Wandering Bears Cloncurry, Queensland, Australia
By ian-and-penny on 08-Jul-15. Waypoint GC5YYT1

We continued today our tour of several AUS states in the NorthWest and thereby searched, found and logged this interesting Traditional-Cache.The weather was - said in one word simply best. The good hidden caches and the being on holidays kept us the whole day in a good mood. The cache had good coordinates, and thus was easy to find. The logbook was okay, and allowed easy logging.Thanks to ian-and-penny for the generation of this nice cache Wandering Bears (with the proper agenda), for leading us here and for showing us this funny location as well as the ongoing maintenance of this cache.PS: Please forgive us the uniform log which is needed due to timing problems - if necessary special actions and happenings are there described where they happened.Greetings from Germany together with the hope to meet somewhere like event or wood. TFTC says H_M_A @ 17. Oktober 2024 @ 11:20 o'clock @ [#22662](https://coord.info/GC5YYT1)

TFTC! Day 106 of trip 24I recall the older cache that used to be near here. The Wandering Bares back when this camp area could be considered less popular and more clothing optional

TFC. Nice & easy.

Found it as we camped across the road from it nice a quick. TFTC

Found when I stayed on the old cement slab across from it, on my way to Mary Kathleen old uranium mine.

Unsure where or what I was looking for. What appeared to be the location contained something rather manky. Perhaps this was a smoking decoy. Oh well

Easy find TFTC

T4t$

Its been a great trip up to Cape York and back, headed back home the long way.The countryside is a grand sight to behold. Sweeping plains that stretch out to the horizon and the mountains that stick up which make you wonder why are you left when everything else is so flat.Buttons has been looking forward to coming to Mary Kathleen since the trip started (and before).Shes driving while I navigate and what I am seeing on the map looks so strange.The layout of streets with foundations down, but no houses. The Town Hall is enormous.As we head towards GZ a funny feeling comes over me and as we turn into the final street my gut is proven right a lot of people call me a pessimist but The whole area is empty except for the one caravan parked right next to the cache.We park and unhitch our van across from them as we want to go up to the mine and chat about what to do.I finally decide bugger it, where they are sitting, their van blocks the view of where the cache is.Everything goes well, except for their dog which decides barking at us is part of its job description.The owners call the dog back and we finish signing the log and put the cache back.TFTC Venimus, Invenimus, Signati

16/8, Cheers

Found with Loopy1972 on our half lap of Australia via Darwin, QLD and NSW. Thanks ian-and-penny for the cache.

Found with DennisC52 while on our half lap of Australia. Thanks (owner) for the cache.

Found it TFTC

Quick find while exploring this interesting area. Thanks

frmen1 and I were exploring the area. There were many caravans replacing the houses...it was full of life. Container was obvious from the road. Replaced with an article in front but still an obvious hide. TFTC

NewTftc

Accidental find we will try to find more from now on

NEF Loving being camped heeTFTC

Someone camped right next to the location. I wasn't sure at first which tree, so I used satellite picture to identify the right one. I walked towards it and saw the likely hiding place. Noone to be seen from the caravan so I just went for it took it away to sign and brought it back. TFTC

TFTC with Slack1962

With FiveTays-TT TFTC

Had to introduce myself to nearby campers who had their smalls hanging from the tree.Hopefully the family will join the sport.

I opted to not go near the tree with smalls hanging off them today. Felt uncomfortable.There will be another time.Cheers

Ive always wanted to come to MK. Im in town at Mount Isa - thought why not try and get here. I only have a little rental car so decided to park at the start and track in on foot (to be fair I think the rental car would make it into the town but not the mine?) Thanks for the cache! It always makes me feel a bit more safer exploring knowing there is a cache to get!

Thank you for the find. Beautiful place to watch the sun rise

This is such an interesting place. We stayed a couple of days. We had been to the mine site a number of years ago whilst staying at Lake Corella. This cache shows the story of one family, there must be so many more untold historys of the people who built, worked, lived and enjoyed life in this small town over its two separate lives. Thanks for putting this Geocache here and bringing a small piece of imagination into the past. STL TFTC

A great place to visit. TFTC.

Tftc! Absolutely love it out here at Mary Kathleen.

Great find, thanks!!

