Shorthand Sackville, New South Wales, Australia
By Sir Isaac Pitman and John Robert Gregg on 10-Oct-17. Waypoint GC7D3C1

Trying to play catch up with logging. Found as part of the CC24 crew. After the Colo River yesterday lots of extra stuff to pick up. Thanks for getting me out and about teamMerlin

Find # 13081Following 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 Shorthand for us all to enjoy. Your contribution to the game through the placement and maintenance of this cache over the years is appreciated.

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.

Found with a fun group of geofriends while in the area for a geocaching adventure. TFTH Signed as Canberra Canoers 24 (CC24).

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 !!

Spending some time caching around the NSW/ACT southern tablelands with lots of side trips. TFTC.Another day around the hills of Colo River collecting challenges, solved puzzles and traditionals.A great day out with the Canberra Crew signing as CC24. It was hot & exhausting with lots of bush walks over many hills. Wonderful scenery. A long convoy of cars carrying kayaks. Awesome.Many great puzzles that are well thought out. Many to still solve.

A bush track but got in okay, few new scratches on the car!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!

Fun little puzzle to decode. Got the right tool. Quick find at gz. Has not been found for over 4 years. Cache in great condition. Signed and replaced. Tftc

A difficult puzzle that took some time. A pleasant walk to GZ. A nice hiding spot for a cache. Picked up the TB. TFTC teamMerlin

After having am epiphany with the puzzle I solved this one some time ago. The cache itself found with ease. Tftc Oh Grand Master Wizard.dropped off a TB

This was due to be find number 16 of 17 Yin Yang puzzles for the day and my last stop before Harmony. However the storm that I'd observed at Reflection finally hit, and I waited it out in the car watching high winds, torrential rain, lightning, thunder and hail. Eventually it passed and grabbed an umbrella and headed down the trail. Having been on high alert all day for snakes I can say authoritatively that wet sticks look more like snakes than dry ones. Made the find without difficulty and headed back to the car to think about whether to tackle the series final. A straightforward puzzle that took a fair bit of work. TFTC.

It's been 9 months since our last visit to this fantastic location, an occasion where we were strapped for time as we headed home, back to the dreaded world of reality. With only a selected few caches chosen for their DT value we vowed we would be back to finish what we had started and also have the final 3 puzzles solved.
After attending the Mega in the Gong we made our way north to wrap up this extremely difficult series, spending 24 hours hiking, rock scrambling and even a tree climb finalising the Yin Yang Geoart with great satisfaction.

Thanks teamMerlin for the massive effort put into these puzzles and hides making for a great series and experience , not only solving them but picking them up as well.

It's been a while, but i finally managed to get back to this area to find the rest of this series. While not as hot as the last time he, the sun still baked me on my trek.
Thanks for the cache.

Arrived at the narrow trail to GZ. I normally cache with a Commodore and no way would I drive down the trail in it. Asbestiform however has a 4wd, as was determined to use it. 'How about we travel in luxury to it?'. Sure! I did my part by counting down the metres, whilst wondering how he would turn around - there was just enough room.

P.S Enjoyed the puzzle - was very interesting. Today has soaked up a lot of pre-gathered favourites, have another for this one.

The craft of shorthand a lost artwork! Most of the trails up north are gated so it was great to find none on this one so offered Mouse and Chudles a lift in close to GZ. More great views and we signed after a short hunt.

Streak Day #1958 - Out this way again with Dave8153 to complete another of the Ying Yangs, i do believe we are getting thru them with only a few more to solve and some still to find after solving them already, TFTC

20/11/18
This is find number: 3028
Streak Day: 1069

Headed out here today with Snoopy1976 for our daily find and headed down this trail for a shoirt easy stroll and an easy find.. TFTC

Thanks to teamMerlin for placing and maintaining this cache.

A selection was made this morning of some of the Yin Yang series that we had not found as yet. It was time to go bush walking again and get them out of the "puzzles with solved co-ords" list. There was no problem with walking the tracks or doing a bit of cross country bush walking to get to each GZ. As each container was located and each log signed, we stopped to take in the views and notice the spring flowers starting to bloom.
Thank you to teamMerlin for more puzzles and more caches to find. Some were more challenging than others, but all were enjoyable.

