Hillgrove-Metz: Historic Hillgrove Hillgrove, New South Wales, Australia
By magpiecottage on 12-Sep-16. Waypoint GC6RXBG

TftcLast one for the day as it's starting rain again. I'll be back with more time to complete the other caches

#6253Travelling from Armidale to Casino today and grabbing some caches as we passed. This was one of them.Thanks for the geo-fun.

CUTE! Those rubber seals don't do their job Had to dry it out a bit.SL, Replaced as found,TFTC magpiecottage

tftc!

tftc :3

Reperio 21:35Day 2 of our tour of Tamworth caching trip, and Master Vitruvius and I decided to head out towards Uralla and Armidale, and eventually towards Hillgrove and Wollomombi. With lots of drive by caches, most the finds were nice and quick, with a few nicely crafted caches thrown into the mix. The most pleasingly part of the day was that nearly all the caches were available and found.Gratias magpiecottageAs a well spent day brings happy sleep, a well spent life brings happy death - LDV

Quick park & grab.

T4T$

Found a path tag

Never seen one of those that big before.what a cracker. Tftc.

Log is wet and needs replacing

A trip to check out some of the awesome places in NSW and grab some old caches. TFTC.
Nice quick find

Quick find with accurate Coords. Nicely spotted a few mtrs away. Thankyou. All good here.

Cache had water in it so I drained water and placed a small stone in it to hopefully hold log above the tide TFTC Magpiecottage

LTF

Out for the morning caching in and around Hillgrove, most were quick finds but spent far too long searching for the two at which we DNFd

TFTC

Fun Find within 5 minutes, eye level great size along waterfall way

Super easy found within 5 minutes wasn’t expecting that when they said eye level haha super easy we are heading to a waterfall and have been stopping at each chache super fun!!

Found it

Headed home after a long weekend in Armidale. We thought we would take the scenic road back and one that also had a lot of caches along the way too!

Thought we would pop our heads down this trail and see what we could put our hands on. Nice quick find. TFTC.

It's now that time of year again where I have empty date found boxes, so I jumped in the car after work, caught up on some podcasts & made a quick find. TFTC, magpiecottage.

Cannot believe it took as long as it did
Haha
TFTC

Final cache for the day, we took the torch as there was hardly any light left but it was not needed as the cache literally glowed in the last rays of light.
Thanks for the hide magpiecottage.

Just hanging around

Will have to come back to do Hill Grove.

Brilliant idea - took us a bit to find - great idea.

On a mini caching adventure with the geodog and a muggle friend. It's taken us most if the day to get here so hopefully the weather will hold off while we find a few. Tftc

Rolled into Armidale on a drizzly morning but soon cleaned up to a lovely day for caching and exploring. Then decided to head out to Hillgrove on a discovery tour Completed the labs as well. Scored a free dessert with dinner. A fun day pour moi

Sometimes wonder how I find anything Almost knocked myself out on this cache

TFTC magpie cottage

Nice quick find , left a swag. Tftc

Out tackling the PT, enjoying the drive in the country. TFTC

Last full day of caching in and around Armidale so we decided to tackle the Hillgrove area. Nice quick find, TFTC

Find # 6842
Nice quick find.
We are running out of light for today.
Thank you magpiecottage
31 March 2021 7:07 pm

Found pretty quick and easy could see it from the road

Found.saw it from the road

No landmark, just navigation and observation

Well thats embarrassing, refer everybody in cut and paste records to a single cache that summarises the actives in this series. Then proceed to not do anything about it, until over 3 months later. I hope nobody was specifically waiting for this summary and of course over that period of time, I proceeded to forget a lot of the details.
However, I do remember that I came across a really awesome range of caches in this areas. Ok some where in the local park but in this instance that was fine, unless the neighbours where watching. Expect that I was in the front yard of the cache owners house.
Lots of favourite points where awarded, got to visit a cemetery, and also a nice drive up to a national park where I will have to come back and visit. Quite an amazing floral display in areas that where recovering from being burnt.
I loved this series of caches and appreciate that they all appear to be maintained.
tftc tnln

New looking container! But wet inside. Thanks!

tftc

Really good

Quick solo weekend getaway to the area down from Lismore. Today I will be tackling the Trails in the area and enjoying the wide open spaces. Tftc

Nice big area to pull in here. Dad napped in the car while the kids went and found this one. Have family that grew up in Hillgrove so been down that round many times.
TFTC!