Ocw the Bebes. Staying at Mary Kathleen and had to pop for this cache. What an interesting place to stay. Tftc

OCW PelDroedGwin Staying at Mary Kathleen fir a couple of nights. A fascinating wander around the ghost town. TFTC

A quick findTftc

Grub62 and I had tried for the mine site cache but the roads ended up being too rough for our 2 wheel drive car. But we were able to get to this cache. A very interesting area and very personal to you as per the description. I am unsure about the container but a favorite point from me for showing me this interesting area. TFTC.

Well bunadoorian and I were going to go further into this area but gave up due to the condition of the roads. We finally made our way back to here. What a great town this must have been at one time. TFTC and for bringing us here - ian-and-penny.

Day 18With the QOGM event now over it was time to head up to Mount Isa to a town we had never visited before bringing us higher in Queensland than we have ever been before. Our aim is to do some solved puzzles, multis, the virtual, labcaches and some older trads, not to mention sightseeing. A big day of driving for us from Winton to Mount Isa with a few stops along the way, which this was one of them. Mary Kathleen Old Town and open cut mine were both a must for us to visit, we were fascinated by the history and the remains here in the town. Done some exploring, taking some photos before grabbing the cache. A nice easy find.Thanks ian-and-penny for the placement.

Noah found it 24/9/23. On his school holiday trip to Mt Isa

We travelled from Melbourne and stayed in Mount Isa for 4 days and will go on our way to Longreach for QOGM

Here's one to find today. Thank you for placing the cache   ian-and-penny.

We are off on a trip to the Birdsville Races and then across to Queensland - the plan is for about 6 weeks of travel - all going well.

Week 1 we have travelled from Portland to Farrell's Flat near Clare.
Week 2 was Clare to Port Augusta.
Week 3 Port Augusta to Birdsville.

Day 26 and we are travelling form Mt Isa to the Burke and Wills roadhouse for the night - starting to feel the change in temperature as it reaches 37 and not much relief at night. Really enjoyed looking around here - lots of free campers staying apparently the owners of the property have given up trying to keep them out,

Thanks for contributing to our holiday ian-and-penny

On our travels we found ourselves at Mary kathleen, such an amazing and slightly bizarre place, thanks for placing a cache here

Best cache to date

Did a bit of wandering around the town after seeing the mine workings. Found cache easily. TFTC.

We are free camping at Merry Kathleen for a few days. Got up this morning to find that this cache hide is only two trees from our camp site. A real quick gotcha. Cache is in great condition. Tftc

Signed as sg. Thanks. What an awesome place to stay.

Snoopy dog sniffing found it

Same as the last entry, forgot the mine cache but camped 100m from this one. Thanks for the smiley face.

Forgot to get one at mine but at least got this one

What a great hide! Tftc! Great spot to relax!

Lots of campers in this old desolute town, all spread out. We had to walk amongst some to find the cache. All good, signed and returned. TFTC

Nice hide

TFTC

Beautiful area tftc

Found it!!!!

Met a family who found it first. My two are finally excited about geocaching. Here’s to many more finds

Apologies for the late log here (25.12.23) but I've had a mad time since getting back to the UK.I couldn't get my Yaris too close so parked up and enjoyed my walk to GZ, where I looked in the right place for a fast find. Cracking. I liked seeing the minimal remains of the town and reading about its rise and fall. TNLN-TFTC!SP (UK) on an epic trek right around the world.

Found it 10/07/23

Lovely spot

It was so cool to see this old town with all the original roads and foundations. Dropped a tb, tftc.

Thanks for putting a cache in such a great free camp.

A surprise find and our first, launching an interest for our young family to find geocaches all over Aus

Thanks quick find

Such a picturesque location, TFTC!

Thanks for the gc

All that was missing was a swimming pool

No too hard to find. Follow us around Australia on fb #advanture Australia

TFTC! Some amazing history and great spot to stop in for lunch on our trip to Darwin!

A trip to Perth checking out some of the awesome places along the way in ACT, NSW, Qld and NT. Grabbing some old caches and missing LGAs. TFTC.

The place isn't totally abandoned. There was a guy walking his dog early this morning. No idea where he came from or is going.

Nice and easy find. Interesting drive around the mine and town areas. TFTC

What an interesting place. The Brits sure wanted that uranium. TFTC

What an amazing place. Cache intact and easy find. TFTC

Awesome Geocache!
Our first Qz Find!

Time: 1min
Accuracy: 10m But in obvious spot
Swapped: 4 Highlighter
Trackable: Metal piece missing

Loved the location!
Some People asked what we were doing, We may have some new Geocachers!

