SideTracked - Eltham Eltham, Victoria, Australia
By Long John Silva on 08-Sep-16. Waypoint GC6RNGY

Found the geocache no swaps for kids. great

While trying to look like I was carrying out an official inspection, it took a couple of cycles of the traffic lights to sign the log and replace it, without raising suspicions.Thanks for adding to the Sidetracked series, Long John Silva.

I love a bit of stealth, in view of all that traffic. TFTC

TwoEms got a little sidetracked playing with the pedestrian lights. It took us about four goes, but in our defense it was a cold busy Saturday nightlets hope no one was watching. Thank you for the sidetracked cache.

Quick, easy find while in Eltham for the Side Tracked Day event at Meadmore Junction

After attending the Sidetracked event in Eltham, it seemed only appropriate to locate the Sidetracked cache here too. Thanks from D& HA B-A

**SideTracked Eltham (19th SideTracked find)**I was attending the SideTracked anniversary event at the miniature railway later in the day and thought why not start the day getting SideTracked?. So here I am dodging traffic trying to retrieve and replace a well-hidden cache. I thought it would be *easy* but this road gets busier than a one-legged man in a butt kicking contest! It did take a bit of time and multiple crossing of the road before the time was right to find and then to replace.Thanks Long John Silva for placing and maintaining this cache and for showing us a small patch of Eltham. Cache on *Throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Explore. Dream. Discover.* **Mark Twain**---Are you ready for Victoria, Australias next big event?Join us for Victorias first ever *Block Party* to celebrate 25 years of geocaching.**When:** March 22 - 23, 2025**Where:** Hume Global Learning Centre, SunburyLog your will attend at [**GCAP417: The Sunbury Event** ](https://coord.info/GCAP417)Visit our [**Block Party website** ](https://geocachingvictoria.com.au/the-sunbury-event) for more details.

*Found on the 10 Aug 2024 @ 2:56PM.**Cache find # 15720.* After the Side Tracked event, I decided to go for a stroll around Eltham and cane across this cache, finding was easy enough the tricky part was retrieving, signing and putting it back with people wondering what I was doing.**Thanks to Long John Silva for keeping the game going by placing this cache.**

Quick find- read the hint! Thanks for putting out this cache!

That was a fun one! Tricky with the traffic, but there were enough pedestrians around to not be obvious and too few to be suspicious. Nice! TFTC

Sydney to Melbourne Meander. Day Eight: To Melbourne Airport and home.Weather: Another perfect geocaching day.I was expecting this cache to be on an overpass or in an underpass as I thought there was some rule about caches on the median. Happy to make a find here though, and a train went through to complete the experience. Im sure motorists were wondering why I stopped halfway when crossing the road.Thanks for this addition to the series Long John Silva.

Fun little hide definitely one of my favourites

First stop today on a route designed to tick off more metro LGAs. TFTC

Nice little find

In the area today to attend a Leap years event and managed to find some adventure lab caches and this side tracked cache. Thanks Long John Silva for placing the cache

We were up in the Eltham area for an event celebrating a palindrome date. I was pleased to use the time afterwards to find some caches in the area before it got too hot. I decided to include in my list of finds at least a couple of Sidetracked caches. I now have found more than 40 Sidetracked caches in two states, because we found some in NSW on our way home from Queensland last year.

Thank you

The clear description meant we could put our hands on it quite quickly and attract minimum suspicion.Thanks Long John Silva for this bold cache placement.Chiefton!!!

*Cam's 25th Birthday Adventure #4*My friend Cam is having a birthday party in Eltham this evening. I've got 3 hours to make my way there on bike. How many caches can I fit in?Disaster has struck. Leaving the last cache (in Richmond), I head north aiming for #Kew Fish Hatchery#. I zigged when I should of zagged, and then got caught in a part of suburbia with very few ways to get north. I finally got back on to Yarra Boulevard, but much further north and east than planned. Worse still, it was an area depressingly free of ride-and-grabs, and I eventually found myself in Alphington. Double disaster - I'm in a suburb I've already cached in, I've blown the second of my three hours, and still have to get to the party on time. Jump on the train at Alphington station, off at Eltham... thank the Geocaching Gods (and Long John Silva) for a quick Side Tracked cache.I made the party bang on 7:00 pm. Although I thought I'd have to ride to Heidelberg to get a train back (and hence a few more cache chances), this didn't happen, as a friend took us to Heidelberg in her car. We were in a flat-chat rush to get on any train pointed back at Geelong, and thus I blew my northern suburbs chances.Total tally: 4 finds. Ah well... maybe I'll do better another day.Thanks heaps, Long John Silva!

