LOOKOUT Rene! Hotham Heights, Victoria, Australia
By skullracing on 08-Nov-14. Waypoint GC5GJHT

Driven past this one I reckon about a hundred times visiting rellos finally convinced everyone to stop to stretch their legs here really nice walk up. Pretty hazy over the valley with all the burning off but the view was still pretty nice. Love an obvious hide, so all smiles here when we untucked the cache. TFTC

A relatively easy find and considering that previous logs had said that this wasn't very easy. Although the container is quite waterproof, there is still a little bit of moisture in the cache surrounded by an ant nest. The walk was amazing but we nearly got stuck by lightning on the way back down. This cache is also helping us work towards the D2 all terrain challenge cache. TFTEC skullracing#111

terrain four caches seem to come in two different flavours:short and sharporlong and grindingmount hotham and its environs offer both typesred robin mine is a fine example of the long-grinding variety:a lengthy hike of over ten ksnothing to strenuous terrain-wisejust a long unand here is the other typeonly a hundred metres or so from a convenient carpark the challenge is clear: get up that slopegood luckand it is a good little challengethe foliage offers enough to grab or hook the boots ontoand the views from the top are worth the sweatthanks for raising the heartrateanother stellar spot

Finally! This was my third time up Rene’s in 10 days. The last record in the logbook was 2019 and a lot of grass had grown in and around the cache in that time making the ‘find’ quite challenging. Despite a quality waterproof container a small amount of water had seeped in but no damage done. A terrific location, thanks.

This was my second walk up Rene’s in a week! The first time up I wasn’t looking for caches and walked up the steep eastern side. Today’s attempt however, sadly resulted in a dnf. This time I walked up from the west (mt Hope) side which was more gradual, albeit scrubby in sections. This route passes some old hut (CRB?) ruins at the start. I spent a good 20min checking a heap of snow gums in the vicinity of the stone cairn but no luck. I will be back. This is a great spot for a cache, very few non-geo cachers would ever visit Rene’s. Would appreciate an additional hint or two.

Tfc

10:20
The heights of Hotham, to the depths of the Ovens at Bright - it was all downhill for us today!!
Passed by today, but time was against us as soon as we saw the nature of the 'hill'. Certainly not a 'drive-by'.

Slowly making our way back down the mountain to our camp at Harrietville after an enjoyable day of mountain bike riding (some of us BMX riding #DadDrewTheShortStraw) along the Machinery Spur. We were also going to try a bit of hiking on the Razorback Track today but it turns out I packed a little too much in our day ...so we will just have to come back!

The rest of the novos were happy to sit this one out once they saw *that* hill at the parking WP. I set off solo at 5.33pm where the going was slow but not too bad. Rounding the first corner was a bit daunting with what laid ahead but a slight re-route was determined and up up UP. The final "stroll" along the ridge at the top was amazing and made the trek well worth the effort. A nice dry cache was soon found and now has our name in it. The views for the trip down were outstanding but by now the clear beautiful day we enjoyed earlier had turned *very* smoky with visability ~1500m due to fires that had flared up it seems to the south west. Made it back to the car at 6.07pm making the return trip approx 35 mins. We seem to love our 2/4s as this is our 26th one; almost double any of the other squares north of and including T3.5 on our grid (3 loops so far). TFTC, skullracing.
#1103

Mrs and Mrs Riddell really enjoyed the little climb up here and were rewarded with the magnificent views.
The history also filled in some gaps.
A nice hot sunny day but a beautiful cool breeze to keep things nice.
This IS a significant peak and a really nice place to be on New Years Day.
TFTC

TFTC up here with such a great view. Now I’ve really been to Rene’s Lookout and a nice little wander too. No ones going to muggle this in a hurry but there is a lot of chopper activity overhead. Smoke plumes not far off Dargo Rd.

