Sutherland Shire FTF Hounds Power Trail #17 Lucas Heights, New South Wales, Australia
By Brewmaker on 01-Mar-18. Waypoint GC7JYG6

We were stumped. Tftc

The decoy was quite funny lmao, found with PolarOrangephant! TFTC

BlacknWhite suggested we do this power trail. I was stumped big time but Blacknwhite was a little, more clever. 13th findHad a great day.TFTC Brewmaker

OCW [Platyfly,](https://www.geocaching.com/p/?guid=80a2adae-e405-45f3-8f78-92cf1a588444) and our thirteenth find for the dayHad us a little stumped for a whileMany thanks for hiding the cache and the adventure Brewmaker

Reperio 12:41I was headed to Sydney this evening for a 2 day course, and so it gave me a great opportunity to find a few caches along the way. I took in the little detour to do this series, and for the most part of it, all the caches were found, although most had wither wet logs, or needed maintenance in some way. With the series being situated along a busy road with not a lot of room to park in most places, the process was a lot slower than expected. All in all though, a good day was had.Log looking worse for wear being damp, tattered and torn.Gratias BrewmakerAs a well spent day brings happy sleep, a well spent life brings happy death - LDV

Team Groodle found it. Next.

Spotted this one on the approach to where I though it was actually hidden! Cache was dry enough to sign and in fine enough order; TFTC!

kecaps & spreeuv from Czech republice. Děkujeme za kešku, TFTC!

Spolecny odlov. Vse o cele serii u kesky GC6XTEF. spreeuv & kecaps from Czech republic, Europe. Děkuji za kešku, TFTC! 12:23 hod.

Easy one after short walk.

Nice find, nice nearby decoy

Tftc

Stumped

Found it with some friends today!!

Found, thanks!

I did it

Now that the NSW Government is beginning to ease lockdown restrictions and we can now travel outside our local LGA, it’s time to bring my caches back into play. I know the COVID-19 virus is still about, so please take precautions to keep yourself and those around you safe by doing things such as wearing gloves to handle caches, as well as using hand sanitiser regularly. Take care everyone and enjoy your return to caching after such a long break. Brew

To help stop the spread of COVID-19, the NSW Government has ordered everybody to STAY AT HOME unless you are: shopping for essentials, receiving medical care, exercising or travelling to work or education.

While some people would regard geocaching as a form of exercise, it is my personal opinion that this activity is NON-ESSENTIAL, perhaps involving unnecessary travel (> 10km) and therefore should not be undertaken during this time of crisis. You are breaking the law by doing so.

Who knows how long this current lockdown will last! Right now, every one of us has an important part to play in helping to keep our families, friends and the wider community safe in the fight against the spread of COVID-19, by STAYING HOME.

As a result of the health authority’s directive, I have decided to disable this cache and respectfully request that you do not seek out and claim a find whilst this cache is disabled. If you do log a find I will DELETE IT.

Thank you for your cooperation. I look forward to bringing my caches back into play as soon as the health crisis abates.

Regards,
Brewmaker

Out doing this power trail with VicRoadnight and MinimumChips, friends from work. I had met MinimumChips years ago, and we had been geocaching together in WA last year. Then I met VicRoadnight over dinner a few weeks ago when I asked if anyone wanted to go out to see the full/super/blood moon/lunar eclipse. We had a great day out together! Finally sitting down to log these caches in August as I travel around the country...

Found with queenk8 and minimumchips, not the first stump we looked at! TFTC

Found with VictoriaRoadNight and Queen Kate. TFTC

Dan decided to cycle Heathcote Road to do these caches. He thought that it would be a bit easier than trying to park on this narrow and very busy road. Found this cache on the ground next to a ......... Replaced as per hint. TFTC Brewmaker

Day of geocaching with breeze through

TFTC

Out for a geocaching trail on a stunning Saturday. Love this idea. Pray for our safety with sat morning traffic!
Nice quick find. Log full. tFTC

This one almost had us stumped.

Nice! Tftc

Don’t know why this logged as DNF, found it. Nice and easy

Headed out for a days caching with fitzy_1965 and Roostaman.

We were definitely stumped here today.....no luck for us.

No luck for us here today.

Found today on a trip to Sydney to try out my new car.

TFTC Brewmaker

Cache in good condition TFTC

I have been spying this power trail for a while. Today was much cooler than it has been so I decided to take the opportunity to get as much of it done as possible. I got a good start today but after being covered in spider webs I called it a day. I’ll finish it off another day.

All the spider webs on the way to this one made it a little hard to get to. TFTC.

