Race to the Philosophers Stone 4: Wizards Chess Mildura, Victoria, Australia
By Lord rossatron and Princess Peach 25 on 21-Jun-16. Waypoint GC6M4TA

Archiving the series

DNF

Quick find. Interesting place. Unfortunately cache lid has deteriorated in the weather and will not survive the rain. May need some maintenance by the cache owner. TNLN. TFTC.

We found this one not long after a rain. Was a very slippery trek to gz.
Unfortunately we have found the container in a poor state. Its no longer waterproof with a big crack in the lid. Have tried to place it back in a way that hopefully the rain doesnt get into it. Also there is no longer a lock on the box for the log book so there was no need to work out the numbers as stated in the description. I have taken a couple of pictures and sent along with a message to cache owner letting them know. TFTC

Unfortunately we have found the container in a poor state. Its no longer waterproof with a big split in the lid. Have tried to place it back in a way that hopefully the rain doesnt get into it. At the moment the contents are still dry. Also there is no longer a lock on the box for the log book so there was no need to work out the numbers as stated in the description. I have taken a couple of pictures and sent along with a message to cache owner letting them know.

After working out where we could park we quickly walked down the path to gz
Found straight away
Found with Earthlight
Tftc

After locating a car park on main road we walked the short 120m to the cache. Found with The X-Trailers. TFTC
Noticed the wetlands were quite dry

Nice easy find once I convinced Mr X to park. Great theme. Excellent condition Thanks for the cache

Tftc

Tftc Heading toSA

Easy find. Still dry. No trackable TFTC

Managed a nice quick find this morning while in town for a few days, nice to be continuing the series. Thanks Lord rossatron and Princess Peach for the cache.

12:35
A dry and cloudy day in Mildura - perfect for seeking out a variety of caches, within easy reach of town.
Wizards Checkers - Yes this is a game we are very familiar with! It was fun to identify the possible moves that would have been needed to complete the puzzle. Sadly as with a couple of other caches in the series, the log can be accessed without the need to do the puzzle.

Sadly this is another in the series that has been vandalized by seekers, but never-the-less, another FP from us for such a creative cache in an interesting series.

Thanks Lord rossatron for placing caches for everyone's enjoyment.
20397

**# 19850** Found on the Vic leg of our 2017 escape trip.
A perfect Spring day for a drive around in Mildura.
Not many muggles around here today, and mostly good quick finds.
Thanks for the cache Lord rossatron,
***Roostaman***

This was a beautiful spot for an evening Cache. Didn’t see the Trackable but we certainly heard the frogs. TFTC!

Lovely location, found with Kelligula at sunset. TFTC

Adelaide Trip September 2017. Day 10. Driving Home. I left Adelaide and headed towards Robinvale via Renmark and Mildura. Once I found the way into the reserve I was soon at the cache. All good here.

Thanks.

24231.74 TNLN
Visited: World Traveling Gold GC A#6 & 2014 Flash Mob XI A#311

**Albida**

In Mildura for the long weekend with my brother and his kids. Today I ventured out by myself while they were in the pool to grab a few of the nearby geocaches. I hope I will eventually finish this series one day.

Thanks from mogni

Tftc

We are coming close to the end of the series but we can not seem to find the 3rd cache in the series

I had never been to Mildura mainly because it is anlong way from home. But I wanted a holiday with my kids and we decided to fly from Melbourne which was great fun. This cache was made much harder than it needed be by climbing under the fence.. and I forgot the clue.. Thanks to Lord rossatron and Princess Peach 25 for placing this cache.

It was easy

Our first cache great fined

This was a nice easy geocache find for the day just had to look around the bush and I found it

TFTC

Fun

Tftc!

Found with boo09 & becca85 while visiting Mildura to see my great-Nana for a long weekend. TFTC

Found on a roadtrip to Mildura to see our great-Nana with neisha7 & boo09. TFTC

As a major HP fan, I of course made sure to target as many as possible of this series.
So we managed to access this one from the wrong side of the fence. 10 seconds after I verbalised this realisation, boo09 had squished her teeny 7yr old self under the fence, followed closely by her sister and they soon had the cache in hand. Passed through to us on the other side, I was busy trying to figure out what to do when muggle husband saw that the log was completely accessibly despite the lock. (one of the little gold hooks has come out).
I felt a bit guilty but as we were in a hurry, I signed the log & handed it back to the kids to replace. I did take a pic to peruse the puzzle later on!
A great concept!

