Rat Blaxlands Ridge, New South Wales, Australia
By teamMerlin on 22-Jun-17. Waypoint GC75KER

Find # 13079Following an epic weekend including a on the Colo yesterday, a few challenges and trails today before the group goes their separate ways to head home.Always energy for just one more - with Smittengranny, KittyKatch, Joolay, and a bunch of others and signing at CC24 (Canberra Cachers 24) to save space in the logbook. Many thanks to teamMerlin for placing Rat for us all to enjoy. Your contribution to the game through the placement and maintenance of this cache over the years is appreciated.

Out caching with Everest High, Its Dozzie, and Brewmaker. Thanks for the puzzle teamMerlin.

Found with minniek and the rest of Team CC24 (Canberra Canoeists 2024).Day 2 of our Colo River Region Caching Adventure. After an amazing days caching yesterday mainly on the river, it was time for some bushwalking for caches today. The main aim were the Challenges and Yin Yang series (or at least as many as we had solved). Nice quick find. Signed, returned, and we continued on our way to the next one.Thanks teamMerlin !!

It is now Sunday and we (the group who had driven up from Canberra) allowed ourselves a bit of a sleep in after the kayak adventure on the Colo River yesterday. It wasn't much of a sleep in though as there are just so many caches up here to be found - some of the mysteries having already been solved at home. The day dawned sunny and very humid, which didn't bode well for some of the hilly walks. However we were blessed with 100% finds of the caches that we targeted. This was one of them and the logs were all signed as CC24 (Canberra Crew) to save space.Thanks to all the COs for placing and maintaining these caches.

Colo River TripHeading to Wiseman's Ferry area for a weekend of caching with Joolay. Signed as Caberra Cacherd 2024 (CC24). We picked this cache up this morning. Thanks for hiding and maintaining this cache teamMerlin

Nice easy park and grab TFTC

one of 4 i actually solved. Tftc.

Found on a day out this way, doing some of the Yin Yang series, challenge caches and whatever else came our way. OCW with 4Rods, EverestHigh and Its_Dozzie, we managed to survive the heat, the hills, the bush and deafening cicadas. A few goannas were spotted as well, and we enjoyed the scenery in the many places we visited.The Roman rat has now been found. Be on guard at GZ. TFTC

A nice straightforward find here today meeting up with the Canberra crew. Today the Canberra crew that had gathered in the area for the colo River caches, met up this morning for group caching. We started the day walking a trail of challenges, before moving on to ying yang puzzles. Our group consisted of kittykatch, joolay, contesta, MinnieK, Fitzy, search4, Aykayem, smittengranny, FurfacesLL, loci, Nibletricecakes, Gliss, TikvaNZ, sacada and myself. We signed as CC24 (Canberra Canoeists 2024) as our group name to represent all cachers.A nice walk through the bush for the challenge caches. The cicadas were loud, oh so loud at times! But a good series and a stunning view out over the colo River we had paddled from the morning before from the trad at the end.With our walk complete, we convoyed from cache to cache mostly doing the ying yang puzzles solved. A ferry crossing saw the last cacher cross, but the ferry sat on the other side chatting to the one car returning and after a long time waiting we turned and went of caching our own way unable to cross. Later, we crossed elsewhere only to meet up with the group returning!!! A warm day and the walks become too much for me with hills, a great day (Weekend) though and time to return home. A great area to visit and cache, thanks for your cache!

#6222Today, Smurfyguy and I travelled out to this area to tick off a few more of the Ying Yang series. Its been two years since our last finds in this series. Weve made plans to come back in the interim but have been thwarted by sickness, heavy rain, floods and bushfires.The last time we were here, we were accompanied by our good mate, Rama497. Sadly, he is not with us today to enjoy the hunt. We did however, bring along his Geocaching NSW hoodie so he was with us in spirit. RIP mate.It was good to solve the puzzle and finally turn this icon into a smiley.Thanks for the geo-fun teamMerlin.

