Hillgrove-Metz: Dogwood Hillgrove, New South Wales, Australia
By magpiecottage on 12-Sep-16. Waypoint GC6RXCT

Tftc Out looking for D2/T1.5, D1.5/T2, or D2/T2. A nice easy find along the way

Tftc

Reperio 21:47Day 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

Cache is in hand yippee TFTC beautiful spot

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

Another quick find as we test our luck with the passing showers. A little rain never stopped a geocacher!

Despite the hint I think this was in the obvious spot.

This one had a soggy loggy so I added a new one 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

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.

Mr Shifter helped with locating this one as the light was quickly disappearing and we still wanted to find a few more before getting to the main road.
Thanks for the hide magpiecottage.

Crookedpete and I were given leave passes from our respective families for the Easter long weekend for a geocaching road trip. I suspect that this was our families' Easter present to themselves to have a weekend alone without our company .

As members of The Bromance geocaching collective, we are a rather contrarian bunch, so while the main geocaching action was apparently up north over Easter we decided to instead head south from Brisbane. Our main focus was on caches with lots of favourites, good DT combinations, high elevation or sitting sad and neglected with no visitors for an extended period.

After a second night camped on the roadside on the way into Armidale, our plan for the day was to head out towards Ebor and a little further afield to Mt Hyland in search of a FTF. But first we made a detour in to Hillgrove to pick up a few caches on the to-do list.

Our time in Hillgrove was up and this was the last cache for us to collect on our way back out to the main road. Another successful find here with the container found safe and well. TFTC

Instead of heading mega north to Townsville for Easter, Seffnjarah and I planned a long weekend road trip south to Armidale and surrounds.

Another early start out of the swag at our preferred roadside camp site just out of town. The plan today was to cache along the Waterfall Way chasing unloved and high elevation caches with an FTF thrown in for good measure.

A nice quick park and grab. All in good order. Time to bid Hillgrove farewell.

Many thanks magpiecottage

Pete

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

A quick find on the road into Hillgrove

TFTC magpie cottage

Lovely cache, Damien not in the most obvious spot!!

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 # 6839
Nice quick find.
We are now heading back to Armidale.
TFTC magpiecottage
31 March 2021 6:49 pm

Found with bedlem2

Found

Not in the obvious spot

Few metres from compass location in the scrub. Thanks!

tftc

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

Tftc summary of trails at Gc6rxbg.

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: 1072.5**

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

Started writing on the back of the front log sheet.

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

28700.35 TNLN
Visited: World Traveling Gold GC A#6 & 2012 Egypt A#236

**Albida**

20,681. 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.

Found obviously 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.

[:(!] Thanks for an awesome effort.

I like it

Another one of the list

TNLNSL TFTC/TFTH/TFBUH Magpie Cottage [^]

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

A cunning hide. 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 6096

Found

An easy find, so hot, difficult to get in and out of the car, so cool in the car, exterior of the car is so hot.

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.

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. TFTC

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.

A surprisingly quick find, more to luck than anything else. The log was a bit damp but I was able to sign it so I didn't put in a temp log. 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 ..

Easy find for GeoDo on a weekend trip out to Long Point Rest Area. TFTC

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 find for this one, but did take a bit more looking.

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

TFTC magpiecottage
Find 5894 logged from c:geo.

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

A fairly straightforward find here, a quick sign of the logbook and we were on our way to find another.
Thanks for the cache

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.

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!

The nice part of all this was the caches were where the GPS said they should be and if needed the clues worked as well. Found with Staybe and Co log signed SO or OS we tended to get ourselves confused. 3083 4:29:00 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.

The quick finds keep coming. Thank you for that!

Thanks so much for the cache!

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

Came up to Armidale to do this series. A quick find. All good. Thanks 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!
A quick easy find. 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.
This cache took a bit of searching before Caro found it.
Thanks for the cache.

