Shield #10 CofA Esk, Queensland, Australia
By Brother Colin on 05-Apr-16. Waypoint GC6F29H

Found the cache on 6/11/24 with TBU1BIKESU and signed the log.Tftc. Brother Colin

We had been in the area for couple of days for tackling finally those puzzles which we were able to solve.Tftc Brother Colin

After attending an event at Fernvale, Mr CuriousQuest and I headed to the BVRT to find a few caches. We had an enjoyable stroll with no magpies to disturb our serenity. After returning to the geomobile and heading into Esk for a very late lunch and a cold drink, we headed back to the rail trail. This time, we carried the ladder in. This cache was quickly located and the log signed. TFTC

Out today with Selva Girls to pick up some Brisbane Valley Rail Trail caches. A quick tree climb here; log signed and cache returned as found. TFTC

Quite a few people on this trail today, no one as cool as us though Thanks for the cache and series

Riding the BVRT has been on the ‘to-do list’ for a long time, the puzzles have been solved for a few years and the trail keeps glaring at me whenever I do a search. Finally a weekend came up that worked and thankfully it was just before magpie season.

With JDavs as the amazing and very patient support crew, Peppa, wayn0, Beardman75 and I set off for an awesome day on the bikes, completing both geoarts just before sunset.

BM75 pointed out the cache and up I went, nice to stretch the legs in a different direction.

Thanks for a great series Brother Colin

Logs signed DTD

Davinells had a target… It involved a three day, 160+km bike ride, involving hills, a ridiculous multi, over 100 solved puzzles and a couple of trads just to round off the experience… Apparently there’s an “easier” direction to do the trail, but we couldn’t take that option…

A crack team assembled at the crack of dawn in Esk… Beardman75, wayn0, all of Davinells and me… with Wadda Mooli as support crew we travelled about 45km finding in excess of 100 caches…

A relatively quick find once Davinells ascended… we can smell the coffee now… it’s soooooo close…

A fantastic day out, with great company…Thanks Brother Colin the time and effort taken to create and maintain this power trail is appreciated…

The log was signed D.T.D.

New container in place

Nearly two years since my DNF, I tried to get some sherpas to carry my dad's 30 foot extension ladder along the trail to collect this last missing find on the CofA shield. Sadly they refused, so I had to take a shorter ladder which turned out to be about 30 cm shorter than I needed. So I took a photo of the cache container just out of reach. I didn't want to stretch too much and fall because I didn't want to have Mrs George call the Flying Doctor. TFTC, Brother Colin.

Container US, placed New log and inner log container. Mrs Geo even made the climb. Found whilst on a very non direct route to QOGM - Charleville 2022. On the hunting trail again with SeasonedBird (aka Mrs Geo, Salty Chook, the Old Boiler, Old Chook, Dirty Bird, Angry Bird & occasionally even Love Bird). It’s a great day for caching. TFTC Brother Colin
Find #10818

Slowly cycling the rail trail series.

Climbed to the container only to have water tip all over me, hilarious. The lid is gone. Dropped in an inner sealed container to keep the logsheet dry.

Thanks to CO’s for taking time to set out and maintain hides and for showing us your very special part of the world

Log signed in first open spot with stamp

TFTC Brother Colin

Find # 8432

Heading to QOGM 2022 Charleville

Tftc Brother Colin,
Today the weather is quite chilly for a day on the rail trail around Esk. Not being at full fitness we will take our time.
Puzzles solved quite a while ago now.
Despite the cold we are enjoying our ride.
Thanks for the series.

Another cache, not sure if this was on day 1 or day 2 of finding.
Found.. tftc

After working through the Dayboro horse geoart, I realised I needed to get a lot more with a horse attribute. A filtered search revealed all the geoarts around esk and a bit of a bike ride on the trail. So, a plan was hatched with a geo friend to solve all the puzzles and make it a mission to complete this. Some of the puzzles were easy, some of them I required a nudge from a friend as I have only been solving for a year and boy have I learnt a lot. (Usually learning that I didn't know as much as I thought I did.) But...the variety of puzzles meant that I got a variety of learning.

The weekend was planned for a time when my dad was going to be camping at Esk and that meant he could look after the little turmoils. Perfect. Unfortunately, geo friend decided not to come anymore so I had to find another one real fast. Thankfully it was Flutterby Squishy to the rescue. We met, we rode, we hunted, we sweated.

For those wanting the easy ride, it is best to have cars dropped at each end so you only have to ride one way, to to ride towards Esk each time. I must say, it is a very dragged out event to stop every 200m and took quite a long time to complete. But I am glad it is done. CO asked us to complete a maintenance run along the way esp after the recent rain levels. Unfortunately I ran out of supplies and so some maintenance isn't at its best or done at all. I must say, I wouldn't be keen to have that maintenance run as a CO, so I appreciate the effort gone into placing and maintaining.

Definitely glad this is done though. Glad to have this completed and grateful that I will be able to complete my horse!

Out early today with Bristo do the RailTrail… I’d heard about it & we decided to do it on the hottest day of the year to date. By the time we reached Esk it was 34• Nevertheless navigating swooping magpies avoiding snakes & speedy Lycra .