Day #2 of our extra long weekend with boo09, neisha07 & muggle husband, visiting my Nana in Mildura. The 4.5hr trip became 7.5hours as we stopped to check out Silo art and of course cache. We had a wonderful time finding some fantastic caches. Thanks to all who contributed.
TFTC!

Found with Rohkad this evening. The darkness made it harder to spot the physical cache, but once we had it we went back to the car to open it and solve the puzzle. We opened the cache and the box inside was locked but open ?? Looks like the glue had come undone on one of the ends of the box, we stuck some black electrical tape to somewhat fix it, it should do for now but the CO may want to replace the box later on.
So I insisted that we solve the puzzle and then we had a few minutes of not knowing what to do as we had misinterpreted the instructions somewhat. But soon our minds were lifted and the puzzle became easy. Clever idea! Log signed and cache returned to its hiding spot. Visiting a TB also. TFTC!!

We are on our way back to Tasmania after attending the Red Centre Experience Event in Alice Springs and are spending a few days in Mildura. We went caching today and used geocaching as our guide to give us a tour of the area and this was one of the caches we found. Cache open, so no need to puzzle it out. TFTC

TFTC

Found at 12:29 PM GAFF1 in the company of NurseHayley.
On a journey to Alice Springs. Full log to follow.
Thanks Lord rossatron.

Found in the company of pprass, this took some finding but we got there in the end. Nice warm day TFTC

In Mildura today, picking up a few caches. TFTC

In Mildura to catch up with honeysucker for the weekend. A hot day peaking at 46C but still managed some caches. TFTC.

Submitted via Garmin Oregon 7xx

#699
Easy find, on a 45 deg day . thanks Lord rossatron. TFTC.

Like others I found the container but couldn't work out the numbers. I found the description somewhat confusing eg "In the games set up below" well there are no games set up below and I spent considerable time in the car going online to see if they were on the webpage but not on my GPSr or in the app I had on my iPad. Whilst the description later says that the puzzle is in the cache I thought these referred to two different things. As there is no table or bench nearby, I set up one game in the dirt in the nearest shade I could find, but still didn't make sense to me especially as the chess picture which is supposed to guide me is a different shape and size to the checkers board. Sorry for the grumpy log, [xx(] but it is hot and I spent quite some time out there. Probably not in the right frame of mind to be working things out. Have taken a photo and might have a go at working it out at home and try again on another visit.

After a late lunch I headed back to my hotel room to cool off. Had a look at the photo of the puzzle on my phone and played some virtual wizards checkers to come up with some likely numbers. Following a swim in the pool headed back to try my luck. The tumblers still didn't work so I went and sat on a bench I had discovered some distance away and played my three games coming up wth the same numbers. This time the magic worked and the numbers all lined up! Took the ring loose in the outer box and left anther round shiny thing in the inner box. Took me ages to get the lock shut again , but came away happier than this morning. Will leave my hotheaded rant there, however, as it is part of the journey! When I visited the whomping willow this morning, I didn't realise there were numbers to collect, so will need to call past there again at some stage. Cache #2568.

Well we did find it but chose to not force lock....

My grandad and I found this cache while on a learning road trip through western NSW - I was on my Ls and we decided to go for a weeks drive to improve my driving skills and experience on country roads.

Having driven from Broken Hill, we finally arrived in Mildura during late afternoon and decided to have a go at this cache before calling it a night. Struggled to find an actual way into GZ and then struggled to figure out the puzzle. My grandad eventually cracked it and we signed the log. Ingenious idea for a cache! TFTC.

Tried, but to no avail

Found it

what a great cache and fun theme love the effort you have gone to
Thanks Lord rossatron for putting this cache out for us to find

After attending the Coffee's Dinner event in Mildura, Hevwalker, Clare007 and myself were joined by Sir Spectre for some night caching.
Having had so much fun at A Race to the Philosophers Stone #5 field puzzle before dinner we were very keep to complete the series. And of course grab any others that presented along the way!
Initially after erroneously parking in the hospital car park we had trouble just finding how to get into the area to look for the cache. Exiting there we found a gate and wandered over to GZ. Then when we found the cache we all looked at each other puzzled. Again Sir Spectre performed some black arts of his own and the locked magically opened. I think he got knighted for his services to Chess
Thanks Lord rossatron for another one.