Ticking off another of the sidetracked caches and slowly working my way through the many caches around Eltham. Tftc

Cool sneaky hide. A nice but quick cache

Quick find after visiting the ice cream shop. The pen wouldnt work so voiding write in the the log book

Our third sidetracked adventure: this time on the Hurstbridge line! We began our adventure in Berwick, straight to Parliament and then changed straight onto the Hurstbridge line. A lady came on before Victoria Park selling the Big Issue - always buy one!Our first stop, Fairfield where we were greeted by the big dog. Was a fairly Fairfield easy find.We tried to find the cache in Alphington, but it was a bit snakey and given it was a hot day we decided to give it a miss. We found a friendly cat there though.The cache at Ivanhoe was a beauty, surrounded by beautiful parkland. Off to eaglemont, what a delightful little village. We especially loved the cute garden at the station.The Rosanna multi had us stumped so we had a very filling burger and went to Watsonia, where we were greeted by a very classy road cone. Skipped the Greensborough one too, because it led us to what we were afraid was another snakey place. A little walk from Montmorency station we found the nano cache. Another quick grab over the bridge at the very lovely suburb of Eltham.Tftf** check out our really sidetracked cache in Pinnaroo, the first sidetracked in South Australia***

Another Sidetracked cache collected today. I think one day I will try and find them all in Victoria. I think there is over 90 however but wouldn’t it be fun and adventurous. Given the hint here I located it quickly hesitating between muggle cars and pedestrians looking at me. The log was a bit wet but managed to stamp and sign it before replacing it back without any funny looks from those around. TFTC Long John Silva

Easy find! Good fun!

Found been scared to this one for ages as is a busy road but finally got round to it and k ew what I was looking for

Find number 12091 at 12:55:00 pm on Monday the 19 June 2023
I had to drop my geoRanger off for service in Bundoora for it's pre-trip pampering prior to our trip north for the winter. So, with plenty of time to kill between drop off and pick up, well, what else could I do , a SideTracked onslaught...
Now that is one busy little location, I think everyone is so busy that no one ever notices anything
**Thanks for placing this cache Long John Silva**

---
Have you logged your will attend for the “Cachemas In July” event?
More details are available at: [GCA7WT4](https://coord.info/GCA7WT4)

If you are looking for some new caches to find, explore the nominees for the 2022 Victorian Cache of the Year Awards.
The Geocaching List is available [here](https://coord.info/BMC8QYR)!

Easy one with hint! david

Searching for sidetracked caches seems to work better on a weekend as there are more parking places available and fewer muggles around. This was a nice quick and easy find with ilook4geo and the log was soon signed and replaced. Thank you to Long John Silva for adding to the sidetracked series, which we have had a lot of fun finding.

Came along here with goingplaces2 and found the container. Cache was retrieved, log was signed and all was replaced. Job done! Thanks for the cache and the history.

** 13/2/23 ** Found with PeprExplores

Thanks for the hint! We've known this was there for a couple of weeks but finally found the opportunity to stop. Nice little find. The log was wet.

Found it quickly but there are muggles from every direction. Log was slightly wet. TFTC!

I was in the area filling out my LGA's and decided to grab this sidetracked cache (I like those, too!). I felt a little exposed but chose a break in the traffic to grab the cache. The logbook it wet, and I dried it out best I could. I placed the logbook bag upside down so it shouldn't get full of water again. Thanks for adding to this series!

As I approached and realised exactly where GZ was, I recognised the hide from about 10 feet away, as I've seen the same style a few times now, but I always appreciate it when encountered - so simple but effective.

The hardest thing about retrieving was trying to find a gap when it was unlikely a muggle was looking directly at me, but thankfully managed it okay. One very fast log signing and visiting of a trackable later and I was away again.

Thanks for the cache, Long John Silva!

Where do people get these things?

Great cache in plain sight

Quick find with some busy traffic nice hide

Not much traffic at 2:45pm on Sunday made an easy find.

Nice Spot TFTC!

Nice camo! Thanks for the cache, Long John Silva.

Quick find on a riding adventure with my 4yo riding up front. Thanks.

A bit sneaky but luckily we have seen similar ones in the past.

Need your own pen. Watch out for cars

Quick find today to fulfill the "1st or every month" requirement. TFTC

TFTC! 28 August 2022 6:06:49 pm 3223

As we were approaching one of the near by crossings that the boom gates were down on: we heard a distinctive sound of a steam train heading towards the city!

It’s on a special shuttle for an event in Hurstbridge. by the time we got to the parking for this cache, the train was about to depart back towards Hurstbridge! And got so do some train spotting!

Oh and the cache we made a quick dash and grab and returned on another path! We tried to find this one years ago but was missing!

New cache in place... all good to go again.

I went today to check out a recent report that the cache was sitting well it's host and might fall... and I couldn't find it.

Off line while I sort it out...