# 5832 Grabbed while overnight in Campbelltown after a Xmas party. After a few DNFs in and around Campbelltown, I decided to try my luck on this trail. It was getting quite warm and I knew I would not have time to complete it. I enjoyed the variety of caches and the bushland, but sadly this road is one long tip.
Thanks Brewmaker

Cache in good condition TFTC

Well after a day at a conference today was my free day to grab a few caches around the Sydney area. My first target was the Sunderland ftf trail and after that the plan was to go through the suburbs grabbing a few caches on the way back to the hotel. Ended up with 73 for the day plus a few dnfs, which is hard work on your own.

Tftc and making my day so enjoyable.

The caches on the Sunderland ftf trail were brilliant. So much work into making some of them.

TFTC thanks

Pitman Clan took one for the team and made the find. TFTC

Took one for the team here!!!!! tftc

Devious. Not the obvious. TFTC

I found this Sutherland Shire FTF Hounds Power Trail trad cache with GeodudeAU. MM

Out this afternoon with SmudgeyCat finding the rest of the caches in the Sutherland Shire FTF Hounds Power Trail that I hadn't already previously found. Was searching for these as part of the clue hunt to solve the Mystery at the Museum puzzle.
Most of the caches were easy to find, though the 'hanging' ones were generally a lot more difficult. Due to the recent bushfires, there is some dead-wood undergrowth and black soot still on the stems and trunks. So a word of warning - don't wear good clothes, as they will get covered in black soot, and possibly scratched. Also drive, park, and walk with care along the road, as in some places there are big trucks rambling past just a few feet away. You'll probably need a good five hours to do the entire series, and four eyes are definitely better than two for some of the finds.
For this cache - read the hint, but a search revealed nothing. Then widened the search and spotted the cache hiding there. Doh! Found with SmudgeyCat M. TFTC

On the way back from Sutherland today. Picking us a few caches which have gone down since I was down this way last. 15th for the day. TFTC

DOing it for the gems

Great camp tftc

Out collecting smiles & Mystery at the Museum clues! Neat little hide & apt hint. TFTC xo

OCW PelDroedGwin

Until today we’d only done half of this trail.....doing the rest in reverse order.

Thanks Brew - this one finishes the trail (for us) so far.....

Tftc

OCW the Bebes to clear up this trail. Tftc

Across the road, up the bank, over, down the bank, and across the turf. Found in the second place I looked - but I guess you would be expecting that. And then the whole reverse process to get back to the car again. Gave me a chuckle thanks Brewmaker. TFTC # 14,188

I decided to take myself on a little drive along this road studded with caches - I could not believe how busy it was, I had to be very careful pulling off the road and back into traffic. Great set of hides. TFTC!!

This was the last day of our current geocaching holiday in Australia, and so we couldn't resist the opportunity to make the most of the last few hours we had before heading off to the airport to fly back home to search for the first 26 caches in this series. It was a crazy road to cache on with the traffic being so busy and fast, and so with the close spacing of the caches it really felt like playing dodgems as well as geocaching! This one was a nice quick find once at Ground Zero. We signed the log book and then replaced as found. Thanks so much for the cache and greetings from Zimbabwe

Hit up this powertrail today.
Good hides, and good fun.

Always fun caching with friends.
Catching up on logging.
OCWF&F TFTC

Tackled the 'Sutherland Shire FTF Hounds' powertrail today.

Pros:
Variety (users and containers)
Coordinates (pretty accurate)
Great to see the regeneration here after the fires!

Cons:
Dangerous road (100km/h, high traffic area, limited shoulder space)
Pollution (rubbish and car parts)

We were stopped by the Australian Federal Police, but after explaining what Geocaching is, they let us go on to continue the rest of the trail.

Thanks!

Trip away with woolwood9 and slowly heading to the Clear Waters MEGA.
Stamped logs as TM/WW NZ.
Another nice find for us today, thanks for putting this cache out.

*Really felt unsafe in places on this trail - the traffic was crazy!!*

Found while on a trip away with tmann421, heading to the MEGA in Canberra
Signed as TT/WW NZ
Thanks for the placement

Browsed this power-trail and impressively, it has tripled in size since my last visit about a year ago! So brought my cross-bike down to whittle a few more away.
Due to muggle activities (#15) and placements on different sides of Heathcote road, I eventually visited in the order: 13, 14, 16, 22 to 31, then 21 back down to 17 and 15.
Thanks to all the CO's who have contributed to this collaborative power-trail.
Clearly, the geocaching community is alive and active in the Sutherland Shire.
- - -
Must say I was totally distracted by the natural, and more plausible, decoy nearby. But a quick scan around pointed me to the 'real' GZ.
TFTC Brewmaker!