A great day exploring the region with ESCR. We just selected caches and walks that looked interesting to get a feel for the area and ended up collecting a decent number. TFTC!

Spending a few days in the area for some hikes and a paddle down the Colo river. A beautiful part of the world. TFTFun!

Found with PapaGrouch. On our way north from Sydney we stopped to find a few caches. We had driven past this area about 5 years ago, but at that time I hadn't solved the puzzles. When I started solving them I realised where they were. This is the first time since that we have come this way again so managed to pick up a few at last. TFTC

Found this one with SciFiRulz TFTC:)

#14581 12:28A day of caching with Everest High in the northwest corner of Sydney.Main purpose was to find some of the YY puzzle series and the challenge caches of ilook4geo.TFTC teamMerlin

Today I had a big geocaching day out in the Hawkesbury District with It's_Dozzie. Our main targets today were to find as many Yin-Yang caches as we could, and also some of the many Challenge caches in the area. TFTC teamMerlin

On the way to a kayak adventure with The Rats and Steeba. One of the many caches we found on our way to the river.Cheers

Out for a weekend caching with steeba and Hoojar. We targeted NW Sydney and the Colo area. With plenty of choices we had a great weekend canoeing and hiking.This was a quick find while heading up the Putty.TFTC

Out for a weekend in and around the Colo River with The Rats and Hoojar to find plenty of caches- a fair bit of legwork needed beforehand though. Some enjoyable country.TFTC!

Easy and quick find with sevabo and Everlasting. Thank you teamMerlin for bringing us here.

Sevabo found it before me. Sign the log as EV, and thanks for the cache and hunt

Park and grab quickly . Thank you for leading us here

Found it - log to follow

On the bridge

A quick find. TFTC

Found at 12:14 PM GAFF1.
A nice spot to park and the cache easily retrievable even though the road is so busy. Nice one!
Thanks teamMerlin.

One of the more straightforward puzzles. Makes up for the others that have been frustating. TFTC

After a long day paddling the Colo, just couldn’t resist stopping by for this one as the setting sun brought a big caching day to an end. Both Baktrak and I made the find easily enough, thanks teamMerlin

After a day finding river caches, I couldn't leave the area without squeezing in a teamMerlin find. Stopped with Martin Cousins on our way home. Thanks teamMerlin.

I'd planned for the last few weeks to take today off work to try and pick up all the remaining in Yang series.Unfortunately the nearby bushfires and my fear of being savaged by Eastern Brown snakes (thanks to a friend who lives at nearby Colo) caused me to scale back my plans. I managed to find another 17 Yin Yang caches today and this was the eighth.

A nice easy puzzle and find - but it's a false sense of security... TFTC.

My first Ying Yang solve TFTC

My first Ying Yang solve TFTC

Wet and has condensation inside needs maintenance TFTC

Picked this one up on the way home from a CITO this morning, quick find. TFTC

#5997 (7 of 8 today)

My 6000 milestone is very close. If I grab eight today I can get it at a CITO tomorrow night - haven’t got a CITO as a milestone so far.
But there are t a lot of areas in Sydney that I can get eight finds. But I do have the ability to get that many if I head north of Richmond.

Decided to target three traditionals(one a previous DNF) and five puzzles in the *Ying Yang* series.
The day went well, finding everything I went for - including the previous DNF.
###END OF CUT AND PASTE SECTION###
Full tog to come

SLTNLN
TFTC

Found with gm10

Found with btm

*Found with [Geooh Live](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mobiltal.geoohLive)*

Out in the area today with my two sons to try and make as many finds of our ~15 solved YY puzzles as we could. With most of the bigger walks of the day now knocked on the head, and a really yummy lunch enjoyed nearby at Colo River on this very hot mid-thirties day, we were ready to begin the afternoon shift. Before I could even stop the car near GZ, the kids were onto it and soon had CIH where the log was signed and a few TBs visited. We normally visit our Green Lantern geocar but it has suffered a most unfortunate catastrophic failure recently so today we are visiting mum's ride instead. TFTC, teamMerlin. Our 5th YY find today.
#840

quickly solved and then sat unfound for some time. Super heatwave predicted so why not head out to Windsor and try some Yin Yang magic! Joined by mouse90 and chudles this quickly located and returned to its home.
thanks for the super series!