I really do like these caches out in rural areas. Nice scenery, nice and quiet... thanks for this cache, magpiecottage.

A good cache and a quick find, thanks!

Most definitely in an obvious spot, but well hidden regardless. Quick sign and camouflage replacement before moving on to the next caching adventure.

Was the obvious spot TFTC

Heading south today and I detoured out to Hillgrove to grab some caches around town and do the trail out to Chandler Gorge and this was one of them.

Once the log was signed all was returned as found.

TFTC magpiecottage

TFTC

TFTC

Aaah another elusive cache! Couldn’t find this one today, will try again another day

Didn't realize what a dogwood was until reading this cache, found without any problems. TFTC magpiecottage

Found!

I like a geocache that edumacates me about the natural world
So !! This is dogwood !!
Who knew ??

I've heard of it but couldn't identify it until now

The more I travel,
the more I find out [^]

TFTC in the not so obvious spot ...
... woof !!

TFTC smile 3212# out and about with miss millie geo dog and the wind started early morning and lasted all day

Stumped geodad but geokid #1 got it. Thanks!

No good

Thought we'd try the new geocaches around Hillgrove since we haven't been here for over a year. Love this little village which is steeped in history going back to the 1800's.

Cache was found in great condition and excellent Coords.

Thanks for the cache magpiecottage.

TFTC nice little detour on our way to Armidale

TFTC nice hide

No trouble so far,finding them without too much hastle.TFTC.

Love the container!

Gotcha !!! TFTC

Tftc found with earthly 65 couldn't work out the reference to the name all.good

Quick find with robbieracer66 ...tftc magpiecottage

2ND go round produced results
Thanks magpie for helpful tip
TFTC

Tftc

We thought we would come over to Hillgrove for a day of Caching. A glorious sunny day and some lovely country side views, to make for an enjoyable days outing. We had trouble with the GPS not settling at first, but got there in the end. TNLN SL TFTC

After a big day out hiking with the whole family all we had energy for were a few drivebys so we picked a small triangle near Hillgrove and grabbed a few before the kids ran out of puff. Have to say the coords on the caches in this area were consistently awesome making for quick finds. Thank you!

Another quick find partly helped by a clear geotrail! TNLN TFTC

A couple of days staying in Uralla, so we went for a drive to find the new caches placed around Hillgrove. This took us on some quiet country roads, we detoured to check out the waterfall.
All caches were found & we did enjoy our drive.
Thanks for placing this cache magpiecottage

Took Nothing Left nothing Slgned Log

Tftc. Found an interesting big close to GZ. What is it?

Liking the variety of the containers!

Another quick find and off we go again TFTC

Heading back towards the highway, deliberately leaving some caches behind for another day. This one had my GPS acting funky, and the hint led me away from GZ. Eventually found, with lots of large red ants protecting the foothills. TFTC magpiecottage

On a caching adventure to Uralla/Armidale/Hillgrove with pprass we set out to see some country side and some interesting caches.

Great day doing this series, enjoying a wide range of caches that have be placed.

Thanks for the cache magpiecottage

Found at 2:30 PM GAFF5 in the company of NurseHayley on a 3 day weekend touring Uralla/Armidale/Hillgrove.
Second full day of our weekend after a fantastic evening and meal at Geono HQ.
Lambs are bleating loudly over the other side of the road. Have they lost their mums?
Wonder how the name Dogwood came about?
Thanks magpiecottage.

Saw a small example of this plant (I think?? on the fence line..) all good with the cache and it's hide.. thanks magpiecottage

Staying in Armidale from Sydney to explore the Waterfall Way. Headed out to Wollomombi Falls for a hike this afternoon. On the way back we stopped at the Historic Hillgove sign and, the next thing you know it, we were headed to Hillgrove. We were a bit mystified by the botanical name of this cache but thought it may refer to the shape near GZ. Very well hidden! SL TFTC Cheers... Gaztek

Tftc