Out caching for the Mrs birthday saw us starting to collect caches along this trail. Dodging spider webs and farmer's friends also seemed to be prerequisite for these caches

Not as many collected as we had hoped today due to the challenges of finding safe parking. But now that we have started, we'll be back to collect the balance in due time

Thanks to all the cache owners

Find # 4107
Found with sesblocker.
Great coordinates made for an easy find. Bit slow with the logging.
TFTC Brewmaker

Beware of the thistles
TFTC

Out caching with the grandsons. Easy find.

Easy find with my grandparents

Quick park and grab with use of the hint
Thanks for the cache

#4 for the power trail. TFTC

TFTC

#5713 (4 of 4 today)

The weather report says it's not going to be pretty this afternoon. And there is the weekly shop with the Geowife after her morning tea. So while she is sipping Camolile tea and munching on cucumber sandwiches, or something, I'll go out for some caches.

I really don't need any finds today for my calendar, but a few finds will at least reduce the number of December days with only 10 or 11 finds.
Decided to go to an area I haven't been back to for a while - The *Sutherland Shire FTF Hounds* Geotrail. In fact I was last here before the fires that swept through back in April. Glad to report the area is greening up nicely, although the nearer the road the more weeds.

My next question was where to park. It's been a perennial problem for this series. I've pulled off the road in less than optimal places, and from the logs others have had polite requests to move on by the Highway Patrol.
Thankfully I noticed that **Pipes_down_under** had specified parking on his *#15* cache. And a large safe spot it is. Better still it is right in the middle of my targets today. Better again, it is close to the Walking / MTB Trail, so I could use it to walk well off the road to each cache. And yes, I did actually meet and chat with some bike riders.

Enjoyable hour or so here... And the Geowife beat me home. Ah well, I blame the traffic.
###END OF CUT AND PASTE SECTION###
Looking at my map, I was concerned there would be a 60 metre bushbash from the MTB trail to this one.
But as I got closer I found unmarked trails going exactly where I wanted. In the end it was only five metres off trail.

Didn't find it initially. Checked a few spots and then... oh, it's lying on the ground out in the open. Muggled, but only sort of?
Obvious where it was supposed to be placed, thanks to the still intact camo.

Everything good here. Signed the nice dry log and then replaced with less conspicuous camo. Then on the walk out spotted something even better. So back for a re-hide, and then back to *The Hademobile* - via the same three cyclists.
Spoke to a different one this time.

Excellent late morning walk today. I'll need to return again soon.

SLTNLN
TFTC

With 30 in the FTF series, it was time to give this trail a crack. I had Team MavEtJu with me to lend another pair of eyes and hands and we made it from 30 to 1 in 3hr 15min. There were a few uncomfortably-close-to-speeding-traffic moments which does detract from the journey but it’s not really a park and grab scenario either.

Over there? No, over there...!

Thanks Brewmaker for being a FTF hound and participating in the series.

A little tricky but we honed in on like a dog to a tree.
TFTC Brewmaker

stumping through the blackened bush today sure means I'll be doing some clothes washing tonight! SL TFTC Brewmaker

Easy find after the big fire that went through this area. TFTC Brewmaker

Found -- 2:16 pm -- Thanks for the hunt and Thanks for bringing us here to this location *Brewmaker*.

**Cache Condition:** Good.
**Took:** Nothing.
**Left:** Nothing.
**Trackables:** None seen in this cache today.

**The Cache**
Didn't take too long to find. SL and returned cache to its hide'y hole. I managed to miss a few caches so had to return to get them which messed up my sequence. I noticed how pongy it is along this road today, I thought there must be a tip nearby.

**The Day**
Woke up this morning bright and early and wondered what to do today - ah yes, I'll go geocaching, and why not visit *Seemyshells* hotel and drop off some trackables and run the **Sutherland Shire FTF Hound(s) Track**, so I bounced out of bed and looked at the sky, very foggy and overcast looking, but I heard the sun was going to shine, and shine it did.
Gorgeous day and quite warm while on the trail. Had four left to find, and desperately wanted to knock them off, but I know there will be more caches coming out and after missing this find I figured the remainder didn't matter - next time will do. Had to cut the day short anyway and urgently get home. OCW *DustyJapserJet*. Had a fantastic day !!! but when don't I when I'm out caching.

27 = 22 1 4 [8)] not attempted.

---
***Respect peoples caches - money, time and effort that has gone into them.***

Found while OCW *Throsbyonchurch* and *Little Kitten*. Thanks for the cache hide.