Sitting back after logging all my finds, I thought I would have a look at the map to see what was outstanding. Hmm, hadn't really noticed before that finds revert back to the original co-ords. Part of the Yin Yang has reformed - nice

But looks like I missed logging this earlier find ...

Today Finalf29 and I were on our way back from my Aunty's wonderful 90th Birthday party, so grabbed a few caches on the way... it's such a great way to break up a long journey.

Every time we come this way, I convince Finalf29 to stop for a couple more of the yin yang series... we are slowly finding the ones I have solved and from memory this was a quick solve. Also a quick park and grab at GZ. Thanks for such a great series, you have really helped my puzzle solving techniques... I know if I just keep chipping away at them I should be able to solve them all... and thus my smilies will be balanced

On our way back down south as our holiday comes to an end, we headed to the Yin Yang series to pick up as many caches that time and weather would permit.
With many hours spent solving these mysteries, a little nudge or 2 from the CO was needed to get us over the finish line for a couple. We found the themed puzzles to be extremely clever as they flowed together giving us the coordinates needed today to make a few finds. Unfortunately we weren't able to pick them all up as the daylight started to fade and we still needed to be on the other side of Sydney, so we had to move on We will be back in NSW next year so we certainly will make our way back here to finish the series and enjoy the area once more [^]
An easy puzzle and easy pick up.
Thanks teamMerlin for all the hard work put into this brilliant series , testing our mental and physical abilities, we loved the views that the caches took us to

Reperio at 1315. Found in the company of the garbageman.

With the weekend off, the garbageman and I were keen for a day of caching, so we headed back to this area for some more yin yang fun. With so many hours spent looking at these puzzles, it was finally nice to be able to put them on the found list.

Having done a bit of walking today, this was a nice quick one to scoot off to on the way back to the car. The garbageman had already picked this one up, but as we were driving by, it was a quick park and grab.

Gratias teamMerlin.

On a nice stroll with LoyLou0212 today, we picked up some of the caches in this series. Thanks for the puzzles (some trickier than others!), hides and locations (some easier than others), they were all great!

Out and about caching with BeckNmonts this week, this series has had some amazing views and I’m so glad I had the opportunity to find all of these - thanks for putting out this fantastic series - TFTC teamMerlin, I really enjoyed it!

The yin yang series has been on our radar for too long. After finishing up work for the week, we made the trip down for the weekend. Over 2 days we travelled around the different trails, finding all these caches. Thanks for the effort put into this series, it's been fun.

I had to do this kind of thing in my head a few years ago!

Easy find..
I see a theme here. #994

Having solved this nice easy puzzle at home it was decided to go for a drive to find this cache. Found a place close to GZ to park. The cache was found quickly and easily. The log was signed and then the cache was replaced as found. Thank you teamMerlin for the cache.

An enormous day out with the whole gang - M95, GD__, B7, 154C, MCMD.
Admittedly I did not and could not solve most of these puzzles. I was tagging along for the drive and physical manpower. Thanks For The Caches!

After alot of endless nights working on the puzzle series we had ourselves the coordinates needed to make a start on the series we now just needed to find a weekend the gang could all get together.muppet called out again late last week,this weekend suited us all so the plans were soon made to meet for a very early start.We cached all day and well into the night finding all the target hides,a good balance of terrain and difficulty provided perfect harmony.
Another really enjoyable day out caching with good friends.
Thanks teamMerlin for all the hard work you've put in setting up this series.

Apologies for the repeated logs
TFTC

Admittedly I had only worked part of the way through these puzzles but when I got the call to participate in some trail walking and bush bashing I was packed up and ready to go in nothing flat. Bit of a drive to get here from Wollongong via the Southern Highlands but the day was well worth the effort. I'm glad to have earned some hidden creature souvenirs while getting some great geo-art. Thanks for the caches and the series.

