Hidden Barwon: 9 Months Barrabool, Victoria, Australia
By Pacman on 24-Sep-18. Waypoint GC7Y0Z9

Out paddling with Shumba7 ?? between Pollocksford Road and Merrawarp Road. 13k by river in 5.5 hrs with the current river height it was lots of fun with little trouble from logs and rapids.

Unfortunately this cache hasn’t survived the test of time with only wire left.

I'm out of the country right now, and unable to maintain timeously.

No container in the stump. Stump has started to regrow. Searched everywhere, high and low.

It was a really hard kayak trip with lots of trees in the water, so that I had to leave the kayak and lift it up over it.
The strong current made it difficult to keep the kayak at GZ and look for the cache.
The stump was empty, I think it is gone with the last big flood.

Awesome hide

Enabled as life returns to some normality.

**COVID-19**
This cache has been disabled to encourage compliance with current restrictions on non-essential travel.
Since these restrictions are official no found logs will be allowed until further notice.

Is it 6 months or 12 months for the bananas.
6 months of unloved.
12 months to realise this has not been reported on.
Losing your phone does that.

And when found it was still standing up perfectly, many months later.
Being one of the few that has found this after publication (it appears the 11th person here claimed the {*FTF*}) it has indeed stood the test of time.

A nice location and a nice place to hide the treasure in this substantial piece of natural history along the river.

Having eyed off these two newer sections on the upper parts of the river a plan came together to collect one portion. A trusty flotation device was secured and launched at the bridge. A nice trip of still sections and rapids but plenty of portage with trees and rocks. Plus so many unknown sections of heading blindly into the reeds but all good fun and no spills.
We soon got the hang of the hides and made sure not to over shoot and paddling back up the river at some stages is a bit tough. We made good time to our collection point and extraction. Now to plan for the upper section. TFTC

03/11/2018 5:51:00 PM
3 South Australians and 2 Victorians from near the SA border headed across last night and camped beside the Barwon in anticipation of anther great paddle down the Barwon, this time with another load of newly published caches after last paddling down in December 2017.
While the river looked full near our campsite near Inverleigh we soon realised we had left our run a little late this year and lack of flow made hard work of what last year were fun rapids and logs that were easily crossed.
Launching at Murgheboluc we paddled for 10 hours to navigate the 23.5 km of river to Merrawarp Road, sore, tired and cold but I'd do it again!

A big apology for the generic logs and many thanks to Jacko and Pacman for placing and maintaining these caches.

Found on a 23.5 km kayak caching odyssey that took 11 hours with Bucketeer, Ferocious Flea, Goitsy and Scouter101. River level was down a little, which made for some quite challenging progress at times throughout the day.
It was 11 months ago that we first did the older caches on the Upper Barwon. Apparently some of the newer ones were placed the day before we paddled it but had not been published! Oh well... that's why we came back to do it all again!
TNLNSL
TFTC
TTFN
Beaker.

Found it with Beaker, Bucketeer and Scouter101

Found on the 16/9/18 as part of a group attending the Barwon CITO. We were very fortunate to have the coordinates given to us when we set off so it's become a bonus cache to us now. Thx Pacman for another cache along this very interesting stretch of river. Cheers

We were lucky enough to sign this before it's release while out paddling this stretch of the Barwon with 2beez and AusFox; however was praying it would be released at the perfect time. Wasn't to be. Congratulations to [@_BFMC_](http://coord.info/PRR1B6A) for FTF.

A nice hide that has completed it's incubation period Left a swap to keep it company for the next 9 months!

We love paddling this part of the river. This was the 3rd time and each time has been different due to river height. A great day with great company. Plenty of laughs, stories and entertaining moments

Thanks Pacman for the great cache. We would love to FP all caches along here but would have none left.

Finally after a 9mth gestation period I'm able to log this cache.
This is an amazing stretch of the Barwon with plenty of wildlife, even the platypus if your lucky and obstacles to add entertainment to the journey.
Log signed and replaced as found.

Thanks for the cache Pacman
#4,369

I didn't realise how long it had been since I had my last paddle on the Barwon. With the better weather on the way, it was time to get the cobwebs off the yak. Once again I was joined by Na'wal for an adventure on this picturesque waterway. We parked a car at the starting and finishing point of the paddle, a wise move indeed. We weren't expecting the amount of fallen trees along the river today. The amount of times we had to get out and drag the yaks was very draining. It easily added another hour to our journey.