Out today with Muggle65, to grab all Brisbane Valley Rail Trail. For some reason will pick the worst day to find these caches. At one point I wasn’t to sure if we would get to the end.

Sorry for the generic log
Brother Colin *TFTC*

Preparation for this weekend started some 2 years ago when I picked up the puzzle book and started to work through the variety of puzzles. I learned a significant number of things working through these on and off and knew a weekend with friends would be the ideal way to collect them. Having had some geovehicle issues yesterday we only had time to set up in Somerset Dam village before heading to Esk this morning to tackle the Shield and pick off a chunk of Emu with a few Roos for good measure.

We had heard it was all downhill from the Map of Aus and so expected an easy run. Maybe it is like that on average (over the length of the trail) but today’s section wasn’t exactly flat with the slight uphill gradient making peddling more of an effort for a beginner cyclist.

It was a great introduction to the trail and allows us to better plan our future visits to collect the caches either side of the section we collected.

Can’t thankyou enough Brother Colin for the effort you went to creating these Arts and for your prompt and ongoing maintenance. All but one were found in great condition.

After planning a camping trip with Simber15 this weekend to tackle the CoA art we spent a cool night at Somerset Camp Grounds in preparation for the big day. After working through the logistics for us, bikes and cars, it was time to start our journey with this being our first.
With one cache MIA, and the COs blessing to leave a replacement, we were able to find all caches on our planned journey today.
These Shield sudokus were quite challenging, some team work with Triple Turmoil through the last couple of weeks helped me no end.
Arriving at gz, I spotted the cache and quickly, the scramble up the tree was done to sign the log, the log is almost full and will need replacing.
Thanks Brother Colin for a challenging puzzle and great cache series. I really appreciate the hard work which has gone into creating the puzzles, along with placing and maintaining the caches.

After a few weeks of puzzling I was itchy to get out of the house for a day in the fresh air. I was last here in April 2016 and have plans to ride the whole BVRT towards the end of June but that trip won't involve stopping for any caches. I arrived about 10am with a plan to ride south, then return to Esk, then ride north and hopefully collect the 60 or so caches along the trail. That's why you have a plan, so you can changfe it. Didn't get back to Eask until after 2pm and arrived with a flat rear tyre. Didn't notice it until I hit the concrete so hopefully I wasn't on it for too long. Back in 2016 the same thing happened but that required a 2km walk up hill to get back to the car. So after a quick bit of food, I drove to the start of the trail on the north side of esk and walked for about 2km.

Found all but 2 and even managed to track down the 3 that I could not solve. Still have another 20 or so to complete north of esk.

The weather was perfect. I passed about 15 people in the day (they passed me really) incl once when I was up a tree. Not sure if he saw me but he did seem to shake his head.

thanks for the puzzles, artwork and cache Brother Colin

Really glad to have Mr. DisSister along with me today as I’m not convinced I would’ve managed to climb high enough to achieve this at all. The ants made it less lovely but he reports that he enjoyed the climb anyway. I was just glad it was near enough to civilization that we could get help in case he fell. TFTC Brother Colin

Had a good look in both directions but came out empty-handed. Had a suspicion it might be a dreaded tree climb and had a look up also but couldn't sight anything. Shall have to try again. TFTC anyway, Brother Colin.

Putting it simply... a horror puzzle. ??

This section of the geoart is our favourite part to ride. So glad finding the cache didn't match the puzzle. TFTC Brother Colin.

A little interesting trying to get this one in the dark!!!! Signed today as MINIFIGA! as I teamed up with GLISS! Minniek, Fitzy_1965 and Albida33 to tackle some counties, trails, oldies and interesting caches. Great to be finally in Queensland with our eyes on the Mega Prize.
This is the first Mega we have had in Australia in over a year. We have navigated lockdowns, mouse plagues, floods and the dreaded Covid to get here. So wonderful to be able to be out caching in Queensland. Such a privilege. Thanks for the cache.

Easter trip away with fitzy_1965 for the cacheQLD Dayboro Mega.

Another rainy morning didn’t deter us from heading out on a southern loop to pick up counties and Queens Land (Qld’s oldest). Again, teaming up with nibletricecakes, GLISS! and Albida33 signing logs as MiNiFiGA’s to also tackle the balance of We <3 Geo, Geosaurus, and Pac-Man, as well as part of the Coat of Arms Geo-art trails and any others in-between. Unfortunately, we were late back and didn’t get to attend the closing ceremony.

All caches were found in good condition unless otherwise stated.

24,337. Found with minniek on our Dayboro QLD MEGA Adventure trip. For today we also cached with albida33, Nibletricecakes, and GLISS! to form and sign as MiNiFiGAS!

With the sudden COVID outbreak in Queensland putting the Mega in doubt we decided to head up to the New South Wales / Queensland border hoping that it would still go ahead, and with the announcement that things were mostly returning to normal we decided Plan A still looked good. Day 6. Not quite such an early but still wet start today with an aim of caching our way through finishing all of the Geo-Art around Dayboro (all being pre solved) plus various bonus caches along the way, then doing a loop around collecting counties and QLD's oldest. This was the next stop for the day. We didn't have time for the whole series unfortunately but we grabbed what we could before it got completely dark. This was a quick find at GZ. Signed the log as MiNiFiGAS!, replaced the cache as found, then headed off to the next one.

