Wreck-cellent: Mosquito Pinkenba, Queensland, Australia
By Captain Torpedo on 25-Apr-19. Waypoint GC7QTC6

It is 1:40am and the tide is out and I am walking across the mudflats.Geocaching will do this to a person. At least to mozzies are still asleep and not bothering me. Because the coords are excellent I made a quick find, added my name, and headed back to my work vehicle. Back to work I suppose. Thanks for the cache.

added this to our sail boat day todaystopping a few times to check gps as we went through to make sure still going in the right directionhow much fur ... oh there you are look at gps ... 3 metresperfectly tethered cache with nice dry clean logbooktook a photo of fasted on the deck as we made our way back to land

After reading the previous logs there was a possibility this may have been missing. I contacted the CO and checked if he would be happy for me to take a replacement.Parked close by and set off. Kept putting the GPS away while we were walking just in case, pulling it out to check every few minutes.Our last check and we were at 3 metres and low and behold the cache was there in plain sight. Not sure where the previous finders were looking but the co-ords are spot on and cache in place.Added our names.TFTH

Permission from the CO to log this cache. Enjoyed the walk in the Mangroves. Sometimes you can hear the seeds popping on the Mangrove trees. It always gives you a euphoria to walk in history footsteps and to look upon the remains of a ship. Thanks Captain for bringing us here.

Found an old cable tie but couldn't find the cache

Found this one but made a mess. Bring water shoes or something to wash up after

Captain Terror I found your cache Wreck-cellent: Mosquito on 30/5/2023, 9:45 am. This is my find 5457 and find # 1 today. Arrived at GZ with gumboots and at low tide. Found remnants of the ‘mosquito’ and soon found the cable tie with nothing attached. Expanded my search and soon found the replacement cache attached to another tree. Thanks for the history and thanks for the cache, mate! TNSLLN

Had a bit of time before work so I decided it was time to try and turn this frown into a smile.
This was a last minute decision so while I did have some spare shoes in my car I was in my work clothes. Also I hadn’t checked the tides. Nothing like zero preparation.
Well pulling up near GZ on a Saturday meant that I got a park nearby as there was no one around. Checked the tides on my app. Not quite high tide but getting there so this could be interesting.
As it turned out yes it was muddy but not wet under foot. Made my way to the new GZ and quickly located the cache. On tippie toes I could just reach it. Name signed.
Thanks for replacing this Captain Terror.
Noticed I did manage to get mud on my pants. Luckily I still was early for work so managed to remove most the mud before walking into the ops room.
TFTC Captain Terror

I had visited this geocache back on 8/10/2021, and unfortunately it was a DNF since the cache was missing. Seeing that it had been recently replaced (again) in late 2022, and after completing a nearby geocache, I thought I'd take the short drive to this location, hoping that the tides were ok. At least I managed to throw in my gumboots into the car just in case I was in the right mindset to complete this.

I was driving my wife's car this evening - a small Mazda 2, and the reason that I thought I would say this was the route I took. Rather than just taking Harris Road, I thought I'd follow that "other" route to take a circuit around, which followed the creek. However, this dirt track went from being ok, to rather questionable, and had it been wet in recent days, I would have stopped and turned around. But it was the "sunk cost" that I had come this far, and GZ was only a short distance away that I persevered. In the end, the dirt track didn't continue to Harris Road, but at least I was able to park nearby and grab this cache. It did feel quite dodgy being so late/dark at night and where I parked.

Stepping through the mud wasn't too mad, and I pushed through the mangroves to arrive at GZ. Like my previous attempt, I didn't really see too much evidence of the Mosquito wreck, but I was able to find the newly installed cache reasonably quickly. The cache container and logbook were in good shape. Thanks Captain Torpedo aka Captain Terror for the cache placement and ongoing maintenance.

----------

This evening, there was some running around to complete the newly published [SideTracked - The Pinkenba line Anti-Social Cache](https://coord.info/GCA3ZVP) with grabbing the geocache in the Pinkenba area, and then I returned home stopping at a couple of my unfound caches nearby and in Hamilton.