Great sized cache here. Didn’t see it til I got close. TFTC. A favourite point from us.

Out collecting the various trails and a few extra caches today. A good day in total with only 1 DNF

Thankyou to the CO's for placing and maintaining the caches

Another big day of caching with @itsonlybarney, @TeamPQS and @hubbyandmrs. We decided that we would head out to Hillgrove from where we were staying in Armidale. We had a great time on the Hilllgrove-Metz trail, then we headed into town, luckily we had lunch with us and stopped off by the little playground for the geokids to be able to have a run around to stretch their legs. Once lunch was done we collected all the caches in Hillgrove and then headed out to complete the Long Point Trail. Loved all the Hillgrove history with all the signs indicating what was originally there. The Oyster Saloon sounded yummy. TFTC.

**Total find count: 1074.5**

After what has felt like an eternity, we are finally taking our first geocaching road trip since Clear Waters with Crzymelly, TeamPQS and HubbyandMrs.

Today was "trail' day. We elected to complete the Gara Loop, Hillgrove-Metz and Long Point geocache trails. All found logs were dry and had room for more names.

**TFTC magpiecottage**

------
The following TBs and Geocoins helped with the search to find the hidden cache:
* Miniature Itsonlybarney
* GeocachingNSW 2016 Geocoin
* GeocachingNSW 2017 Geocoin
* Geocache Talk Geocoin
* Planetary Pursuit Micro Geocoin
* Geocoin Club Jan 2015 - Rescue Coin
* Geocoin Club May 2018 - Blodeuwedd
* OzGeomuster 2018 Geocoin
* Col Miner HAVOC Geocoin
* Geocoin Club June 2018 - Illumination
* Caching Under the Moon
* Geocoin Club July 2018 - Dive Deep
* Geocache Talk Blackout Geocoin
* GeocachingNSW 2018 Geocoin
* Clear Waters 2019 Geocoin
* OzGeomuster 2019 Geocoin

Found on our Covid delayed 2020 Qld escape trip with Roostaman.
Thanks for the cache magpiecottage,
***MrsRoosta***

Found on a very cool Winter day for a drive westward to Armidale.
A few good safe hides and lots of muggles around today.
Cache condition is OK/good.
Thanks for the cache magpiecottage,
***Roostaman***

Thanks for a fantastic series showing a beautiful part of the country. TFTC

After heading into town for a late lunch we came back and had a shot at a few more for the late arvo. This was a quick park and grab. TNLN TFTC

Find #72 (29/6/2020) on a trip around to Maitland, Armidale and back with JessYoung96.

Easy find and got it pretty much straight away. TFTC.

Found with TheProdigalGoat on 29/6/2020. Heading back to Coffs Harbour today to finish our caching trip
Easy find, great location and GPS led straight to the cache
TFTC

Tamworth and Amrmidale Trip March 2020. Day 6. I headed north with Fitzy_1965 along the New England Highway towards Tamworth. This was our day to get the cache trails to the North and east of Armidale, it was a long day with rain showers on and off all day. The day was mostly roadside caches, but they were all of differing levels of challenges, especially when you have to deal with Farmers Friends and Stinging Nettles at almost every cache.

Thanks for the cache magpiecottage

28697.32 TNLN
Visited: World Traveling Gold GC A#6 & 2012 NZ MEGA A#240

**Albida**

20,678. Found with albida33 during a meander up to and around the Tamworth and Armidale regions.

Day 6 of our trip. Enjoying the luxury of staying in a hotel room after our campsite booking got cancelled, it was a nice easy start to the day. Headed out to where we finished last night for what turned out to be another big days caching. We aimed to finish the various trails around Armidale. Next stop for the day, and we came up with a quick find. Signed the log, replaced the cache, then headed off to the next one.

TFTC magpiecottage !! Lovely area to drive around.

Tftc a a quick find while Bikepacking round New England region. NOTE: it’s getting a bit tacky/sticky in there.