Thanks Brother Colin !!

Dayboro trip. Day 11. The third day of the mega was another wet day, but not quite as bad as predicted. Things were quiet onsite so we headed off fairly quickly. Today Fitzy_1965, MinnieK, Nibblericecakes and Gliss & I finished off the caches closest to Dayboro we had not got to before heading into Brisbane and surrounding counties for the oldest cache in QLD and ticking off counties. The final goal for the day was as much of the Coat of Arms caches as we could get to before it was too dark. The drive home from Esk to Dayboro was another wet nighttime mountain drive, but we had a warm welcome at the ACT Chateaux before finally retiring for the night.

Thanks for the cache Brother Colin

32018.55 TNLN
Visited: World Traveling Gold GC A#6 & October 2019 Take a Walk A#408

**Albida**

Out with minniek, fitzy_1965, nibletricecakes and albida33 collecting oldies, interesting caches and unlocking counties. Signed as MiNiFiGA!

Very much the killer puzzle! Thanks Brother Colin, found this afternoon with beckNmonts and Alansee.

It was late in the day, but I really wanted to find at least some of these puzzles, having spent so long solving them, and at some stages, harassing the CO for hints! Thanks for placing the cache Brother Colin, and for the puzzles. You have put together an excellent series.

Just a handful of these caches today. Will have to come back.

????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

?????? In all our travels we would not have even thought to travel to this location. ??????
?????? (Ha Ha). In your dreams, these cachers do. ??????

[:(!] Thanks for an awesome effort. ????????

Devilish

Brilliant and Clever

I like it

Another one off the list

TTBLNSL TFTC/TFTH/TFBUH - Brother Colin [^]

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#10784 - 2:55:00 PM; Day five of a road trip with Sol de lune as we head north for the CacheQLD - Dayboro Mega. After overnighting in Toowoomba, we finished off an AL bonus, then headed for Esk via Highfields, Carbalah and Crows Nest, where we did more Adventure Labs and bonuses. Reached Esk, grabbed some lunch, booked rooms at the pub and headed out to start the Coat of Arms series. Finished off a section between the Gatton-Esk Road and Esk. 37 finds with two DNFs for the afternoon. Some of the finds were straight forward and some required a bit of work and a couple involved reaching for the stars, and this was the second one. A branch needed to reach the cache has broken off and now sits below. This cache may now need a TOTT for most cachers to reach it and a suitable upgrade to the terrain rating is required! Apologies for the generic logs. TFTC Brother Colin

Arrived in Esk around lunch and after sorting out accommodation, LuckyL10n and I headed out to start the trails in the area. Not too bad an afternoon weather wise and after 3 hours we had completed one half of the Rail Trail. Found all but 2 of caches, so a reasonably successful afternoon.

Thanks for the series and effort in getting them out.....hopefully we'll still get to the Mega.

Day 2 of the COA trail, I should have taken the sign last night that today was going to be rough. I went to get the gripsport bike rack off the caravan which has 2 x padlocks only to find that they were on the set of keys that I lost in Port Macquarie. Showground hack saw to the rescue. Padlocks removed and bike rack setup on the back of the car for tomorrow.

Up early as it is going to be a hotter day today, loaded the eBikes packed our camelbacks, snacks and off we went to the start point of Esk.

Arrived in the cool of the morning got the bikes off the back of the car and went to get the batteries only to find that i have left them in the caravan. I suggested to Mrs Snakepitters,do you want to do it without the batteries. I then Had this lightbulb moment, that was not a good suggestion, 'the face said it all'. Left Mrs Snakepitters in Esk and off I went back to Tooloogawah for the batteries.

30 minutes later back to my darling who is not too impressed, what was to be a early start in the cool of the morning is now starting off in the warming of the morning.

In the end it was a good day, Hot, energy sapping and another 20+ klm logged on the bikes. Back home for another cool shower and to make amends and take Mrs Snakepitter out to tea. 'She's paying'...

A grerat series of puzzle solving and in most cases the gz was spot on but a few required to increase the search radius. Have given a few fav points along the way.

10478
TFTC Brother Colin

After yesterday’s ride and a nice sleep, today Team Tyrrell and myself saw it was time to continue on and finish the roo, the shield and then the emu of these geoarts Today was going to be a milestone cache for me as one of these caches will be my 4000th find. An early start and we drove down to emu 19 and left a car for our return and decided to get on the bikes and do the southern caches and trad from here while it was cool and early, yes 5.30am start. We found these ones easily enough and enjoyed the ride down but the ride back to the cars was a little up hill, so was glad we did it early and in the cool of the morning.

We returned back to Esk to start our journey south, we had to replace one cache on our way, but with the CO’s permission this one was replaced. There were a few tree climbs and a few tuff hides but we made good time of them all and were happy to be finished before the heat of the day really kicked in.

It was another fantastic day with plenty of laughs and with all caches found in good condition. The caches are in a range of sizes and of hides, some took us a little to find but we got there. Thank you Brother Colin for the fantastic series, the great puzzles and hides, sorry for the generic post but there is a lot to get through.