Coordinates changed from:
S 27° 24.815 E 153° 7.811

Coordinates changed to:
S 27° 24.808 E 153° 7.814

Distance from original: 45.3 feet or 13.8 meters.

Let's try over here. Hint updated too.

The tide was coming in, but I kept my feet dry.

All replaced and ready to be found again!

Why must this geocache keep going missing?

I suspect a landcare group is keeping the area maintained and keep finding it, to be honest. So, I can't get too cranky.

A full replacement put in place today and in a slightly different location. Hint and co-ordinates updated too.

Not forgotten yet.

Ugh - for the third time this year, it is missing.

Sometimes a good place turns out to not be a good place for a geocache. Seems I might need to rethink how/where this is hidden.

Well, this one’s a mystery to us. Found cable-ties but there was no cache attached.

Today we thought we’d find another in this excellent series. (We enjoy reading the history in the Descriptions.) So we headed down to Pinkenba.

Apparently, according to recent logs, this cache has recently been replaced but we couldn’t find it anywhere. Found the cable-ties as per the hint. Nothing attached so we spread out and checked many other trees in the vicinity. Found more wreckage but still no cache.

The CO has since confirmed the cable-ties should’ve held the cache and has given permission to log this as found.

Thank you

Took the opportunity to find this one while at the nearby CITO.
Thanks Captain Terror for bringing us here.

After completing our CITO duties, a small group of us were heading back with our rubbish, but decided to detour to this cache, we left our bags of rubbish in a convenient spot and made our way through the mangroves to GZ. Before long, our names were being added to the log. Then we collected our bags of rubbish and headed back to drop them at the CITO collection point. TFTC

Muddy mess ...
That's what you get with a cito event
Cache replaced...
Tftc

After the group pictures at the end of the even I went here for this wreck.
Not much remains not I did gif the cache
Thank you for hiding and the story
R

After assisting with some CITO duties a small group walked the extra few steps in this direction to find a bonus smilie! Thankyou for another in the wreck-cellant series!

After the nearby CITO, we took off to find some caches in the area.

Tftc Captain Torpedo

While attending the Captains CITO Ruzzelz and I trudged our way in here… only to find the new cache missing and all that remained was a lonely cable tie…

I must have told the right people, Simber15, on the way back to the CITO meeting point, because a new cache was in place by the time I left the area… and my name was in it… and I’d gotten permission from the Captain to sign as I’d touched the cable tie…

Ruzzelz and I then proceeded to collect more trash on the trudge back…

Tftc…

Out and about with TBU1BIKESU for some smiles. Tftc

Very swampy after all the recent rain, but considering this area is tidal, it may be swampy regardless. Not too many mozzies surprisingly.

This cache was very close to where we were clearing a little earlier. Glad I had my wellies and the tide was out.

Thanks!!

#3085

Peppa and myself had arrived at the CITO early and the first task was extraction of all the tyres from the grass and weed entrapment making it easier for the transport crew to relocate them to the collection point.

We then decided to skip all the random rubbish along the fence line and head in the general direction of this cache. Originally the tide was still in with a couple of centimetres of water so we concentrated on the mother load of rubbish at the drain discharge point about 70 m from the cache. We quickly filled our 2 bags and then called Minniemoo, Kab and Mr Slow Puncture over to fill their bags as well.

Peppa and myself then worked our way into the cache site and after checking out the remains of the wreck we picked up another couple of arms full of rubbish to carry out. Fortunately on return to the mother load site we enlisted 3 other cachers to further assist with the clean up. We managed to remove all the whole bottle, tins and plastics from this site. Unfortunately there is possibly a wheelie bin of broken glass still to collect at this spot. Protective gloves and solid containers will be required to clear that mess away.

Thanks for placing the cache and the extensive history on the Mosuito.