Yet again, out collecting this series with LouLou0212, in between moving house. The locations and puzzles are all fantastic with this series. Thank you for placing the puzzles and series teamMerlin. I’m sorry for the generic logs, but it was a while between solving and collecting the puzzles, and then a lot in a short period!

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.

There was enough on the cache page to help us find a way to decipher this puzzle. It took a bit of correction to make sure we were solving this one correctly.

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.

Reperio at 1655. Found in the company of the_garbageman.

Having worked on this series for the past few months, the_garbageman and I were keen to knock a few of them over today. Having to work with surgeons everyday, they are notorious for having bad handwriting, and deciphering their scribbles can be just as difficult as this puzzle. Fortunately TG had done the hard work with this one. As daylight was starting to disappear, we were conscious of not doing anymore on longer walks, so this one was just right.

Gratias teamMerlin.

MV and I have been planning an assault on some of the high D:T caches in the region for some time, but the stars rarely align for both of us to be available. This week we got lucky, and with an absolutely glorious day we set off in the hopes of claiming 29 targeted caches - we squeezed in 25 for MV and 22 for me - walked countless km, climbed up and down numerous rock faces, and had an amazing day.

So much effort on the whole setup of this series. Thanks for creating something which has given me so many hours of puzzle solving, hikes, climbs, great views, time with mates on trails, etc. Much appreciated!

A very fun little puzzle and thank goodness I found an online TOTT that did the bulk of the work for me, otherwise this may have sat permanently on my ‘too full of squiggly stuff to solve’ pile.

After a few big trail walks and bush bashes we were not overly keen for another walk, but we found a fire trail that looked promising and it wasn’t too far, so we wandered along and soon had cache in hand.

Disappointingly there is a lot of rubbish along this trail. Maybe a CITO in here in future?

A quick find at GZ. TNLN TFTC

We've been chipping away at this series for a while now, resulting in several visits to the area in search of the caches that we've solved. This extremely diverse series has since become highly addictive, and over the last few months, countless hours of frustration, puzzle solving, and eureka moments have consumed so much of our time. This weekend we decided it was time to raid the area of Yin Yang caches!
An educational and interesting puzzle that we didn't know that much about until researching it. TFTC!
Cheers,
The Hancock Clan

Having a caching day with WaywardWoman. We had done a few caches and were heading to Signal's Summer Vacation Event at Tizzanas. I had solved this months ago (I had learned shorthand back in the 70s when I was a Secretary, and some if it was still in the back of my head... somewhere!) and so today we thought we had just enough time to look for this first. I had done something to my GPS and couldn't get the compass to work (JoPS87 fixed it for me later). Luckily I had the coords put in my phone too and amazingly I got a signal on it. Off down the track to GZ. Once again WWs skills found the cache. So a combined effort! Back to the car and off to the winery for the event. TFTC

#4457- Out caching with thomo31 after having done 10 of the Richmond rd trail caches. We were on our way to the Tizzana event, but had a few side tracks to go on our way. Full kudos to thomo 31 for deciphering the scribble. I have never done it before, but thomo31 had learnt it in a previous life and did a great job sorting this out. It took us almost 6 months to get back here to do it though.
We went to the parking co-ords and started to wander down the track, with thomo31 realising her GPS was doing something strange. Followed the phone app instead, and with it jumping around a bit, we still managed to find it in the first place we looked.

@1110
Found with ZQX and Fox in Jox.
More to come ... TFTC

Another venture using the PHL app, which handled everything from solving the puzzle, as well as navigation. TFTC

#1603 this was a fun one to solve took a few goes to get it into the correct order and a green light from the checker. Put it to one side while waiting for a chance to go out to get it.

Came out with alnic39 for the stroll to GZ only a small decline & soon had the cache in hand

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 - Jasmer Geocoin, GasCans 2006 Geocoin, Kitac 2, Caching Dilemma's Geocoin, Butterfly, phlphotos 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 & 2017 NSW geocoin, phlphotos' Spindoc Bob Memorial Geocoin, phlphotos travelling 2012, 2017 NSW Geocoin, phlphotos' Mary Hyde's compass, MARJ01 Mystery Micro Geocoin, Zaur's 2000. Cache, Albany WA - Museum, Icelandic Viking on Safari, Give Blood (Alnic's only A+), Smile Steffs Journey #2, Evolution of Geocaching Geocoin, tommy´s, Trekker the Hiking Boot Travel Tag, Darzee Di's Red Centre Experience, Nimmie’s Red Car & Race against myself

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

ZQX had already solved this one when we found the container, but I have now completed the solve. I found two sites that give me a good tool - sufficient to get me the info I needed.