We've been working on this series on and off since they first appeared last year. Today we set our sights on a power-binge to snag them all in a single day... only to discover many of them were just as challenging to get as they were to solve. No matter, though, because we attacked them like a well-oiled machine and plowed through the lot with precision and determination. The weather was on our side and it was a perfect day to accomplish our goal: we were out before sun-rise, rendezvoused with the usual suspects, made the trip from the Southern Highlands, made the first find by nine, the last by seven, and scored two bonus caches in the process; then we had a bite to eat where we could reflect on the day's adventures before refueling and heading for home. All up, a challenging series of puzzles, definitely a challenging day out, and some great art on our map. Thanks Team Merlin for the caches and the series.

What an adventure it has been to get here…

This all started back in August 2017 when I was notified of the puzzle series. I was really on top of puzzle solving skills at the time, so I set to work on the GeoArt. The puzzling process reflected the Yin Yang philosophy – a balance of easy, hard and everything in between. By February, I only had 8 puzzles to go. A few emails between the CO and other puzzle solvers had set the last 8 straight. We have sat on the completed list for 5 months, waiting patiently for the stars to align.

Now that I am on session break, my time has been significantly freed up. It was by chance that I had a weekend day off work, which was an ideal day for the others. A few messages were sent around late in the week to see if everyone was interested in finally getting around to doing the Yin Yang series. We had enough interest to go ahead with the plan.

Rise at 5am. Rendezvous at 7am. Arrive at 9am. Cache until 7:30pm. Return by 9:30pm. Home by 11pm. We managed to find all 59 caches in the Yin Yang series in 10.5 hours. Just like the puzzle solving, the cache finding reflected the Yin Yang philosophy – some caches being effortless, extremely challenging and everything in between.


An absolutely mad achievement! We wanted to smash out the series in a day to appreciate the whole series in its entirety. A momentous day spent in great company! Thanks to teamMerlin for this wonderful series – a lot of time and energy has been put into developing such a cohesive and interconnected set of Mystery caches.

While typing this log I found this great quote I thought I’d tack on:
“Yin and yang, male and female, strong and weak, rigid and tender, heaven and earth, light and darkness, thunder and lightning, cold and warmth, good and evil...the interplay of opposite principles constitutes the universe.” – Confucius

Apologies for generic copy/paste logs. There weren’t many cache-specific field notes that we needed to record. We were just really impressed with completing the series as a whole and overlooked potential points of interest.

Solved 8 easy puzzles to collect today. All caches were in good condition. Fun puzzles to solve. Many of the others look tough and look like they will take some time to solve. Thanks for the series. Tftc

Geocaching day around Richmond and Colo valley.
After we solved few mystery of the series we can log it. At GZ quick found.
TFTC

Found on our road trip to Canberra. Today we are off to Orange....

### ***TFTC!!!*** ###

Find #2145
We're off on our team road trip to Canberra for the long weekend. The scenic route through through to Orange today, the perfect opportunity to open our Harmony account with a roadside park and grab. I'm not expecting too many of this series like this! No probs here of course, I almost didn't check 'the spot' first as I thought that might be too easy.... TFTC teamMerlin

@1525
Found with ZQX and Fox in Jox.
More to come ... TFTC.

A roadtrip from Canberra with ZQX and TikvaNZ for a day of caching in the Hawkesbury area.

No wRATh, but simple stRATegy needed here to libeRATe the RATional solution. Enough. A quick find by ZQX.

One by-product of writing out unique logs for every cache on a day when more than a score of caches are found is that the logs get more silly and outrageous as time goes on. Well, that's the by-product for me as I log caches.
I had seen this Rat many times before, and it squeaked its secret to me without me having to trap it. A meaningful look with an arched eyebrow was sufficient to persuade rattus rattus that I meant business.
At GZ I made the find quickly. There are lots of hides like this within 1 km of my home, so there were no surprises here.
Thx TM!