Dropped in an entire replacement at low tide this afternoon. No changes to the listing. But it seems the few remnants of the vessel have been covered with a bit more mud.

Curiously, this area shows minimal signs of the recent flooding, though there is some extra rubbish that has washed in.

Shiny new geocache back in place! All good to go again here

With the recent major flooding, I expect this area is inaccessible, or inadvisable to visit. Will be a couple of weeks before I attempt to drop in the replacement.

I can confirm it is missing. A community group had cleared up the immediate area, so I assume they found the geocache. Will replace in the next couple weeks

Ah yeah, with that string of DNFs, I don't think it's there.
Lemme look and replace.

Good one

Didn't venture out into the mangroves but the history was fascinating

Today whilst detouring for a cache in Eagle Farm nearby, I thought I would pop back to attempt this cache. I hadn't done any research on the tide times, and so upon arriving, this placed looked remarkably different than my last visit when water had come up to the track. I started to venture in with my good runners, when I thought I would do the smart thing to change my runners over to gumboots, and subsequently walked in to GZ. The ground was soft with some small squelches of water, but otherwise it was relatively dry.

I always enjoy these historical wreck geocaches, and I soon saw the limited wreckage that remained here. I had a decent look around walking through the wet ground and various spider webs, but alas, no cache was spotted. I checked the hint a few times to see if I was missing something, but I suspect the cache is probably missing given my difficulty of making this find. I'll keep a watch and see if the cache crops up. Thanks anyway Captain Torpedo aka. Captain Terror for the cache placement.

Just returned from retrieving my cache which I’m archiving with a heavy heart. Noticed that it’s a low tide so thought I’d go look at this one. Would have been better if I had older shoes on but little water, made for an easy walk to GZ. Spotted a few parts of the wreck. Met some of the local mozzie population but just couldn’t see that cache. Next time I’ll come with older shoes on.
Thanks Captain Terror

This evening, I visited the areas of Northgate and Myrtletown for a few miscellaneous targeted geocaches, which included an interesting multi-cache and oldie.

I thought given this geocache's terrain rating, that it may be slightly muddy but still attainable. I parked, and looked on from 50 m away to see the area considerably flooded with accumulated puddles of water, so I thought I would defer this geocache for another day. Certainly not a Terrain 2.5 today. Thanks Captain Torpedo / Captain Terror for the cache placement.

We opted to continue up the creek to this one. Not too big a walk to get to GZ. Nice out on the water this morning. The mosquitos must have been having a holiday today too.

The water was still low enough that we could see what may have been parts of the wreck. [^]

Today teamdfl and I met up at the parking co-ords for VH-TAA and put the kayak and ski in for a bit of a jaunt on the river. It was a pretty easy paddle on the incoming and almost full tide, and after completing VH-TAA we decided to continue our paddle to the Mosquito. We parked as suggested then took a wobbly wander through the mangroves. We spotted a couple of relics of the wreck on the way in, and made a quick find at GZ. TFTC, Captain Terror.

This was fun. Packed nearby gz and walked down to the edge of the mangroves. Couldn't see a geopath anywhere so the quickest way to gz is straight there. We were lucky it was low tide, that made it easier. After a few spider webs, muddy holes, slips and slides and we spotted the container. Patting our pockets we realised we had forgotten the pen. Back we all went the the car to grab it. Most of the crew decided to stay back and clean off but me and the youngest geoson headed back in to the mud to sign the log. All is good and dry here. Thanks for bringing us here

Mrs slow puncture was kind enough to come with me to find this cache as she had already been here. While she was doing some cito I slowly walked through knee deep water on this 2.6 metre high tide careful not to step on any wreck. Did not see any wreck but did find a nice cache. On opening the cache fell off its tether . Luckily Mrs slow puncture had some tether in her car so I headed back to secure the cache . I really enjoyed the history lesson and the fun finding this cache. Thankyou for taking me here and for placing this cache here for us to enjoy