Found it! Today was caching day at the end of a great Walkabouters camp at Dinner Plain. Muggle Heather and Elaine waited patiently in the car while climbed to the top of Renes Lookout. Of all the places we have visited the summit of this hill had the least amount of weeds. Hope it stays that way. Very beautiful up here with great views. The cache was soon found and log book signed (maybe used the wrong date, nevermind?!) There was a fabulous patch of trigger plants growing under the old snow gums near GZ. TFTC Cheers

Today was a great day to go caching - blue skies, no clouds, not too hot, and a nice cool breeze. All today's caches were up around Mt Hotham and apart from 2, all terrains were between 3 and 4 inclusive. Even though I've completed the "Spread the Love Challenge", today's haul would have gained 113 months of unloved caches.

That first climb is quite steep, but once that's done, the rest is quite easy. Like all today's caches (except for a 1.5/1.5 cache), the find was the easy part of the deal. Brilliant views from up there. I really enjoy walks in the Alps.

My thanks to skullracing for the cache.

picked a reasonable route thanks to previous logs. found easily with geowife, enjoyed the views and am happy to have been to renee's lookout. tftc skullracing.

Wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Quite daunting when you start, but a banana approach using line of direct sight actually removes much of the steep gradient and flattens the terrain out a bit. Still have to get up to the cache, which we did successfully and signed the log and removed the coin.

[green] Immer schön die Rampe rauf [/green]

You could have placed the cache closer to the road. But then I wouldn't have wondered what other cachers were complaining about. Evil, steep and mean were a few of the words I overheard the evening before. So Day and I venture out to see it for ourselves. In the end it wasn't that hard since we took a line to the left of the first hill instead of scooping up straight up the hill. Easy cruising!

Thanks and cheers
Philipp

[url=http://fb.com/groups/geocachingmelbourne][navy]Geocaching Melbourne[/navy][/url]
[url=https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10205629284470418.1073741876.1202959017&type=1&l=2b60e020c9]Pictures of the weekend[/url]

Find #1340 logged at GZ at 12:51, will update shortly.... T4TC skullracing!

On the day after co-hosting The Hotham Gamble event with skullracing, I set out solo to grab the last three of the most recently placed caches in the vicinity. The climb certainly got the ticker ticking at speed, but enjoyably so. The 360° view from GZ is spectacular, especially on a warm and sunny day like today. Took panoramic-ready photos, stay tuned. Can I give this 10 fave points please? Left a German geocoin which I hope gets picked up soon. Thanks again for a perfect placement!

This entry was edited by clickcraftsman on Sunday, 23 November 2014 at 07:33:48 UTC.

[white]{*2TF*}......[/white] @3:07 pm Cache # 1173

[font=Courier New][size=3][blue]I think Philipps talking it up a bit , This is a nasty climb! [/blue][/size]

[font=Courier New]After a bang up lunch at the General

It was a toss up which cache I should attempt next, happily to report this cache was the winner in more ways than one. Not having many finds and being very selective as to which caches I do go after, I struggle to have enough Favourite points to hand out. So unfortunately have to be as equally selective as to which cache I hand a point to, Im happy to report that this cache was another clear winner for me and another stand out cache for the weekend

Thx Skullracing bit of effort required to get this on but the reward was well worth it

[font=Comic Sans MS][size=2][blue]Merci beaucoup

Cheers

Teamaky[/blue][/size]
[white]

This entry was edited by Teamaky on Saturday, 29 November 2014 at 22:51:56 UTC.

Date: 21 November 2014
Time: 10:02
Find #4229
{FTF}

I had been looking forward to the Hotham Gamble Event weekend for some time, so had done quite a bit of planning the caches I wanted to find while here. My main focus was to qualify for The Victorian 1700m+ ASL Challenge, but make sure I had at least ten above 1800m, the way the challenge was originally intended .

I was close to Harrietville when I recieved some notifications of new caches nearby. This did put a small spanner in the plans, but changes can always be made. After a FTF at there is always Hope, I headed here with more hope for one more of those elusive FTF's. This one was a little tougher, again no views, I was all clouded in, with vision of just 10m away. I parked at the suggested spot and took the longest possible route to GZ where the cache was quickly found. Another FTF for me... Yee Har

Swapped a pathtag.

A favourite point for the FTF and for the High Country location.

Thanks to skullracing for placing this cache. TNLN

Published

Ftf gone ltf