An easy puzzle and an easy find. It was time to head home. A great day out & looking forward to returning to find some more! TFTC!
Cheers,
The Hancock Clan

A veritable drive-by compared to some of the others in this series. Last in the series for us today, thanks for the time and effort put into doing this series. We will be back for more fun at a later day.

Fairly straight forward with the calculations, although it took a bit of head scratching. Backwards and forwards.... but had it soon enough and was rather chuffed.

Headed out with Deep_99 in the heat and had this one quite quickly.

Great puzzles.

Thanks for the cache!

Nice Easy puzzle parked & made the find quickly great day for a drive out this way

Dropped off Trackable Ellie the Travelin' Travel Bug

Log 1193 Streak Day 322

The PHL app must have picked up a glitch in the last update, as it showed a tendency toward sarcasm and "sass" at this cache location. "Do I need coordinates?" I asked. "I don't know...do you?" It replied. Might reinstall it...or maybe it is just a bit more fun now!

Day two for our grab on more of these great caches in this picturesque area. We managed to find all of the puzzles that we had solved and some of the other traditionals along the way.

The terrain ranged from nail biting cliff scrambles to easy flat walks that just varied in length. All of the hides were well tucked away and sometimes presented us with a challenging search. Some of the locations played havoc with the GPS and we found ourselves using the 'Where would we hide it' technique which also served us well.

We had a good solid day and certainly feel a bit stiff and sore but with a huge sense of achievement. Thanks again for the obvious effort injected into these interesting and challenging puzzles and for showing us a large portion of your backyard. We enjoy geocaching here and will return again for sure.
SL TFTC

Found on the 02/10/2017 at 6:07:00 PM.

Today I set out to cache up to Wiseman's Ferry and around to Ebenezer to grab a good two dozen caches. After filling many bottles of water as I knew it was going to heat right up I was off!

I hadn't really looked far into this series until meeting up with some fellow cachers a couple of days ago, so I started to work my way through some solutions and managed to find another 8 before calling it a day.

Thanks for the cache.

A quick find with Snoopy1976 today after work. TFTC

Streak Day #1539 - It seems that to keep our streaks alive we are now driving out this way a lot lol. Finding the cache was just as quick and easy as solving the puzzle. TFTC

Being on school holidays I'm trying to get to caches that I normally wouldn't after work, I can see myself visiting a few caches in this series in the next couple of weeks. Nice simple puzzle with a nice easy find. SL #3307 on streak day #1907 TFTC

Found with BillHill531 and the_garbageman on a trip down to these parts.
After the events and finding EG-Q #25 we headed to the ying and yang series. We only did a couple sections, concentrating on combinations we wanted. I'm sure we will return to the same areas when we have solved more and fill in the gaps...
A nice easy puzzle and cache to end the day on. We wanted to do a nearby T4.5, but thought better (or worse) of it in the dying light....
Thanks for series, puzzle and cache!

Found with TOMBI! and The_Garbageman. Lucky to make it with all the traffic delays, making this the 12th cache today and the last one as the sun was setting. We only managed to do a frction of the puzzles in this area. Nice quick puzzle and cache. TFTC teamMerlin

# 976

A great day out with TOMBI! and Billhill, at events and catching up on collecting some solved puzzles. There's definitely going to need to be some more trips back to the area though - so many puzzles left!

This was our eighth cache for the afternoon. A quick park and grab as we starting debating whether or not we would be able to grab 'just one more' before dark. Yep, just one more!!! TNLN TFTC

A nasty one this, but we finally cracked it. According to the checker our coordinates were 100% accuRATe. However, when we got there, we went to the wrong side of the road, because we liked what we saw there, until my GPS sent out a loud alarm, signalling self-destruction in 5 minutes due to its mortified embarrassment, if we didn't get a move on. Thanks

#5,067

Last one for this morning. We parked right next to something that said walk up here, so we did. Then we realised the cache was on the other side of he road!