Revisited this cache with Que Sera. Whilst I did a CITO, Que Sera slipped into the very deep water to grab this cache. When I was here last, it was dry and no water, but not today! Que Sera tackled a huge 2.6m tide to grab this cache. She managed to re-tether it as well. As I went back to the car to grab a tether, a huge truck went to park next to us. I asked if everything was ok, and got a quick response of "yep!" and he drove off. Not sure what was going on there. And wouldn’t you know it - the two Fisheries Department guys we ran into at the last cache pulled up next to us again and as he got out of his car, all we could say was "you again1" We had a laugh and chatted some more about the illegal fishing that goes on around here. They thanked us profusely for cleaning up the area as well and left us with some good information on detecting illegal fishing.

After dropping off someone at the airport, did some geocaching in this area. We were in luck that it was low tide when we arrived. Short muddy walk to gz where cache found easily. All dry but ants had made a nest inside and spider webs protecting the outside. We were the first to find in 4 months. Emptied out as many ants as possible, signed the log and left as quickly as possible before being eaten alive by mozzies. Tftc

Took the opportunity to head down and check out the lay of the land in prep to bring the yak this way in coming weeks. Loved the history lesson and found the cache in good condition.

Thanks to the Co for making this available.

After a paddle to the labs not far away with Chamad and geonayfee, we headed here. Though it was high tide and the water level was past knee height, there was no mud so that's a bonus.


We went for a slow walk trying not to stumble into anything, and soon located the container, co-ords were dead on. Not a single piece of wreck to be seen on this tide, and though I was wary of bumping into something rusty underwater, we never did.

---

# 8287 found at 10:40.
Thanks for giving us a reason to visit here **Captain Torpedo**. This log is trackable, mention where you saw it.

