS had us searching in the gardens behind the structure looking for a regular sized cache. No matter how often we looked it was producing no good, and it was only adding to the garden damage from previous searches.We returned to the structure and began reading some previous logs. iTEEMs log among others suggested we should expand our radius and sure enough we found the smaller cache in a far more likely spot, albeit about 14m SW of GZ according to our GPS. If you are in any doubt, there is no need to enter or trample the gardens to obtain this one.Thanks Pinkpiggy7 for adding this cache to the worldwide collection for us all to enjoy. It was a great day out!----------------------------------------------------------Have you found all of the 12 Days of Cachemas series? Check out the list of caches and work your way through the series. Full details available at [Cachemas in July](https://geocachingvictoria.com.au/events/cachemas-in-July) Find one of the amazing caches nominated in the 2022 Victorian Cache of the Year Awards. The shortlist is available [here](https://coord.info/BMC8QYR)

RoamingHowie and I teamed up today to reach his milestone cache.We arrived here and found numerous geotrails all over the garden. Down, up, down again... nothing.We read some previous logs, and something pointed us to another location nearby. So we diverted our search to a new spot, and whaddya know.. there it is!Our coords were about 12m out today, and absolutely no need to be on the garden area.Thanks for bringing us here by placing this cache, Pinkpiggy7 ~~

Driving a school excursion bus by here today in spite of the CO's insistence that I am not fit to work around children. Found despite the errant coordinates.

So easy to find

Found

Found after a lovely lunch with friendscoords had us doing way more gardening than necessary until we though to try the obvious! Nice hide .

We were here right at the perfect time! We sat at the station and watched the puffing Billy go by! The geokids loved it and the big geokid at heart has declared this a favourite because we saw the train!

TFTC

Lots of scrambling around, wet feet, thorns... Maybe we were slightly off. Sadly we did not find it, although still happy to have a mini adventure with the kids

Took the dogs for a walk from paradise Valley to Menzies Creek and back and grabbed this cache on the way.

TFTC

My first mistake of the evening was that I followed google maps to the cache... but it seemed to think the train track/walking trail was a road, it is not haha! Eventually after following a twisty road for a while I was able to do a uey in a driveway and get back to the main road. I then parked in the carpark for the pub and realised my second mistake of the evening, I had underestimated the level of mud and slush that would be around and was wearing runners and trakkies instead of my normal jeans and boots... I'll be dealing with that mistake for a while!
Eventually I made my way down to near GZ and had a look around, the size of the cache helped me narrow my search choices. On my search I sillily bumped my head on a very hard surface, thankfully it wasn't a sharp one though so I was more careful as I continued poking around.
After the comedy of errors I had my hands on the cache and what do you know, inside was a cute pathtag!
Thanks for the cache and bit of adventure for my bleary Monday evening

Great hide!

happened to be passing by, its a happy little vegemite

Spent a decent amount of time looking in every possible spot and disappointingly never actually found it ️

We spent 45 minutes checking every nook & cranny within a 30M radius of the cache point.. no luck!

️

No luck, hubby and I both couldn't find it.

️

Dodged a few muggles having lunch to find this one.
Plenty of parking and accessed the station via the pub yard.

Well hidden, we looked three times in the same spot before we found it.

Almost gave up, but found it!
Was exactly where I thought it would be but took a hot minute to find it! Kept going back to the same spot as I knew it had to be there, and sure enough!
Beautiful day so a few muggles around!

While making our way to Belgrave we stopped here to have a look.
For some reason I spent ages looking behind the structure when a far more likely place was very close by.
The cache was eventually found and in excellent condition.
Thanks Pinkpiggy7 for placing all of these great caches around the area.
Chiefton!!!

Due to unforeseen circumstances Mr Smokey Bear will no longer be a part of Team Smokey Bear and will continue his adventures as "SmokeyBearOG".

So I'm relogging all previous finds under my new account.
Unfortunately this log will not show the original logging date.

**Thanks to Pinkpiggy7 for this adventure, looking forward to many more.**

Adam
SmokeyBearOG

An afternoon trip to the hills had me chasing a combination of “placed years”, and this was needed to close a gap.