14:08
It is the first time we have heard of International Ice Cream Day, with a day free of commitments we couldn't resist a day of caching in the Eltham area with the promise of a special reward in the afternoon at the International Ice Cream Day event.
The sky was almost black by this stage, good to make a quick find.

Thanks to Long John Silva for placing caches in interesting locations.
32613

After a delicious Biscoff and dark chocolate brownie ice cream at the nearby event, the rain finally stopped and it was time to find a geocache in this town.
The cache was quickly spotted however a little harder to discreetly retrieve with many passing cars and construction workers nearby.
Thanks for the cache to top off International Ice Cream Day!

Yesterday Chook travelled down from Western Vic to Melbourne to attend a school reunion, and stayed overnight with one of her besties from those early school days. There was an event "up the road" at Eltham this afternoon, so Chook made her way to the area to attend this before heading back home.

After the event, the thundery hail held off for a short while to enable Chook to make the short walk to this cache. Once spotted, she knew NOT to cross with the traffic stopped, so waited for a sufficient gap in the traffic to do a "walk and swipe" and complete the signing duties on the other side of the road, before repeating the action to return the cache. The hint is a good thing in this case as it means one isn't stuffing around searching, leaving the cache more open to muggling. TFTC Long John Silva.

Found with CJDenno. We left the event at the ice cream shop and wanted to grab some caches while we are here. We said goodbye to everyone at the event and went here.
Before we crossed the road, we checked the hint and that told us what the cache was and it’s exact location. We crossed the road and waited for the cars to pass by. Then when they were gone, we quickly grabbed the cache, wrote our names and put it back in its hiding space.

I visited 3 TB

TFTC

After attending the event nearby held by Roaming Howie, PrezDough and I made our way to grab some traditionals that are in the area.
We had to wait a little while until we found a gap in the traffic to make the grab.
We soon had our monikers added to the log and we were on our way to the next cache.
Cleverly concealed here and Muggle heavy.
The cache, container and log are in excellent condition.
I visited 2 TB.
TFTC.

I dropped in here ahead of this weekends event to ensure we had space for the growing number of ice cream lovers.

I took a short walk to find this cache. It doesn’t appear to be sitting well on its host so I was a little nervous it might fall from its location, but I was able to replace in between traffic stops.

Thanks Long John Silva for adding this cache to the worldwide collection for us all to find.

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Big things are continuing to happen! *Are you joining the fun again in 2022?*
[**THE**](https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC8EW40)
[**WHITTLESEA**](https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC8EW40)
[**EVENT 2022**](https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC8EW40)
19th / 20th November 2022 – GC8EW40 – Whittlesea – Victoria

Good conditions

Need to work on my sleuth skills

This was find 2 for me today and #2 in the SideTracked series. I had been with Bunadoorian when he found this many moons ago. I knew where to find the cache on approach. Cache taken signed and returned. TFTC and for bringing me here Long John Silva.

Nice camo hide. Peace

Tftc

#5 find on our SideTracked expedition.
Fortunately no DNFs today.
All caches found in good order.
Thanks to the owners for placing them.
Watching one train up bound then another down.

I came to get the SideTreacked caches two years ago when I almost came to the Grand Prix. At the time it was disabled and it was disappointing.

It was where I had expected it to be from checking the logs but much safer than I thought. Forget those muggles!

Sidetracked cache number 72 for me and a favourite for Long John Silva. Thanks

PS Great coffee and danish near the Chemist Warehouse when you visit.

Sometimes there’s a happy serendipity to your finds. Browsing through local and overseas caches recently, the Sidetracked Series kept catching my eye. What’s this all about?, I thought. Soon I discovered a very attractive cache type - close to railway stations (that would be a cool attribute), where I could take the bike along with me and jump on and off the train as needed.

So, I installed the tracker on my profile page and jumped on the train with my bike in search of adventure!

This was my fourth SideTracked cache of the day. A lovely cruise along the Diamond Creek Trail.

But then I hit the detour due to the Murray‘s Bridge replacement! Oh My Goodness, those hills are crazy!!!

Back on track again, stopped halfway across at the lights and realised I was right on the cache. Just had to pick my moment!

TFTC Long John Silva

Found it. I do love an easy find. Tftc

Found at 10:10
There were cars waiting for me to finish crossing on my first pass so I timed it so I got "stuck" in the middle on my way back. The lights lasted long enough for me to retrieve, sign and replace the cache.
Thanks Long John Silva for the cache

3 am is probably the best time to do this one. Quick easy and inconspicuous. TFTC

I didnt think that far when I pushed the button to let me across, that it would make all these cars stop right there with nothing other to do than look at me. Love these awkward caching moments, they make the game!
Thanks Long John Silva for your series. I think that's my random 3rd one!

With the geocaching.com website now fixed I can update the Cache Description and enable it again... happy hunting!