We escaped the drought and heat in Armidale for the green glory of Dorrigo today, with Scruffy the geodog and a little caching on the way.

TFTC, magpiecottage! A favourite point for this!

First of today TFTC

Lovely container Magpiecottage. TFTC

Found while on a geocaching holiday with tmann421.
Enjoyed the trip around and all the great hides.
Stamped TM/WW NZ, or if in pen our full names

Another very nice find today with woolwood9.
*Thanks for helping make our tour around fun!*
Stamped logs as TM/WW NZ or our full user names or tm421/ww9 in pen.

We enjoyed the area - wouldn't have come here without your good caches magpiecottage.

[:(!] Thanks for an awesome effort.

I like it

Another one of the list

TNLNSL TFTC/TFTH/TFBUH Magpie Cottage [^]

TFTC great little hide

out caching the different trails in the area today. this cache was one found today. thanks

That’s 100 for us. Yeeeaaaahhh. Thanks for making that series. So nice

What a fine container. Worthy of the whole 2016 series. Thank you Magpiecottage. TFTC.

I did my first drive and grab geocaching tour. Coming from Switzerland, normally we would go for a walk to look for caches. So thos was intersting and I finally got the hang of it. I did the Gara River Tour, did some hikes and finally took a detour through Hillgrove following the magpie cottages trail.

With our base established at Uralla we headed out to different surrounding localities finding caches as we went. We enjoyed exploring the area and this was one we (us and Snakepiters) targetted and found. Thanks to magpiecottage for hiding this cache and adding to our enjoyment of the area.

Serious day caching around the Armidale greater area with Liz and Bruce. Good country dirt roads with the car again covered in dust. No DNF's today and some creative caches or great hides were given fav points. we didn't get all the caches in the two days here so we will be back to enjoy the locals hospitality.
TFTC magpiecottage
Total Cache Finds 6099

Found

2 hours or so after we started this morning, we are finally heading down this road to explore somewhere new, easy find thanks.

We decided that another country drive was on the agenda for today. We drove to Historic Hillgrove then continued to Oxley Wild Rivers NP collecting magpiecottage's caches along the way. We even had the pleasure of meeting the CO at one of the caches. We only had one DNF and all the finds were made fairly quickly because of accurate coordinates and helpful hints.

Thanks for this great series Magpiecottage.

Ahh, how I would have loved to follow this road south, and then connect up with other to come back to the main road again. Lots of caches down that way, too. And probably a lot of interesting scenery, also. Alas, no time for that today, but I've made a mental note to try and set aside some hours for exploration in future.

If my memory serves me correctly, it was quite a surprise to see the colour chosen for this container. A nice find as described in the hint. Easy retrieval. The log was quickly signed and then everything was returned as found.

Hi there magpiecottage.

It looks like we had a magpiecottage day today. We started off with your caches in the "Gara Loop" before moving on to the "Hillgrove-Metz" series. We had our lunch stop at "Bring a Picnic" whilst exploring around Hillgrove, and finally we headed off down the "Long Point" trail.

We had a really fun day driving around the countryside today. The caches were all well placed, the coordinates were accurate and we can see that a lot of thought has gone into the placement of all the caches we found today.

Please excuse our boilerplate logs - find it really difficult to craft individual logs when we attempt so many caches in a day. [:(!]

All up we found 52 caches & DNF'd 0 in this cache run. Thanks for placing the caches. Without geocaching as our guide we would never have found so many interesting places while we meander around Australia.

**Coordinate Accuracy:** We found each cache about 2-4m from where the GPS said we should be looking.
**Cache Condition:** The containers and log books are mostly in good shape.
**Took:** If we found a balloon we took it out (they perish and make the other swaps stick together).
**Left:** A gold coin was left in caches big enough to hold one.

Regards

Ian & Penny.

Found it on a sunny Spring Friday with evangt while he was visiting us in Armidale. After completing most of the Chandler Trail we headed over to Hillgrove to find ourselves some of the smilies we'd missed out on another trip. Last for the day and thanks for the series.

Out caching with FootyFanatics on this gorgeous spring day around the area and needed to drop back into Hillgrove to finish some along Stockton Road.