.........@__,
/|___||_/__________|\
\\_______/_TGQNRV_/
~~~~^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^~

After a paddle nearby we decided this cache was our next target. We had to drive down a dirt track and with my car not being built for this type of road I wasn't sure if I'd make it, but after a short drive we got to as close to the cache as possible, but the rest of the way required walking into knee deep water.

A search commenced once at GZ and the cache was located.

Find #853 - TFTC

Out with orange crew and Geonayfee to walk thru the Mangroves to obtain this one.orange crew was off and running in the knee deep water and was first to spot it.

Log signed and a short walk back to the cars.

Thanks for the cache an interesting one

After successfully celebrating Fangsoki's 9000th and having had a spot of lunch, we decided to head over for this one to round off the day. For a boat with such a history, it's quite an ignominious end, with very little of the poor vessel left abandoned here. TFTC, Captain Terror. =^.^=

5213

Saturday. After having a celebratory lunch at a nearby establishment for Fangsoki’s 9000th find (I never knew topless waitresses served at this side of town!) #, Mr and Mrs SP headed off with the remainder of the **Fang Gang** caching group to collect this cache. Luckily I had water shoes with me as they definitely came in handy. So sad to see not much left of the wreck and I always think of what it was like for the people who used to operate and use vessels like this. Mr SP helped me clean off some of the mud (and there was plenty of that! ). There wasn’t much water in there, but plenty of delightfully squishy mud and glad to have picked this one up as our last cache find for today.

This was the 3rd of 3 caches found on this outing.

Thanks Captain Terror for bringing us here

# Mr SP note: Didn't you? Oh, umm, err, neither did I...

14/3/20 Find #3533
Having dined at the local establishment after our group adventure to the newest of the Wreck-cellent series for Fangsoki’s 9000th, we decided it was only fair that we make the short journey here for those of us who had not yet done this one. Re-donning the muddy wet shoes from earlier in the day, we ventured forth, and soon the cache was in sight. Actually the cache was almost easier to see here than the wreck itself, a far change from this mornings wreck viewings. This poor wreck has very little left at all, bar the history of course, and now a cache so we can all remember her in some way when she finally does disappear.
Glad the mosquitoes (an apt name for the ship here that’s for sure) left me alone and charged for the CO (and Mrs SP) instead while I did the signing duties. Then we headed back out to the puddles of cleaner water to try to wash some of the mud off our legs and shoes once more before all saying our farewells.
Thanks for the cache Captain Torpedo, and for much of today’s adventures.

I was part of the Fang Gang assault on the new Lab caches on Bulwer Island and then after having an interesting lunch at the infamous "The Pink"it was decided that we should get this cache to clear the area.

A convoy of cars, kayaks and boats arrived at the parking spot. Luckily, it was a Saturday and there were no work vehicles parked in the street so we had plenty of parking space.

We assembled and, along with the CO, headed into the mangroves.

A quick find and then a history lesson on the wreck from the CO as we squelched back out to the cars.

TFTC Captain Torpedo

Being so close to the pub where we had stopped at for lunch, it seemed rude not me grab this cache. Mr. Herbz was still muddy from the previous mangrove cache encounters of the day and so was deployed into the swamp while Mrs. Herbz looked after the geomut and observed from dry land. The cache was quickly found by MiniMoo and the log signed whilst we contemplated how little of this wreck was left. TFTC Captain Torpedo.

Was at the nearby event when support was being driven up for collecting this cache. Of our group went and made a fairly quick find. Less muddy than I expected. TFTC!

Somehow and in the expectation of getting muddy and having packed a pair of old shoes, I rolled up here after a nearby event in the company of ESCR, Ardom and GCoven. ESCR was wearing a sparkling white blouse but was undeterred. We sprayed the Bushman’s around with gay abandon I popped on the old runners. As things turned out this was a fairly quick stop and the tide was (helpfully) out. We took Ardom’s scenic route in and the shortcut back out. The wreck was spotted easily by GCoven but not much of it left.

Always distressing to see so much rubbish left behind by receding water in our precious mangrove forestsLots of bottles.

TFTC Captain Torpedo Not as much mud or mosquitoes as expected.

Popped over here after the event for a walk in the mangroves we made a quick find at GZ and took an easier way out than we took in! TFTC

Really enjoy this series and sad to see so little left of an historical vessel. Mud and mozzies at a minimum so that was a bonus!! Tftc

Third of nine caches for the day. What an interesting spot! I wonder why they didn't take all of the wreckage away?

Parked close by and inched my way through the mud to the crash zone / GZ. From there it was a relatively quick find. Thankfully the tide was low and it was sunny - relatively few mosquitos out on the hunt for their next feed.

TB visit x5, TFTC!

Found after much walking in water and mud

Quick find in my mosquito proof clothing.

We were running early on our trip to the airport to meet some family today so decided to take a detour to this area. We have been here before and done some geocaching but this one has been placed since we were last here. Fortunately we were not wearing our super good clothes, so it was not too much of an effort to go into this lovely area and spot an old piece of wreckage. Soon after spying a piece of history, we soon had the container and log in our hands. A few spiderwebs to knock off first, and then we could sign the log. Thanks for this series; we have been enjoying them.