Another epic day of cycling adventure. Chamad and I had teamed up to tackle the BVRT and hopefully tick off a few Geo art series. The plan for today was to drop off a car at the end of the Emu series and cycle towards it departing from Esk..
We had an overnight stay in the local caravan park which was very nice. An early start today had wheels rolling before 6am.
I enjoyed the challenge of the puzzles in all of the series and I certainly learnt many new things along the way. I'm pleased to say I solved a good few of them myself, but also needed hints, nudges and kicks on a few of them. The caches are all well placed and in good condition.

Thanks for the placement and upkeep of the cache's CO. Great job

Our final day of finding caches on the rail trail. Today we headed towards Coominya collecting lots of smiles along the way.
Thanks to all the COs who have placed caches here for us to enjoy.

Found yesterday with Silverspirit1310 and tootz80 at 1612h.

Nice tree climbing by Tootz80 with _hitam and myself for catching support

I have long had a good portion of these puzzles sitting on the solved pile, but a number of them still eluded my (admittedly limited) puzzle solving abilities. With the rest of the family spending the weekend in Crows Nest, I thought that today would be an ideal time to set about collecting them. I was towing the jetski behind my bike while riding the trail, in the hope I might be able to snag the odd unsolved one. With fine sunny weather, I was certainly not the only cyclist on the trail today. In fact on more than one occasion I had to wait for a group to pass me before looking for or replacing a cache.

With the Roo series now completed it was time to move on to this small batch of caches which I still had to collect, even though I had ridden this part of the trail before. No problem with the find here although I was not quite expecting to be searching this particular spot, having been lulled into a lower terrain mindset by my finds so far today. Just managed to get back to my bike just as a group of cyclists went by. Not sure how I would have explained myself had they caught me at GZ. TFTC

Finally after 4 years...TFTC Brother Colin

See full log in Emu #18.

Thank you Brother Colin for a great series.

What a climb and nearly dropped the pen opening the container.

See Emu #33 for full log. It took a number of tries before I completed it. This was a quick, easy find. TFTC

Some months ago Burgo78 told me he was coming to Brisbane for a weekend.
I suggested this geoart, as something that would keep us busy in the lead up to the visit and thinking it would make a good day out.
We got into the solving and made good progress on the puzzles, in the end, we had to ask for help on a few to complete the solving process.
An early start in Geraldton, a few caches before a serious Magpie attack. After coffee, it all became much better!
Signed the logs in full or just B & K on the smaller log sheets
The shield caches were all found in good condition

Thank you Brother Colin for your efforts in setting up all of these caches.
R

IIn Brisbane for a work conference at the end of the last week and now out on the trail with Karicka.
Early (for me at least) 6am wake up for an 8am start travelling North to South, taking advantage of the gentle downhill slope.
We were warned about breeding magpies but only encountered one particularly persistent bird around ‘Albany’ and we made it past without sacrificing any of our blood.
Esk pub provided lunch and a couple of good beers en route.
We made excellent progress collecting all 113 plus the letterbox by 2:30pm. Glad to have our ‘recovery vehicle’ pick us up at the end so we didn’t have to repeat the 30+km uphill back to the car.
Thanks Brother Colin for organising and placing these. I know from experience it takes a lot of effort.
I enjoyed this little section of climbs. FP
Cheers

Again bravo DeafVW

Wow ride night time good experience ️️with DeafPhantom and Deafcat

Awesome night bike thanks share DeafVW Deafphantom

Today we tackled this series, with an early start we worked our way around the country side finding the solved puzzles.

Cache and contents were in good condition.

Thanks Brother Colin for placing and maintaining this cache for our enjoyment.

Refer Sheild #9

Thankfully this part of the trail seemed to be nice and soft without many rocks. That was lucky because my son dropped his phone a couple of times.

I just don’t know how it is that young people don’t seem to value things, or what they cost. They just assume that replacing phones and screens is just part of life (and that their parents are going to pay for it). tftc

I have just looked up when we visited the last time to do the Emu caches and it's been 2 full years - time flies...

Again we came to the conclusion that this is the perfect time of the year to have another go at these geoart caches. Most of them had been solved for years yet 2 (Roo#4 and Cairns) withstood all our solving attempts. It didn't matter much as we found them anyway, just this completion disorder bugs a bit... [:o)]

Last time, we faced some logistic challenges. What can I say? This time it was not much better with kids' bikes bigger now and the addition of a dog to the family. We decided to take only 2 bikes, some trail running shoes and camping gear. To avoid hitting the trail in the afternoon again, we camped in Esk for a slighly earlier start.

We split our task into three sections shuffling car and bikes in between, starting in southerly direction from Esk to collect the Shields and some Roos. We were very tempted to keep going and collect Emu #26 as we found only the container lid last time with no logbook but that would have taken too long. After brekkie we headed north to collect the other Roos and after lunch we tackled Australia and a few caches on the way.

We had a fantastic day out with 81 finds (I think) and not one DNF.



Thank you so much, Brother Colin, for weeks of puzzle fun and for perfectly maintaining your huge number of caches for us all to enjoy.