Started to drive towards GZ, but stopped at a big pile of concrete. Then on foot, we made good progress and soon found the container a very nice set of rocks. TFTC TM

Outsourcing this to a family member only got me half way. "What! You mean you don't know everything about every variation of shorthand! That's simply not good enough. Now I'm going to have to do some work!"
Actually I quite enjoyed the work, and found some handy little resources along the way.
The walk to GZ was a bit sad. There were several piles of rubbish next to the track, and some lumpy concrete across the track, making it difficult for emergency vehicles to access. Grrrr.
Anyway, lovely to be back in this part of the world again.
Thx TM!

#4 on my Sackville GC and GCA blitz this afternoon.
This was definitely one of the harder and fascinating puzzles of the series. I cannot imagine how people learnt shorthand it is quite an amazing skill.
A pleasant wlak out on the ridge this afternoon for an easy find.

SL TFTC

Shorthand, our second cache we found on our morning stroll.

We figured out the true meaning of the bait worms and hooks after some google fishing. TFTC

After finding the yin-yang puzzle Wood a bit earlier, we decided to follow a dirt road and see where it went. I just love taking the road less traveled. Back-roads are usually far more interesting and scenic compared to the main roads which just have efficiency in mind when going from A to B. And as we all know, for geocachers there is no shortest route between the two because there is always a cache somewhere in between.

As we were following the road I suddenly noticed some of my solved puzzle icons popping up on the GPSr and then I figured out where the road was heading and where we would eventually pop out. That was serendipitous because I had not really planned a caching outing as such; now there were several caches within easy striking distance.

We parked at the suggested spot and made our way down the fire trail. Yet again there were piles of dumped items in this otherwise pristine bush. The council really ought to let the people know they can use the council's solid waste system we call "council clean-up" in town (perhaps this service isn't available in rural areas?).

Fortunately, the junk was mainly at the beginning of the trail and after a short while we were enjoying the bush and taking in the deafening rasping of the cicadas. The other day I measured the din at about 97 dB, which is pretty loud.

While the others got side-tracked with finding cicada carapaces (mainly my little son who likes to fill my car with them), I went on to make the find, sign the log sheet, add my signature small wire dog, and then put everything back in its hiding spot).

#1846
This is my 400th puzzle cache and I'm very pleased to be able to reach this milestone on a teamMerlin hide. The Yin-Yang series has been responsible for a good chunk my mystery finds and has been thoroughly enjoyable! I feel that I'm quite familiar with this neck of the woods now

This cache was published just as I set off for an unplanned overseas trip so there was no need for a quick solve or chance of being an early finder. I enjoyed the research that went along with solving this on my return. Very happy that I found a shorthand solution which in itself was not that short. My initial attempt on the checker failed which perplexed me for a while but it turns out I just fat fingered the entry.

After a great day kayaking at Chipping Norton with Gatherer Hade yesterday, today I set off for a motorbike ride with a muggle friend. This was the first target and not too taxing to get my name in the log. Afterwards we enjoyed morning tea at the tractor and then grabbed a few more on the other side of the river on our way home.

TFTC teamMerlin

This cache was our third and the final published cache in this series to date. (I suspect that there could be more to come). Something we have noticed in our travels is the amount of what appears to be building rubbish, shame and could even be the same culprit. Hope the authority's catch them and make them clean it up.
Rubbish aside we have enjoyed what has now turned out to be three trips to this fabulous corner of the world. Thanks teamMerlin A puzzle series to remember for sure.
SLTN TFTC

Well, I got the third to find after the FTS!?!

Having time between work and refereeing for a pleasant walk sadly ruined again by dumpers made for time to clear my head.

Glad I found a good way to solve this as I was struggling for a while.

Quick find.

TFTC.

No!!!!

I got the first to solve and can't get there till tomorrow night!?!

Now there are two more green ticks!!

Joint[*FTF*] withB@W. With the checker racking up green ticks this one needed another mission to grab it ASAP. Thankfully we where greeted with a blank log.Thanks Team Merlin on yet another puzzle in the series. Cheers

Joint **FTF** with Tardis 0061.
I thought shorthand was supposed to make things quicker. More to follow. TFTC.

Published