Domsky 

Dragged out of the house where I was happily doing work on a Sunday arvo by the mean Fangsoki who forced me to go geocaching, and find containers in weird locations, and see historical locations. Like this here resting place for the first lady of Her Majesty's Royal Queensland Naval marine defenses. Clearly named after the fledgling area's most abundant wildlife. Horrible idea really. I may even have to clean my shoes (although the floor mat in Fang's car has largely sorted that issue).

Cache found in great condition - the SS Mosquito .... less so. There appears to be some damage to it.

Thanks Captain Torpedo for entertaining me at this location.
*{Overall find #6802}*

So have been in Brisbane (well Eagle Farm/Pinkenba) for a couple of days for work. It’s been great to spend some time in a different part of Brisbane to facilitate getting some caches found. Have found around 25 on this two day trip which has been fab always knew 2 days was too long for the work trip but wasn’t going to turn it down!!
This was a target cache for the trip I am targeting May require wading attributes for a challenge cache (have even managed to slip an event past the reviewer next week with the required attribute!) so packed the gum boots (or wellies as we call them back home) after I had checked the tide times for this week which were perfect.
GZ was close to where my meeting was today hadn’t taken into account the mud flicking up as I squelched my way to GZ so my work pants and shirt looked slightly worse for wear once I got to my meeting.
As expected no sign of the ‘found a couple of caches before heading to the airport’ logger’s mark in the log book, had chuckled to myself when I read the online log, not sure this could ever be a quick drive by without some prior prep.
TFTC and the interesting piece of history and for the desired attribute.
No one questioned my muddy appearance when I got to my meeting. met a dog walker on the way back to the car who asked if the muddy walk had been good. I gave a very enthusiastic reply!! Yay for a podium finish.

Did a couple caches before heading to the airport

TFTC

I squelched my way to GZ and examined what little remained of the SS Mosquito. Such an ignominious end for such an historic vessel. Quickly located the cache and signed before squelching my way back to the car. Thanks for the cache

FTF Ltf

***FTF***
Found at 3.20pm

Kicking back at homebase struggling through day 3 of a nasty staph infection that had taken possession of my left arm & we noticed a few new caches were being published.
Unfortunately they were too far away to warrant a desperate dash for this month's FTF so we deleted most & put a couple on watch, more out of curiosity than real interest.
Then this one popped up not much more than 6km away.
A quick read of the cache page & we ummmed & ahhhed for a while with no real conviction, I mean, there was mention of tides, limited parking, a 200 metre hobble & 40 metres of swamp bashing.
Another added to the watch list …

Then Winter the Geo-Cat wanted to go outside for some fresh air.
A revisit to the description & we decided to go for a short drive even if only to recce the location for a future visit & to get Winter out for a little while.

Upon approach we noted an opportunity to park a little closer than 200 metres & ended up with the Geo-Beast tucked nicely away on a dirt (well, more sandy mud really) track which left only 52 metres to GZ.
Peering into the undergrowth then down at my thong clad feet I thought I'd venture just a little closer, let's face it, we're here & it's almost low tide … what better window were we going to get? LOL …

Only minutes later I spotted the cache, high & dry, even before I noticed the minimal naval remains.
Best open the container & see what's what then …
Well there ya go!
A nice clean log just calling for us to pay a visit.
Made our mark & replaced as found before tip-toing back to almost dry land.
High fives & we on our way in search of a tap & a cup of coffee!

Glad we decided to call by as it wasn't a hard one at all.
FTF covered for another month!

TFTC CT

Published

Captain Terror and I had just finished visit the final resting place of the VH-TAA aircraft. As we were loading up the boats, he expressed a desire to go and find a nearby boat called the SS Mosquito that he had read about it.

Did Captain Terror make me trudge needlessly through some weird quasi mud/plant field? Yes

He had vague co-ords - and the vague co-ords were not correct... so we found out.. standing in the middle of a muddy field of mangroves

But we were not to be outdone. My dainties were already muddy, so I didn't mind going for a trot to try to find it. We ended up in an area that was getting pretty inhospitable in the traction stakes - and I feared we'd end up in water (amusing as that may be).

Captain Terror and I crashed our way out of the precarious area when Captain Terror noticed something out the corner of his eye. I'll be jiggered if he actually didn't find the boat. We examined the area thoroughly - finding the wreck over quite a wide area. Not much of it left sadly - but that's not the point is it?

I did marvel that men worked and served on this boat starting 135 years ago which - according to Captain Terror's fine description - cost £3500. (My googling reckons it would be about $500,000 in today's money) And now it's nothing but a few bits of rusting metal forgotten in some mangrove.

We hid a cache nearby and took some obligatory snaps and headed on out.

I know Captain Terror put in considerable effort into his research for the listing - so I'll give a favourite point alone for the informative read. It's interesting to think of the Queensland Colony having to defend itself from a country like Russia.

A thoroughly enjoyable cache. TFTC