Today was the day to complete the Geoart on the BVRT.

We put our mountain bikes in the car and started collecting all remaining caches.

Thanks for the great series and showing us such a nice area.

TFTC

Georode

Hehe ladder

Soooo.... fast-forward about 13 months since I first visited this location, having solved the puzzle and gone for a lovely walk along the BVRT. Well, that day I just laughed, due to not being great with heights, plus not being great with heights. (yeah, double or nothing!)

So I sighted but left the cache, and it has sat there taunting me ever since. Well, guess who got a funky new telescopic TOTT for xmas?! Oh yes, that is correct - I did! There were two of these 'up there' caches to get today and HippyDonna and myself found a few a little north of here then made our way back here on the way home. We had both chuckled at this cache a year ago, but this time there was no stopping us. This cache had me stabilising from below, and HippyDonna heading on up. No worries there, the log was soon signed and with a high five we were on our way to the next.

Thanks for the puzzle and cache, Brother Colin. I am very pleased to be turning this one into a smilie! And for that, a fave point.

PS... no comments about sending a friend up to test out the telescopic TOTT first thanks

Well well now we get to the fun part after trekking along (OK so it was only like a km) the trail it was time to head off in the other direction and get to the trees!
Jess & Caro had a new Xmas pressie to try out and it just so happens that I am not too bad with heights but I do have short legs - so if I can't get a leg up first - we'll have to get a ladder up!
Jess & Caro held it steady as I went up and up. Photo evidence supplied.

No caches were harmed in this photo shoot.

Now we're on our way to another tree for Jess & Caro to go up and confront some more of the fear of heights magic!

TFTC

After visiting friends in Toowoomba we headed north for these Australian puzzle caches. We really enjoyed these series' too! Caches were easily located and signed 'Mr E'. We've been lucky enough to visit most of these Australian locations. The Coat of Arms gave us a few extra cache ideas! Thanks to Brother Colin for another amazing effort in these trails. TFTC

We have had a great time riddling and puzzling with this series and are now tackling the rail trail in stages. Hopefully making the most of the series and checking out the local area at the same time.

Today the weather was perfect and not a magpie in sight. Loved the variety of structures we saw along the way. We added some extra paper in several caches till we ran out and some stash in the bigger ones.

Our cocker spaniels had a great run, towards the end kami was tired so she sat on the trail in front of the bikes. Although she happened to sit on a large bearded dragon so not only did I swerve to miss her but also the lizard tail. They both scrambled and I had a laugh.

Thanks, Brother Collin we have really enjoyed this series and often talk about how much work must have gone into its creation and maintenance for us to enjoy TFTC.

8236
Out and about in company of Miss Direction and the gaggle of Geo Dawgs down towards Esk to try for some more of the series there. Think it's about time for a E Bike
Great little spot Nice cache
Thanks for the adventure and for bringing us hereBrother Colin

This Day in Music
1954, Elvis Presley played at the opening of the Lamar-Airways Shopping Center in Memphis Tennessee. Johnny Cash was in the audience and after the show met Elvis for the first time.

A weekend away to cycle the Brisbane Valley rail trail and hopefully complete this series. A long time to get through these puzzles, found some very difficult and without a little nudge from the CO and a few others I doubt I would have got them all.
Headed up early on Saturday morning from Lismore and hit the trail heading North from Esk. The plan was to do the Northern section saturday and the Southern end on Sunday.

I made good progress. Ran into two fellow cachers who were walking with a bicycle with the intention of riding back to the vehicle. found 2 or 3 with them and cycled on. Only struck one magpie today. Guess I was luck to get this in before the season really takes off.
This was a great series, found all the coords spot on. Only missed 3. One I did something stupid with my coords, another I was muggled out in the small town North of Esk and the trhird was a DNF.
A few of the tree climbs were particularly nasty. Luckily I got those out of the way Saturday afternoon as I did a small section South of Esk to free up Sunday.
Thankfully Sunday was free of anymore climbs.
Stayed in the nearby caravan park, not cheap for a one man tent but I was so glad for a hot shower at the end of the day.
A relaxing dinner at the pub and I was sound asleep before 7:30pm.
Thanks for a great series Brother colin. Hopefully I can get back and finish the last 3.

Today was phase 2 (day 2) of our assault on BVRT. Accompanied by MM the remaining Roo's were first on the menu with an early morning run on the geocycle north out of Esk.

Now in the second part of today's adventure we started with some Emu and then worked our way back towards Esk.

Seems this is no longer Emu Country and we are now collecting Shields.

Another superb, salubrious, sunshiney day out on the BVRT We began by corralling a mob of roos near Esk. There was walking, talking, riding (for some), coffee , beer, and more

Big fan of sodoku but even so, needed a nudge with a few of these to make things work. And there were a few tree climbs in the mix All good fun tho!