No luck today

This is going to need a re-think... the road sign that was used to hide the cache has been removed... and the cache went too.

Coordinates changed from:
S 37° 42.632 E 145° 8.940

Coordinates changed to:
S 37° 42.700 E 145° 8.943

Distance from original: 414.3 feet or 126.3 meters.

Need a new location for this cache... had used this location previously for a different cache which is now archived.

Looked in the spot it should of been with no luck

What a way to end an extended GF long weekend. Weather was beautiful too boot. We have walked and run this area numerous times. Oh how Eltham has changed. A great spot for a cache and well hidden. Great new location however timing and quick retrieval are crucial considering the GZ location and high muggle traffic.

Easy find thx for cache!

The nano has been replaced by a small bison... which is now hidden from view. It shouldn't be too hard to find.

I couldn't see it when I walked past so off-line for now.

After a full week of remote learning and only one time previously out of the house this week, we were pleased that we still have caches to find in our 5k radius. Today, after school we came with our dog for a walk around Eltham which included two previously unfound trads and the last location of the Eltham adventure lab. This was first. Nicely tucked away and easily found. Extracting the log was not so easy but once it was out it was signed and returned. Thanks for placing and maintaining this cache Long John Silver.

Oops, I just realised I forgot to log this one from last week. Picked this up on my day off work on the way home. Thanks Long John Silva for another SideTracked cache.

A quick and easy find while dodging muggles on a very nice walk through this area. All good with this cache.

TFTC

A quick find in between muggled. Thanks For The Cache

Found it

Found it! In Eltham this weekend visiting friends. Found this one quickly while walking back to HQ after stocking up on supplies at the farmers market!! TFTC SL

TFTC, this was one of the last I found on a caching adventure from Diamond Creek to Eltham Station with my brother. I’m glad he was there to reach this one.

I had looked for this cache a while ago and had spotted where it was hidden but being vertically challenged I was unable to reach it. I could have used my grabbing tool but being such a busy location muggles would have noticed me.

I finally returned today with a much taller friend, who I bribed to come here by buying her lunch. We parked in the railway carpark and walked down Main Rd to GZ. Not many muggles around being Christmas time so I showed her where the cache was and she was easily able to reach it. I signed the log at 4:25 pm and she then rehid it. TNLN. We both used hand sanitiser before and after finding the cache.

Thanks Long John Silva for the challenging and bold cache in such a busy location.

Find number 6 with Anji7 and EmilyDai!

Thanks Long John a quick find on way to the station after walking from Diamond Creek.

TFTC Long John. A nice easy find to end our caching on a beautiful spring day on the track from Diamond Creek to Eltham. Now for the train back home. Great. Its waiting for us. Jimmytherat with Noelle04

Today Spiffy- and I headed out for some caching. We had a few target caches but no real agenda as there are many people out and about now the restrictions have eased and we was not sure what parking would be like at some locations.

Managed to make a quick find here

Thanks for the fun cache.

With zero caches in my 5km zone it was nice to get 25km to play with it made it much easier with only 700 left in that zone. Headed out with Fleabag to Eltham with the lure of a new lab cache in the area as well.
The traffic was quite busy along here today but thanks for the hint we knew exactly where it was so waited for the cars to pass and made the find. Unfortunately my tweezers were still in the car so had to go back and retrieve them to retrieve the log.
Thanks Long John Silva for the cache, the adventure, the hunt and the fun.

Coordinates changed from:
S 37° 42.611 E 145° 8.940

Coordinates changed to:
S 37° 42.632 E 145° 8.940

Distance from original: 127.8 feet or 39.0 meters.

Relocated to a safer place I hope...

With Melbourne having another go at getting to a "COVID normal" with unlimited time out and a 25km travel radius, it seems like a reasonable time to open up caches again. We still have a long way to go though so stay safe... keep your distance... use hand sanitizer... and BYO pen!

.

Stay Home... Stay Safe!!!!

This cache eluded me on a previous visit.
This time I spotted it immediately, and I'm now wondering why I didn't see it the first time.
Tftc

Took a little while to spot this cheeky nano. Wasn't easy to retrieve and we had trouble getting it back in place but did our best. TFTC!

Found after a bit of searching, definitely wait till the muggles stop passing!! No idea how we'll get back though, heh. TFTC

Life is taking its first faltering steps back towards normal... we still have a long way to go but at least we are allowed out... a new container is in place so stay safe... keep your distance... and use hand sanitizer

I have a replacement and I will put it out there when our world has returned to normal... geocaching is a non-essential activity!!!
We're staying home from work for a reason... and it's not so you can go and find caches!!!

Couldnt find

Cache is missing... will need to organise a replacement

Out for a drive, we parked in the Station carpark and walked to this sneaky little cache. Having looked at the fence first, then read the description, realised there was only one option. Thanks Long John Silva