Snicker the TB Visited!
TFTC! -BoabAdventur3z

Find No. 62

First find In Qz
Awesome Cache + Awesome Spot!

Time: 1min
Accuracy: 10m but in obvious spot
Condition: Awesome
Trackable: Missing Metal Piece
Swapped: Froggy 4 Highlighter

Trackable Snickers Visited!
TFTC! -BoabAdventur3z

Sorry for The double Log, I tried posting on both devices, the internet was terrible

TFTC SL TNLN Found your cache today while exploring the Cloncurry area. Nice peaceful spot in the scrub. Thanks for bringing us here.

Found while traveling to Mount Isa for work.
Thanks for the Cache.

Found while camping here great place to stay tftc

After escaping the southern winter to do a Madigan Line Simpson Desert crossing with Gray Inc we decided to head north where the nights were hopefully warmer. The desert days had been comfortable although not warm. The nights had been very cold and a real change of atmosphere was needed. We appreciated the change of scenery and wildlife north of Birdsville.
Lots of caravaners using this great site for a staging point. The massive area of the old town allowed well separated camping.
We missed getting the other cache at Mary Kathleen and also missed visiting the old mine pit, oh well, next time. TFTC

Thank you.

Found this cache on the 15th July, now staying out here for a few days so decided to drop off my trackable.

Spent a lovely morning walking through this old town. Thank you

Only saw wandering cows and lovely country views. Plus a cache ofcourse. Loved the history of this old town. TFTC

Tftc found with 2beez

TFTC great hide. Found with PeteBev

Found in the obvious spot! We camped nearby and what a lovely spot it is too! Thanks for putting this one out.

On our drive today from Cloncurry out to explore the area we came to visit Mary Kathleen.
What a beautiful campground this now is, and many people taking advantage of the beautiful winter sunshine.
It is almost a strange notion to be wandering around such a ghost town.
We drove down this Avenue, and stopped to find this cache.
Thanks ian-and-penny for highlighting this historic area.
Domsky

Found with Dozenmater,,TFTC

TFTC - found with rainygirl74

A great trip over to Queensland.
Was able to put a few smileys on the map.
This was one of them.
Now catching up with logging them with five minutes on the computer.
TFTC

Found at 12:29:00 PM(t) GAFF1.
We left Mount Isa after a very pleasant 4 days touring around and finding a lot of caches and moved to the Mary Kathleen free camp which is just marvelous for us campers and travellers.
Set up camp, had some lunch and then we were off to explore. .1st cab off the rank was of course the closest cache and we drove over and found the cache in the first spot that we looked in [^] Good thing though that the wasps who had built a little nest right in that hole were no longer there
Thanks ian-and-penny.

TFTC. Found while staying with friends in Mt Isa. Thanks Rata0619 for showing us around

Found it but wasn’t in original coordinates. Keep exploring close by and you will find it.

TFTC interesting place

Amazing to be able to camp overnight here.
So interesting to read the history of the settlement from the days gone by.
First came across this town back in the day, our first lap around Australia in 1976, always intrigued and great to be able to revisit
Thanks for sharing this interesting location
TFTC

We spent a couple of nights in Mount Isa enjoying having a look around. The first afternoon and the next morning were taken up doing the bison series after which we headed back to town picking up as many caches as we could.
Today we e decided to clear up a few caches in town and surrounds before heading to Cloncurry for the next stage of our adventure.
We saw some great sights that we would never have seen without geocaching, this is the main reason we still love the game after nearly 20 years of playing.

Last time we visited here 5 years ago there was a caravan parked right at gz so we were unable to look for it then. This time there was a camper nearby but not close enough that it was a problem and happily the cache turned into a nice quick find and the log book now contains our name.
We then headed back to the mine site and were amazed at how much the roads have deteriorated in five years.

Thanks ian-and-penny for the cache.

K

It wasn't wandering bears we saw but rather wandering camels. Thanks for the cache which was found without any trouble.

As we drove in, we were stared at by every muggle around. We decided to take the drive out to the mine as we both felt a little uneasy. When we came back, there was a couple set up not far from GZ but they were not happy about us being there even though we are only driving by. This is where we came across the camels that weren't in any hurry. Thank you for the cache.

TFTC. Nice easy find. Interesting area to explore.

The bears

Easy find

Tftc