TFTC BC

Before attending the Tooowoomba Catchup #4, E(:, Snickersallan, NeversayDi and I teamed up to find some of the Geo-art caches near Esk.
An early day with a start time of 7.30am, we managed to find 34 caches before 11am.
Now we are finishing the last few caches on our list before leaving for Toowoomba.
What a beautiful day even if the temperature was only 8deg when we started.
Great lot of different puzzles and the location was fabulous.
Will be coming back again to finish some more.
TFTC Brother Colin

We have slowly been working on solving the puzzles and yes it took some time so we have now decided to go a searchin’! Found with geobuddies today!!! Thanks for the series and the cache, Brother Colin!!!

Finally made it up this way to make a start on the Coat of Arms series which I first started working on in mid 2016. There were a lot of good puzzles overall with help required on several.
Once again the CO has provided spot on co-ords and it was nice to find a different array of the well labeled caches along the trail. I must apologise for the generic logs but I am really enjoying finding this great Geo-Art and appreciate all the work that has gone into setting it up.
TFTC Brother Colin
Found May 6, 2018

Had fun solving this puzzle and other puzzles of the geo-art. Today we decided to have a go at finding them.

TFTC Brother Colin. Enjoyed the puzzle and the find.

Smiley #1981 Found on 6 May 2018

Having completed the other end of the series, a bit at a time as I passed through Esk, I thought today was a perfect time to head out and complete the rest of trail.

Arriving in Esk a morning brew was needed and I enjoyed that as I got the bike ready to go. Once everything was right I headed off to do the caches south of Esk,

It was an enjoyable day out and most caches were found without too much trouble and only one that took way too long, but I had lunch while looking. The return journey was a lot of fun!

Once the logs were signed the caches were returned as found.

Thanks for a great series. BC.

TFTC Brother Colin

We met up with Felix11 for a bike ride along the Brisbane Valley Rail trail to complete the puzzle series for the coat of arms. The weather was wet and miserable, but we managed to find the lot. Thanks for the puzzle series Brother Colin and bringing us to the Brisbane Valley Rail trail.

We are nomads. Having left Perth WA in February 2014 we now live in our caravan and go wherever the will or caches take us.

Joined today with El_Peregrinos, to complete the Coat of Arms, boy what a wet, and windy wild ride. But ohh so much fun.

TFTC Brother Colin

Too blimmen high for me! Nice puzzle though. I'll be back....

TFTC Brother Colin!

Jumped 3 metres of the ground after seeing a snake! EEK!

Got it. TFTC

Out with Que Sera, Bear0503 and L the muggle.
Logs signed as NQLB.
Thanks for climbing QS!
Thanks for the series BC.

Ned was watching on

Nikid1 , Bear0503 and i spent around 6 months solving all these puzzles and planning to meet today to do the whole series in one day on our mountain bikes. We started at ROO 14 then had one of our muggle friends pick us and the bikes up at Emu 19. We then went to Esk for lunch at the Enigma Cafe who have lovely burgers and such an apt place to have lunch seeing the Enigma puzzle was my favourite and i felt it was one of the hardest. We then did the rest of the series to Toogoolawah where our muggle friends left the ute for us to go home. It was a very pleasant ride with only 2 spots where there were inclines and along one stretch the magpies were ferocious but luck y we had helmuts and back packs on for when they struck. Thankyou Brother Colin for the fantastic puzzles and the great day out today.

Second Day at ESK. Doing - Brisbane Valley Rail Trail, I am very disappointed with climb the tree - suit to young people but not to old people as myself - over 70s, found 7 out of 10 for Shield Series.  I spotted all the caches as well but couldn't sign the log. so DNF for me [:(!][:(!]

We had a meeting arranged with Di Morgan and PPRASS to do this series - a beautiful day and a great bike ride. It was good to find this cache in the series and a few nearby. Thanks to Brother Colin for placement of this cache and adding to our enjoyment of the area.

Found at 11:44 AM in the company of DiMorgan and Liz and Bruce.
Day 2 of this mammoth adventure and once again it turned out to be a lovely day - slightly overcast and no wind - just perfect for a 18 km bike ride We were again impressed with the amount of work that went into this series and the level of accuracy and variety of hides was very much appreciated.
Thanks Brother Colin.

Another day for the guys from Liz and Bruce, pprass & DiMorgan to head out on their bikes to finish the CofA series. The planning had been done on the previous day.
The girls happily waved them goodbye, this time we drove to Kilcoy for a leisurly lunc & home by Somerset Dam. Unfortunately the car of pprass received a great stone chip in the wind screen.
My logs do not include the ride, Bill's comment on return was that once again the co-ords were spot on.
Thanks to pprass for his climbing skills, sometimes getting a boost up by Bruce.
The puzzles were variad & the geo art looked terrific on the geocaching page.
Thanks for placing this cache Brother Colin

Back to the tree climb from hell. How are all those broken lower branches supposed to make the climber feel confident!!! Determination, guts and some witchy luck had the cache secured!

Have spent a considerable amount of time over the last few months solving the different Sudoku puzzle types that the Shield comprises of. I enjoyed the challenge this puzzle posed, with the ordinary suduko melded with a colour scheme and overlapping of 5 separate puzzles.

Had bypassed this cache on the way south due to a muggle group approaching GZ and all the dead branches lining the ground around the tree trunk from previous attempts. Obviously this type of tree has brittle branches so a cautious approach was needed.