Made my way to the relevant car park, passed the families enjoying a quiet beverage in the gardens and made my way down to the station.

Had to wait a minute for the friendly locals to move on, but the cache was soon in hand. TFTC and adventure.

Quick find while cycling the EDRT. Container had some water in it but the log was nice and dry. No puffing while I was here today...

managed to see puffing Billy go past without planning. Super cute spot and pretty easy to find

Found

Well tucked away, easy to find even in some wet weather.

Found this cache some time ago and forgot to log, sorry for the lateness TFTC

Hmmm....co ords were way out today but the hint was very helpful to line it up again. We even waved to the people on Puffing Billy. TFTC.

Coordinates off with this one but we eventually found it!

16:53
After the first celebration of Freddy's birthday, and pulling out massive quantities of forget-me-nots, it was back to looking for Tupperware in the bush.

By the time we'd finished a couple of multis and the most fun Adventure Lab that had just been published in Gembrook, n0w0rries and I had missed the lunch celebration, and the weather didn't look like improving, so we started slowly towards home.

I can vouch for the coffee at the bakery.

So why not add to the tally of SideTracked finds?

The main feature that we gravitated towards was in the centre of a big puddle, courtesy of recent rain. We missed the cache on our first pass, wasting time overthinking before n0w0rries succeeded on the next round.

Thanks, Pinkpiggy7

#6364

A day out in the area with nirgalagrin started in Berwick for Manfred Wolfgang's birthday celebration.

This was followed by a different style of CITO where we were pulling out Forget-Me-Not.

A new lab cache from Manfred & Co as well as local mysteries and multis.

Whilst we are on a bit of a mission, to find as many SideTracked Caches as possible, any others associated with train stations are generally added too

Somehow we managed to miss spotting this one on the first pass. We then spent some time examining then station very closely before starting again.
Bingo! Found it. In the first place that I had looked.

Thank you for the cache Pinkpiggy7.

Finally found it on the two go.

Found it the second time looking. Took way too long once again. Nearly gave up but on hands and knees with a torch I finally found it. Cute little library on station now too.

Came out to the Paradise Valley Hotel with ChristineLai to try out the award winning parma. Well we had arrived a little bit early and the kitchen wasn't open yet. So just like the CO I pulled out my phone and check for nearby caches. Luckily for me the CO hid this one for the same reason. Well we about to make the short walk to GZ when we saw muggles waiting for the train. Well looks like we will have to grab this one after lunch.

So after a delicious parma at the pub, we walk down to GZ. Luckily it wasn't to much searching before the cache was in hand. Thanks for placing this one here. TFTC.

Cache Maintenance Status:

The cache container was in good shape, the attachment mechanism still seemed strong and the logbook was clean and dry with plenty of room for future cache finders to sign.

Came to Paradise for the Parma winning the best for 2022. a tasty treat followed by a quick find

Happy international geocaching day! Thanks for the cache. Love this pub!

Happy international Geocaching day! Thanks for the cache. Love this pub!

This was our first ever find. I think my 3 and 6 year old might get hooked on this. Thank you

Stopped by on the way home. After a short search this neat cache was found. Tftc

DNF

Find number 10441 at 10:57:59 am on Tuesday the 3 May 2022
Out for a bit of a drive to find some geocaches and have a bit of a walk. And a beautiful morning for it as well
A nice quick find in the second place I looked
**Thanks for placing this cache Pinkpiggy7**

---
We’re all going to Whittlesea to participate in Victoria’s next Mega!
*Are you coming to join in the fun?*
[**The Whittlesea Event 2022**](https://coord.info/GC8EW40)
*19th & 20th November 2022 - GC8EW40 - Whittlesea- Victoria*

This is our first geocache hard spot near the fireplace

Quite a few people having meals at the pub outside, looked around for a good 20mins and couldn't find it, will have to come back when it's a bit quieter

Well that was kind of a trip for nothing, cache was still there, it did have a crack in the lid, so replaced the whole thing anyhow.

Had dinner at the Paradise tonight. Went to check this cache but was not where I remember it was from last time, shame because I wanted to drop off a trackable

It's there, swung past

Unfortunately this gc eluded me today, spent a good half an hour looking for it with no prevail. Have to come back another day

Had a look on the way past on a bus job, but no luck locating this one.