That finishes the ones I currently have solved for this side, leaving me with a small cluster still to find on the other side. One more trip out this way & I'll need to get busy with solving some more!

#1292 this was a quick solve then put to one side till I was going to be in the area. Now was the time parked down the road a bit and about 250m walk to GZ for an equally quick find. Signed the log and replaced as found. Both the cache and log are in good condition. Thanks for the puzzle teamMerlin

The following TBs visited for the distance - 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, & 2016 phlphotos NSW geocoins, phlphotos' Spindoc Bob Memorial Geocoin & Rainbow Spirit’s Caching Dilemma's Geocoin, Evolution of Geocaching Geocoin, My Snowball, Jasmer Geocoin, Icelandic Viking on Safari, Give Blood (Alnic's only A+), Help for Heroes, rasuni's Tuffi-Traatsch - Event Geocoin, Stanley The Wombat & Kitac 2

Great to be able to solve a puzzle without even using any tools for a change. This was one of those where I could almost read the final co-ordinates fluently, with just a slight hesitation about whether I was adding or subtracting something. Whew, I'm glad this system never became mainstream in mathematics.

I had a fair idea where I was going to be looking for the container, even before I had left home. Once on the road approaching GZ I was sure, though I somewhat overshot the suggested parking spot while trying to assess where to container would be. In hindsight, that was also fine because I felt the area slightly further on was safer for parking and also easier for making a turn to head back.

All the while I was telling myself where I ought to look, but my GPSr was pointing a bit further on. I suspect my relatively fast pace might have had something to do with that. Once it read 3m I stopped, but couldn't spot anything. As I was backtracking the unit adjusted back to 12m or so. And just where I was expecting to find the container, that's exactly where it was hidden. Trust your instincts and geosense.

Log signed, my signature small wire dog dropped into the container, everything put back where I had found it, and then the quick walk back to the car. I was still debating whether or not to go for Decoy, mainly because that particular cache will fill a gap in my D/T matrix. However, given that the sun was fast heading for the horizon and the T-rating was high, I opted to leave that for another day. Rather go for two easier finds in fading light than risk not finding any more today and taking chances in unfamiliar territory.

We had solved this when it first came out but was not close and soon saw it had been found. Being out this way again we headed the short distance over to make a quick find and complete the signing duties. TFTC.

Received a call from the 'Yellow One" inviting me for a puzzle blitz this afternoon. Having a backlog of unfound (but solved caches) this was an ideal opportunity, so without delay I headed off the rendezvous point.

Beautiful winter's afternoon for a stroll around this bushland with his eager pooch, we made short work of this cache. This was #11 for the afternoon.

SL TFTC

This puzzle thankfully did not strain the brain at all and the finding of the cache itself was just as easy. This was to be found where many caches like to hide away, but were were really thinking it might be hidden in a different situation. Thanks go to teamMerlin for the series of puzzles and hides.

#4238- I recognised this puzzle immediately, but hadn't yet got around to solving it, but tomo31 had.it was one of six mystery's on our list for today.
A nice easy one along the way, probably the easiest yet. I cant believe we didn't need to go bush..... Thanks

Found with WaywardWoman. A nice easy puzzle to do, and found it without too much trouble. With our course plotted before we left home we were enjoying a scenic trip around the area. TFTC

#1452
Another puzzle I managed to solve without over complicating it.

Headed back to Sackville for another excellent day of finding caches. I found myself heading down a combination of new and familiar trails. This was the seventh for the day. Parked nice and close to GZ for a quick find

TFTC teamMerlin

Found it full log to follow

A puzzle I could solve without trouble and a favourite hobby when little.

Today GZ was obvious, thanks to the pen left on top of the hiding spot!?!

TFTC.

90 minutes after it was published before I saw this one. Was the third correct on the checker. Still a chance for a ftf. A check of GZ co-ords and it doesn't entail a bush walk off to the geo-mobile.

A 15 minute drive and I was at GZ a quick find and a {*FTF*} signature on the log at 16.10 tftc

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