Returning to the scene of the crime, the adjacent farmer and owner of the bushranger was doing a circuit of his farm on motor cycle. Was going to give this a miss when the farmer took off back to the farm house. With a clear run, took a walk to the base of the tree and looked for an approach to the elevated container with a number of key branches already broken.

Climbing the tree, distributed my weight over a few branches, prepared just in case a branch gave way. Managed to sign the log and return to ground without further damaging the tree or retesting one of Newton's laws. This finishes the C+A shield series. Thanks for the great C+A series Brother Colin.

Completed the coat of arms, and the map finding all but 4, and picking up some traditionals along the way Started the trails around 7 from the South end, ended around 3! Was a great day all around. Great selection of puzzles, beautiful scenery, great caches, thanks for placing! Signed all logs with a emoji stamp, of team name acronym, 'jae' TFTAdventure

I had all puzzles solved and was ready to collect. Made a plan with JACS Team, and EatSleepCacheRepeat_ to grab these all in one day... This might not have been the best idea, but we survived (barely). All done between 7am and 3pm with only 4 DNFs - could have been even faster if the north of Esk part of the trail was as easy to ride as the south of Esk part! This day gave me several milestones - 100 puzzle caches, then 200... 100+ caches in a day and 25+D/T combinations. All caches were given a big thumbs up (stamp), or signed as J.A.E. for the group. Thanks for all the caches and puzzles.

Please find main log under Brisbane. The rest will be a cut and paste. All finds logged under either a ‘Thumbs up’ emoji stamp or the acronym J.A.E. standing for JACS Team, Ardom and Eat, Sleep, Cache, Repeat. The series was a true pleasure from solving the first puzzle to finding the last cache. Thank you Brother Colin for the smiles, tears, frustration and jubilation over the last 6 months. Thanks to my fellow team mates for today it was a blast!

I am logging these in numerical order and with a generic log so as not to give anything away. Let me say that this small series of 10 Shield caches tested me mentally and sometimes physically. I cannot count the amount of A3 printouts I have around my house in the effort to get this series completed. Nor can I count the scratches and bruises I have after actually retrieving the caches. Suffice to say I am not a tree climber, and the willpower needed to solo a few of these caches took tremendous courage indeed. At the 'broken branches' tree, I was simply petrified when my meagre footing gave way, and literally left me hanging. I am not really sure how I managed to continue on, but I did! Mind over matter indeed. The last cache in the run had me looking for ages, until I realised I must have put the wrong coords (they did seem a bit far), so I pulled out my rusty (not trusty) Jetski, and found it very quickly indeed.
Thanks Brother Colin, I loved the countless nights in preparation, and the bike ride to pick them up. A most enjoyable morning.

Heading along the trail with membsec, this was our next find. I was more than happy to help retrieve the beasty. These are my favourite type of hide! Some scribble left, cache replaced and off onto the next.

Thanks for the cache Brother Colin

Day 2 of our trail to complete all of the geo-art in the area. Weather a little warmer and we got an early start. By now we were joined by the adventurous nyssaflutterby and we completed our adventure with her. The puzzle was a horror. Went back to it several times a day ruining erasers and working pencils down to unusable sizes. Always errors. Eventually was the last but one to be completed giving some usable information that could be converted to coords. Then to get there and find not only do we need nyssa's skills but also the help of a bike and our support just added salt to the wounds.
What a saga for this cache.
TFTC (and since we can't give a "hate" has to be a favourite!).

22 of 28

Dora the Explorer! and I had decided to take up the challenge of finding 25 unique D/T caches in the one day. This cache was one of the caches that had been targetted. Most of the caches were found with the aid of a mountain bike and others were a stop and grab.

Cache was found, log was signed and returned to the cache and the cache replaced exactly as found.

All is good with this cache.

774

TFTC and Puzzle ***BrotherColin***

1777*none* The 22 out of 28 attempted with CDAH55 by bicycle. We were aiming to complete 2 x Unique Difficulty/Terrain Rating Challenges (one in QLD, one in NSW). Which requires 25 different d/t ratings to be found in one day.

We noticed that Venn Family has also attempted this. So that was most of the planning done. We just targeted a similar set of caches to him. I was madam Secretary for the day, ticking off caches and navigating to the next cache. CDAH55 was the driver, the supermarket (supplier of pineapple and water melon) and joint finder. We used a combination of cycling with a car added in a various intervals. My muscles are sore today from lifting bikes on and off the bike rack numerous times.

We attempted this on a hot 35c day. [?] Why??? We still cannot explain it. We rode approximately 55km. The flies were out of control. The Bottlemart shop in Esk has a great walk in fridge. We stopped at every water tank that we came across. We just took off our t-shirts, soaked them in water and put them back on. There was blood, sweat and I thought CDAH55 was near tears.[^] (He got some leg cramps right near the end). A great effort though put in by him. He wasn't going to give up, but he did suggest a taxi at one stage. I told him, we don't do taxi's. Taxi's are not an option.

The bicycles came in very handy for the tree climbs. As some of the tree limbs seem to be disappearing,

We finally got back to the car, where CDAH55 started dry retching. Least I know he was putting in effort. A good time was had by all.