Last one for today. An easy park & grab, nicely disguised. TFTC

Spent a couple of days in the Armidale district with geoson. Enjoyed the challenges. Found it TFTC

Spending a couple of days caching in Armidale and surrounding areas with Geodad Whitey Wiskas ..

All Good .. TFTC ..

Took Nothing Left nothing sl

While still staying in the area for a bit longer, we were off hunting more caches today. The weather started off fine, but deteriorated to a day of cold gale force wind and rain. We didn't end up doing as many caches as we would have liked, but did as many as we could. The Hillgrove-Metz series showed us some interesting places. Many thanks go to magpiecottage for bringing us here. It was a nice easy find for this one.

Heading North for a short holiday and collecting some caches along the way.
Thanks for placing it for us to find.

TFTC magpiecottage
Find 5897 logged from c:geo.

Harveys

On our way home after a 5 day camping trip around Dorrigo and Armidale.

We usually struggle with this kind of cache hide but this one was an exception, spotted it on approach.
Thanks for the cache

What a day - this will be a record caching day for me. FurstyFerret and I did ourselves proud.

Thanks MagpieCottage for all these caches - what a champion!

jasmr and I are on a Hillgrove day out. We did one a year or two ago but Magpie Cottage has been a very busy cache owner and excelled herself with more hides. I hope that she'll excuse the cut and paste because jasmr and I excelled ourselves today as well.

Thanks for this cache Magpie Cottage, took nothing, left nothing, travellers visited and I signed the log.

Last one of the day for us. A great day out to long point with lots of caches and a lovely walk. TFTC

Finally back to Hillgrove. Magpie Cottage has been busy since we were last here. We have done a few Magpie caches and we were looking forward to her usual mix of hard and easy caches with somewhat cryptic clues. We had this one well covered as we we had several eye levels within the group ranging from about 1m to about 1.8m This cache had no chance. Found with Staybe and Co log signed SO or OS we tended to get ourselves confused. 3080 4:19:00 PM magpiecottage without cachers like you we would have no game. Thank you. TNLN SL

We found this cache while out and about exploring more of this wonderful region, it's so very different from our home in northern WA.

Thanks magpiecottage

Ian & Sue - Team Pathfinder uses T.P. to sign smaller logs.

On a caching weekend from Kempsey to Armidale with Ozglory. This trail was on our hit list for the weekend.

A nice quick find to commence the trail. Looking forward to the rest of them!

Thanks so much for the cache!

Some logs may be signed S & O representing Staybe & Co and Ozglory.

The last but one for today. Was hunting all about while this one was staring me in the face all the time. A little wet inside. Thanks for the fun today magpiecottage

While staying in Armidale we planned to spend most of the time caching around Hillgrove. We thoroughly enjoyed our two trips out here - driving the quiet country roads, searching for a variety of containers, meeting the CO and stopping at some amazing lookouts. Thanks magpiecottage.

Today was Hillgrove day during our stay in Armidale. The weather was great and hopefully we find the caches we are looking for!
Was in the right area, but had to find it. Whats that! Bingo! TFTC

Day 2 of the trip the Geo-Muster mega next week-end. I am travelling south from Toowoomba with my Caro.
Today, Caro wanted to find 25 different D/T combination for a challenge cache in Brisbane. I have already completed the challenge but was happy to go along as I was going to spend today caching around the greater Armidale area anyway. [^]
The day started out this way with 8 different D/T combinations found before heading back to Armidale.
We have a time limit at each cache and we did not spot this one before moving on.

Took a bit of a search but found it. It was getting on a bit so I started heading back to the city. I'll have to leave the other for my return trip.

That is the biggest Geo tube I have seen, My wife whos eyes are not that good spotted from the road, great cache thank you.

6925 Located by baby&Mrs gopher at 1335 on our way north. The Mrs says it is on the sign. Not where the GPS'r is pointing. She was a little nervous of wriggling sticks about here. There was the container and in good condition.SL Tnx magpiecottage.

Really great find

Cache was much bigger than we anticipated and definitely well camouflaged. There was no swag in the cache so we decided to put in a . Fantastic breeze today.

Thank you CO for the cache.

Wahoo! Nice hide! New coordinates took us strait to it.

Doing this little circuit today
TFTC

TFTC Merry Christmas