After the paddle, I was talking to someone who had recently done it. They only had to exit their yaks for the caches !! The water level must have dropped substantially in 5 weeks. Oh well, no pain, no gain. The arms are certainly feeling it this morning. The wildlife seemed to be hiding today, as we were lucky to spot 10 birds for the whole journey. Even though it was a tiring day, it was an awesome paddle on a section of the river I hadn't traversed before.

We found the cache nice and dry and in great shape. We chose this spot to have a rest and a bite to eat. TFTC ThePacman

Another day to get out and enjoy an adventure with DAB. We had both wanted to do these caches for some time but water levels, finding the time and better weather to do them was always a challenge. Today was perfect weather to be on the river. The adventure took us 6 hours from Pollocksford Bridge to Dears Lane. We encountered many obstacles which at times made this not so much of a fun adventure, but with good company we made the most of our time along the river today. We were stuffed when we finished, having to get out of the yak more than a dozen times (we ended up losing count) even with the river at a level we thought would be high enough. With plenty of food, drinks and equipment packed for the yak down the river, we were off.

The cache has indeed survived 9 months+ for us to be able to make the find. We stopped for some lunch here on the bank in the shade.

**Thanks to Pacman for hiding this cache for us to find and enjoy**

{*FTF*}

With today being the first opportunity I had to head down the river I was hoping these would survive until then. 6am solo launch, floating peacefully down the river. We all know there is those who love to chase an FTF, even if they pretend not to. Today it was my turn to sign a minty fresh log. Thanks pacman for placing caches out here to bring is to this beautiful stretch of river.

Found on the 16/9/18 as part of a group attending the Barwon CITO. We were very fortunate to have the coordinates given to us when we set off so it's become a bonus cache to us now. Thx Pacman for another cache along this very interesting stretch of river. Cheers

Published

Just realised I had not logged these couple of caches, as they were not published at the time. A very interesting stretch of the river. Thanks for placing these caches here for us to find, Pacman.

9months is indeed a long time. Congratulations to Jacko, let’s hope he learns not to complain of tiredness before the 9 months is up, otherwise, he may not live to tell the tale of the birth of his second child! Thank you so much for providing the coordinates of these caches prior to publication so we don’t have to go back over the stretch of river ThePacman... but the downside is this very average log as I try to recall which cache it was....

*25 Aug 2018, Found @ 11:21 am, Find # 8200.*

As we were with the CO while he was doing the final check, we were able to sign the logbook before publication.

I headed out today to meet up with McLookers, Pacman and The Tritonz for a paddle along the Barwon river.
When I left home, it was a beautiful blue sky and sunshine day but when I reached the outskirts of Geelong, it turned horrible and very foggy and that's how the paddle started but later on it turned into a magnificent day for a paddle, the water level was perfect, it was flowing fast in some sections and very claim in others. We were able to paddle all the way and the only time we had to get out of the kayak was to retrieve some of the caches.

**Thanks to Pacman for placing this cache.**

On the river today with SteMicMitSar, The Tritonz and the CO, I was very happy the CO was needing to make a welfare check on this much earlier placed cache. It gave us an opportunity to sign the log!!! Thanks Pacman, a ripper area, a great day and another cache!

Waiting for the Barwon to have a decent water flow since last summer so we could tackle this new section of caches, we decided a bit of investigation into the water levels was needed first. A reconnaissance was done after work one afternoon to happily notice they were sitting at 1.1 metres and flowing well. With that, a call out to McLookers, ThePacman and SteMicMitSar was made to organise a time and place to meet up in the near future.
Today, all super excited for this adventure, we met at the bridge and set up our gear and found the best location to launch from and before we knew it, we were off and paddling. The water was flowing pretty fast so we zoomed along at a great pace, navigating from one cache to the next, only needing to get out of the yak for the hides. We did come across a few dodgy spots that tested our balance but luckily McLookers was on board in the double to help keep the yak under control.
Lucky for us ThePacman did a welfare check on this unpublished Hidden Barwon today giving us the opportunity to pre-sign this cache in readiness for its release.......as it turns out on the female Triton's Birthday [^]
Thanks ThePacman for your contribution to our fantastic adventure down the mighty Barwon.

Hey Joe - I'll probably plan on publishing my caches tomorrow.

Joe - cool: Me too.

3 weeks: Hey Joe - you gonna publish yours?

3 months: Hey Joe, when you planning on?

6 monthts: I want to do the river but when are Joe's ones coming out?

9 months: Heeeyyyy Joe...!

Bang! FTF go.

and guess what...

There is still another to come!

Thanks Pacman for your company and contribution in placing these caches along the river - a truly special location!