OCW *Throsbyonchurch* and *DustyJasperJet*. Signed log and returned container. Thanks for the fun hide.

Found without problem.

Thanks for the terrific power trail.

After successfully completing some Woronora River caches in the canoe we came this way to pick up the as yet unfound caches in this series. We worked so that the caches were always on the left hand side of the road, so partway through the list we did a U turn to find the rest.
There was no difficulty in finding the containers, especially as fire had cleared the vegetation around most of them.
It was good to see the regeneration of the trees and other greenery starting to happen.
Thanks go to Brewmaker for this cache placement.

Good hide because I was distracted by something else. TFTC

With a bit of time to spare coming back from a compulsory IKEA trip today I finally could clear the rest of this series today. That is until there are new ones popping up? Traffic wasn't too busy this Sunday afternoon and I didn't ran into any coppers so took only half an hour.
TFTC Wilbert67

Almost had me stumped until I looked further afield.
Thanks for the cache

In our final week of school holidays we headed out fora days caching with the Rats.
Dad said we'll take the bikes and do a bit of bike riding... well it turned out to be a great day as we rode around the streets on a beautiful sunny day. The "many" series was alot of fun.

We finished our day with a few finds in the FTF hound series.
Thanks to all the cache owners for the fun day.

With the hidden creatures souvenirs almost wrapped up I was wondering how to get a few more finds to accumilate a few more souvenirs. Realising a few of my caching buddies had done this series I dragged the mini rats along with me as they were still on school holidays. We headed up here with the bikes for a fun riding in the sun.

The hides were alot of fun and challenging at times, the area was excellent for getting around by bikes and being midweek the muggle factor was minimal.

We finished our day coming home via Heathcote Rd where we grabbed the latest few caches in the FTF hound series.

Thanks to all the hiders for a great day out.

Find number 4173.

The Booos are our enjoying the day and picking up some quick caches.

Thanks Brewmaker for placing this cache.

Found with u_c and gm10

As I edge my way closer to a milestone, I decided to head up here today with my bike to ride this series. I was pleasantly surprised to knock it over in just over an hour.

Cheers

found with btm and u_c

found with btm and gm10

Not as stumped as I thought we would be! The landscape is amazing after the fires.

Didn't get stumped this time. TFTC!

Tackled the Power Trail on a sunny Winter afternoon. Managed to grab all 23 posted to date. Thanks.

Completing this series, signed log and replaced. Thanks to Brewmaker.

TFTC,
Quick find, visited trackables.

Another find wthout any issue this morning. TFTC!

Nice to see this one safe and well. TFTC

The cache and it's camo have been completely destroyed by the bushfires.

Coordinates changed from:
S 34° 1.648 E 150° 58.006

Coordinates changed to:
S 34° 1.658 E 150° 58.003

Distance from original: 62.6 feet or 19.1 meters.

The bushfire has destroyed the original camo. A new hide has been located not too far away. Same hint should still apply. Extra camo on top should keep it well hidden. Container is now a small camoed pill bottle. Good luck!

All is good now after the bushfires. New container. New location. Same hint. Release the hounds!

All that remains of the previous cache

Although I'm away in Nepal I believe this area has been affected by the bush fires. Temporarily disabling until I return abd can check on them. I hope none of the homes nearby have been affected.

Fire affected

Time to get back to the trail before they get away from me. I'm really enjoying  this series of caches and whilst driving along Heathcote Road this morning I could see that there is plenty of room for more caches. All the caches were quickly found and in good condition. TFTC Brew.

#1769 pulled up between 17 and 16 early in the morning found a number of spuderwebs while walking to the cache. Closed in on the hide an 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 cache Brewmaker

The following TBs visited for the distance - phlphotos 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 & 2017 NSW geocoin, phlphotos travelling 2012, 2017 NSW Geocoin, phlphotos Mary Hyde's compass, phlphotos Spindoc Bob Memorial Geocoin, phlphotos, phlphotos Area 51 Tag, phlphotos backpacker canister cover, phlphotos Cache In Trash Out Geocoin, phlphotos Cache In Trash Out Tag, phlphotos CITO Micro Geocoin, phlphotos Col Miner geocoin, phlphotos Four Elements Geocoin, phlphotos Optical Illusion Geocoin, phlphotos Trackable Building Brick, phlphotos Travel Bug Dog Tag, phlphotos Travel Bug Dog Tag, phlphotos Oz GeoMuster 2018 geocoin, phlphotos Oz GeoMuster 2018 geocoin, dirty Black Juke & Percy Panda Travel Tag