2/10/2016, 11:11 AM Find #1280

The CO told me about this kind of sudoku at an event he hosted before these caches were published. It was the first time is met him and I'd assumed that he was stark raving mad.

Then this cache came out.

Anyway, another tree climb. But, unlike the previous one, this one was conveniently placed right in full view of a house. That a car had just been driven too. Oh well, I hope the leaves will shield me from view.

The first thing I discovered was that bike shoes are not good for climbing. The second was that when your shoes scrape the first layer of bark off the branch, it is slippery underneath. The third is that it is difficult to climb a tree when previous finders have broken all the branches off. The fourth is that of a tree has two trunks and a scarcity of branches, you can make good use of them. I somehow made it up. And then down again.

TFTC Brother Colin

Sighted cache however unable to sign log due to short arms

We had travelled to Esk with Roddy C ,Diamon J S and Rusty 85 to find some of the solved Geo art ,the finds were made with good cords and good placement ,and a fun day was had by all ,sorry for the generic logs but 51 are just too many LOL

We have been doing a group solving of these puzzles for some time, today was the day to tackle first leg of it for us. We enjoyed the walk, had lots of laughs and found many caches along the way. Thanks for the puzzles and thanks for the caches Brother Colin.

Great walk, lovely lot of caches. TFTC

A group geocaching day on the Rail Trail Geo-art with Gullivers Travels54, DiamonJs and Rusty85. We set the date a few weeks ago after realising we as a group, had solved the Emu and Shield series of puzzles, plus a few of the Roos around Esk.

Being a group of foot-travelers, we thought doing just the Emu caches (35 of them) might be enough, but I included the Shield and a few of the Roos for today as well - just in case we had the time.

A bit of car shuffling and by 8.40am we had found the first cache. The first batch of eleven took us less than an hour and a half, so we then decided we would be at Boon Road by lunch time for the next car shuffle. That turned out to be true, and before one o'clock we had finished lunch in a lovely park in Esk, and were back on the trail again. By 3.30pm we had completed 50 of the total series of 113 and celebrated with a coffee in a cafe nearby.

Mrs RoddyC loves these puzzles - so solutions were a pleasure to work out. And almost in Technicolor, too! I was only black and blue after this tree climb - the branches have already been broken so take care. This time, there was no red coloring.

Log signed & replaced again. Found at 2.35pm on 5th September 2016. TFTC

**# 14644** Found on our extended 2016 winter escape trek.
Another fine sunny day for a ride along the final half of the C of A trail from
Toogoolawah to Esk with youngoldfella and The Green Geckos.
Again only a few muggles around and no magpies thankfully.
A good variety of hides and good co-ords made for mostly quick finds again.
A little extra difficulty here but we managed to locate the log OK.
Thanks for the cache Brother Colin,
***Roostaman***

Found a spot to camp in the Toogoolawah Showgrounds Caravan Park with Roostaman and the Green Geckos. Arrived on Friday and found a couple that aternoon then out on the trail with Roostaman, (RM,) and the Green Geckos (TGG) Saturday and Sunday. A lot of the micro logs signed with YOF, RM and TGG. Now it is Sunday. Another fine sunny day for a ride along the final half of the C of A trail from
Toogoolawah to Esk with Roostaman and The Green Geckos. Only a few muggles around and no magpies thankfully. A good variety of hides and good co-ords made for mostly quick finds again.

A little bit more harder to get at the log for this one but managed to locate the log OK. Apologies for the same sort of log but there are a lot of logs to enter. TFTC Brother Colin,

Great weekend out with Roostaman and Old Young Fella after spending many nights solving puzzles.
Finally they were all done and we could set a weekend to do the easy part.
Brought our bikes,camped at the Showgrounds and cached our brains out.
Thank you Brother Colin for placing this cache

Well this puzzle was probably the most challenging of of all the ones we've done so far. We kept working at it for ages, confident we would one day work it out. And we did.
Arriving at GZ our first thought was 'holy moly'. Then it changed to 'Hmmm... that looks like fun'. And it was!
What a great lot of puzzles and caches you've set up for us all to solve and find Brother Colin.
Thanks heaps. Fav Point from us.

Woops. Here's that Favourite Point we promised.

2022

Sunday. Kerry from Slow Puncture was out today to capture the remainder of the Roo series, and the Shield series. Darren from Just a Trifle was the company today - and he was after ALL of them! Kerry accompanied Darren to the rest of them for another ride.

Cache found in good condition, log signed and cache re-hidden.

This was the 9th of 15 caches found on today's trip.

Thanks ***Brother Colin***, for showing us this place.

Mr Just a Trifle had been out for a day on the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail with Mrs Slow Puncture and while most of the finds for the day had been logged, we have held off logging those in the "Shield" until we had given it a good shot at actually solving the puzzles. Well after a lot of tearing out of hair, cursing and swearing, we may have managed to solve some of the easier ones but have struggled with others. We figured that as our name is in the log book and we have made attempts at the puzzles, we could log the finds.

Thank you Brother Colin for having placed the cache and for maintaining it for everyone to enjoy These are truly devious puzzles, deserving of a favourite point for the angst,