Muggle partner and I wre very generously given the opportunity to accompany Moneydork and Tounga to Mildura for the weekend, to attend 2 events
Saturday morning we left Berri and returned there Sunday night. Between that, I found 44 caches , attended the 2 events and had 6 DNFs
According to muggle partner, it was a great weekend I asked if he was now enjoying geocaching and he said 'no. The weekend was just good around the caching!'
Some awesome caches were found and some great people were hugged, met and spoken with

I have no idea how to play chess and I can't remember the last time I played draughts
So I was of no use whatsoever here but thankfully muggle partner and Moneydork managed to make sense of this and work out the required information... at the same time as I resorted to making a PAF, naturally
This was a fun cache and little did I know that the rest of this series would be just as awesome!
I would have given every single one of these a favourite point as they were all brilliant in their own unique way but sadly my favourite points are down to single digits and so i can only place one on the final cache to show my approval and thanks for this great series [^]

TNLN. SL. TFTC Lord rossatron

The first of the series for me. Loved the field puzzle. Very well done.

In Mildura for the weekend to attend the 4 months to the Surf Coast Event - Mildura event and to enjoy the many local caches that I might get the opportunity to discover.
Not quite sure how this puzzle works as one of the other finders managed to crack the tumblers, lucky for us.
**Thanks for placing this cache Lord rossatron**

during the Coffee, Pizza, Coffee, Wine, Coffee, Event I go invited to join some other SA cachers brisal5, clare007 and hevwalker to do this series, so out with the torches it was and of we went solving field puzzle after field puzzle in the dark. There was 2 thoughts of ideas on how to solve this one. I got the lock open but glad I did this one in a group.

Found by Mary & David, in company with The Coffees and Highrod, at 1620. Can't believe the sunshine toiday. Mary is always interested in medical facilities such as those nearby. Like kids following the Pied Piper, our group keeps growing. We caught up with BernieH and LouiseAnn here to ponder the puzzle. Mr Coffee came up with the way forward. Our thanks to Lord rossatron.

It took us two attempts to find a way in to the area, being foiled by a fence.
Neither the less, we managed to figure out between the four of us how to play checkers.
It would of been an interesting spot in the daytime.
Thanks for bringing us here Lord Rossatron & Princess Peaches

After the event tonight went out with brisal5, clare007 & sir_spectre, in the dark, to attempt to complete this series...
I had no idea what to do here...luckily someone else did & had the cache open in no time...TFTC

It was at this cache that I discovered I didn't have the rest of the series in my GPS. I wondered how I had managed to stuff up my pocket queries again. I think the main issue is that some of them were really recently published. So as we discovered that we had parked on the wrong side of the fence, we saw maccamob, the coffees and highrod arrive. We moved the car and raced the others around to the cache. As we pulled out the cache and tried to workout how to solve the puzzle, mr coffee put his lock picking skill to the test. He got it open, but I was left feeling dirty. I wish I had done it properly

After having a great time at the 4 months to the Surf Coast Event, it was time to head out and grab some caches. BernieH and I were joined by MuggleWifeDoes to cache our way around town while the light still lasted.

Thanks for the cache Lord rossatron.

Out and about today whilst here for the events today and it was caching in between. This cache was on the route and we would like to thank Lord Rossatron for the cache.
Regards
The Coffee's

We found your cache Race to the Philosophers Stone 4: Wizards Chess on our camping holiday with GeoJess [woof] from Ballarat around NSW and back in search of warmer weather and a few caches
Found with coffees and Maccamob
Bumped into some other Muggle cachers.
The cache is in good shape.
Thanks Lord rossatron and Princess Peach 25 for the cache!

After enjoying our dinner at the local golf club we headed out with DAB to complete The Philosophers Stone series in readiness for the final 2 being released tomorrow. With a bit of back tracking we finally worked out how to access the cache where we promptly set forth working out the combo.
Thanks Lord rossatron for the hide and field puzzle.

Loving this little series. Found in the company of The_Tritonz after dark. A great puzzle which was soon solved. Clue noted, now on to the next. TFTC

Found today with Tomstache. Geodad was quick with the game and we had access to the log book. This looks like the beginning of a great series Lord rossatron, we are looking forward to finding more.

After last muggle interrupted visit where I had taken a photo of the games to solve, I came up with a set of numbers that, upon our return today, revealed the cache. Thanks for another interesting hide.

Quick find, but the puzzle took a couple of days to solve. TFTC

Found it, but didn't solve it. Nearby carpark was very busy this afternoon. Managed to grab the box to discover the next phase. Set it up, then quickly packed it up as dog-walking muggles came into the area. Would need to choose your time carefully to do this in one hit.

Out for a drive to Mildura to collect a few caches
TFTC

Enjoyed a spot of Wizard Chess at 3am on a saturday morning. Was a little chilly but not too bad. Took the Minion with me and claiming the FTF.

Published

Dropped off TB