Back in the game

To many people are finding our caches in breach of lockdown provisions, disabling until things are open again.

Nice place to watch the train and have beer. Needs a new note pad!!

Found it TFTC

Found it where we expected

Was a bit to easy to find, not quiet sure it was in the right spot.

It's in the right spot

found

Found it...after searching had been thrown on top of station roof. My friend got it down and put it where we think it should be.

Found on the roof of the station, retrieved and signed and placed back where I thought it should have been... Paper is very waxy and difficult to write on. TNLN TFTC

Second time around

Found it, took longer than expected, but was found swiftly after some help from others at the dinner table. Not where I was expecting. Tftc

On my way to lunch in the hills today and stopped by to search for this one. It’s been a long time since I cached in this area. A nice quick find using the hint. Thanks for placing.

Nice little spot!

Nice find on a rainy day. Had us looking for a bit, but then after getting on hands and knees we were able to find it. TFTC

Today, buhfuhguh and I were out on another caching run, this time in the Upper Beaconsfield/Emerald region with a focus on passing by Cardinia Reservoir before the weather started to heat up and our battle plan was forced to change.
A very hot day for geocaching but still a lot of fun (and nothing that the Astra's air con couldn't handle) filled with plenty of fantastic finds along the way!

A peaceful walk alongside the train tracks took us to gz and buhfuhguh managed to spot the cache in the first place he looked!
From there it was a matter of trying several different pens before one decided to work and the logbook was signed.
Thanks to Pinkpiggy7 for the placement!

TFTC, Brainiac03

25 January 2021 12:03 pm

Out caching in the cardinia reservoir area today with Brainiac03. With the main target being the Reservoir itself and as many multi caches as we can grab along the way.
With no major issues during the rather successful day we managed to have a rather productive day. Thanks for the cache.

We had completed a nearby Adventure Lab and discovered there was a Traditional close by. So a slight detour and a quick find. As the log book was in pieces it took a little while to locate the most recent logs. Signed and replaced. Thanks to Pinkpiggy for the cache.

Took a friend to introduce her to the adventures of geo

Enabling caches again

Disabling due to the current situation

Three people checked everywhere.... maybe next time...

Very interesting hide

Easy find

*Found on the 7 Mar 2020 @ 4:31 pm.*
*Cache find # 10787.*

As I was passing this one on my way to some more target caches, I thought that I may as well have a look.
There was some live music happening nearby as I made my way to GZ.
The GPS was wanting me to go one way but I decided to look at something that was more obvious and that's where I found the cache.

**Thanks to Pinkpiggy7 for placing this cache.**

TFTC!! Thought I’d grad this easy cache in my way to visit the parents. Beautiful Autumn’s day in Emerald!

Great cache. We over thought it but eventually found it! AAW.

Finally after missing it as a newbie I came back and once my GPS had settled down a bit and the train had rattled past, I had another look in the most obvious spot and I got it.

Continuing our journey from Wangaratta to Emerald after stopping off in Oakleigh for some caching fun there with EbenezerT. Ah, we have reached Puffing Billy country and the music is in full swing at the Paradise Hotel nearby. No sign of Billy, but the water cart left as we arrived at Clematis Station. A quick find and SL at 3.34pm Left: gumnut PT. A quick photo and we were on our way again. #6814 TFTC Pinkpiggy7

Another great cache in the hills thanks

Nice easy find. TFTC.

Great hiding spot, thank you.

Cache is still there! Nearly got spotted by some muggles but waited till they past

I had the whole afternoon to myself to do some geocaching (an early Fathers Day present) and it was an absolute stunner of a day - so nice to be out in the sunshine after a cold winter. I had a couple of DNFs here some months ago, the hide was driving me crazy! Today I found the cache in the second spot I checked - I swear I looked there last time! Relieved to change the blue face into a yellow one. TFTC!

Clever spot found when we checked back in original spot xoxo

Based on the info in the last write note, the cache is still ok

DNF

Not sure if this has affected the geocache but noticed many trees had been recently cut down (can tell by the fresh cuts)