The Secret Garden Sassafras, Victoria, Australia
By ilukaperi on 18-Oct-19. Waypoint GC8EY7E

What a beautiful, yetadventurous walk! Log book was a little damp Thanks for find #555

Thanks - took us a bit of time but it was a satisfying find.

This really is a secret garden. It's pretty cool.When visiting make sure you read the description on the letterbox cache as I forgot to and then realised once back at the car. TFTC

What a unique little spot! Thanks for bringing us here

Great spot forgot to take a pen though

Out doddling around with carmlee1, had got the letterbox nearby and got back to the car before remembering there was another little blighter to find...so back up the hill

Found 19/6. Such a beautiful area and well hid.

Took a little bit of searching but eventually found it. Contents were very wet but logbook itself was still writeable.

Skill emoji

Punk

We would have never explored here if it wasnt for geocaching.What a special placeTftc

Found it! Out for a micro adventure this afternoon and having located the letterbox cache, I found this one before heading back to the car where Muggle Wen was waiting. I had a bit of wander around GZ found the stone steps and explored the terraces above the stone walls. It is a pity this place was left to be covered by weeds. Maybe with some coordinated effort this lost garden could be restored. I found the cache in it’s hiding place and signed the log. It is in good condition. I enjoyed listening to the elusive lyrebirds on my walk back to the car. TFTC SL

TFTC nice easy find with spoiler pic but keep feeling things crawling on me after reading the leech warning

Our 2nd cache! This is exciting

Wow, what a special place. Tucked away and definitely secret. Thanks for bringing me here. For future searchers here, make sure you find the pathway down to the bridge and dont do what i did and follow basically an animal track which i thought was the path. Great spot, TFTC.

Dragged the geokids out while the sun was shining and we have blue skies. The path was lead us through some gorgeous vegetation. It is hard to imagine what was here but I am sure it was gorgeous. The cache was very dry. Thanks for the cache.

Was taking a walk through the area, and saw a tree has come down. It won't stop you from accessing the cache, but you will need to walk to the side where it's a bit slippery ATM.

Was taking a walk through the area, and saw a tree has come down. It won't stop you from accessing the cache, but you will need to walk to the side where it's a bit slippery ATM.

Found this after completing the nearby letterbox. Beautiful spot to wander through. I love the remnants of the old nursery. Thank you for placing the cache here.

Quick find with hparkinson. Loved the Interesting pretty tree close by.

Out and about with My good caching mate Omegaman1971, there are always plenty of laughs while we are turning caches into smiles.

This is what I call a POETS day caching afternoon. A caching friend recommended that we check out Secret garden letterbox cache by ilukaperi so we did this one on route. We had to disobey instructions to go find this one, what an amazing place this must of been, sad that the gully was used as a dump and is now an asbestos problem. Loved the trees here. With the cool change sweeping in all the crackling of trees was a little scary and a branch came down close by with a crash.

Thanks ilukaperi for the cache. FAV for location.

In the area with Rebel Acts for some fun in the sun, and to put some smiles on the map.
This was one of the caches we had some success with, cheers for the cache.

Omegaman1971

loved the location not the tree creaking noise waiting for Timber...near GZ sighted something a little odd and my investigations led to me finding the cache.

I had attempted this one earlier this year, but due to terrible weather had let it slide; until now.

An amazing walk, and a very interesting area ! As a local I am shocked I'd never been here before.

Thanks for the cache and the memories!

Fallen trees made this a lengthy search. Thankfully though, we were able to find it in the end! We loved this place so much

We had a lovely day caching in the Sassafras area with pinnacle333.
This took longer than it should have due to fallen trees. We got there when the spoiler finally loaded. Thanks ilukaperi.

We grabbed this cache on the way back from the letterbox. Can definitely understand why this was nominated for the best location - what a hidden gem. TFTC

Beautiful location secret but amazing thanks for the geocache.

I managed to coax two junior members of iTEEM out of the house to join me on a search for a couple of caches in the hills. A good chance for eldest son to increase his Learners hours too.
We drove up through the mist to find this previously unvisited location.
Well, this is a fascinating spot, and many photos were taken on the way to GZ.
The area is somewhat wilder than we expected, so the remnant infrastructure came as somewhat of a surprise.
After finding the letterbox nearby, we made our way to this nicely tucked away cache. The GPS was closer than we might have expected to GZ, and the cache was spotted by our eldest just as I was checking the spoiler photo.
The cache is in good condition in its hidey hole.
I can see why both of these caches have received COTY best location nominations.
TFTC ilukaperi, and the visit to this hidden gem in the hills

We decided we wanted to check out some of the caches nominated in this year's awards so headed up here and this cache was on the way. This is such a pretty area and what a beautiful nursery it would have been! It took us a while to locate the cache even after looking at the Spoiler photo. Lots of branches down in the area has changed the look of GZ but the cache was still quite accessible and hidden as per photo.
TFTC ilukaperi - GJMMelb

Date: May 22, 2022
Find #12718

Headed out today with Manfred Wolfgang , Earthbound Chief and BeckNmonts, targeting the caches that had been nominated for an award in the cache of the year. Mostly just doing the caches that were friendly

Not a nominated cache, but while we were here...

Wonderful

Massive thanks go to ilukaperi for placing this one.

Big things are continuing to happen! *Are you joining the fun again in 2022?*
[**THE**](http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC8EW40)
[**WHITTLESEA**](http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC8EW40)
[**EVENT 2022**](http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC8EW40)
*19th / 20th November 2022 – GC8EW40 – Whittlesea – Victoria*

Sir Manfred Wolfgang S Crocodile , ahomburg, Earthbound Chief and myself decided to dedicate today to finding some nominated Cache of the Year geocaches. Well technically this one wasn’t nominated, but close enough another fav point. Thanks for placing a high quality cache for us to find ilukaperi.

Today we found The Secret Garden on our travels. We are out and about doing a few COTY nominated caches and noticed this was nearby after the Chief stopped to admire the workmanship that had gone into this wall and wondered out loud what used to be here….which is what made me look at the map…thank you for clearing that up and thank you for putting a cache in such a beautiful spot. I think this walk was the favourite of the day. What a glorious afternoon to walk through here too. There were many photos snapped!

Thanks ilukaperi for being part of our geocaching fun.

After finding the letterbox cache here yesterday I had to come back past with the bf for this today. It's certainly going to become one of those secret spots I love to show people!
It was starting to get dark as we wandered around so we realised we should get the cache... well, after we look over here.
We loved finding all the remnants of years gone by and were marvelling at some when we realised we were right next to the cache! It's a good thing too as I probably would've tried to approach it from the wrong angle haha!
Thanks for placing a cache in such a lovely spot!

We have found it with our best friend

Whata beautiful area

I've been to the secret garden many times but only just discovered there was a cache here. Required a tiny bit of bush bashing but otherwise relatively easy to find. Glad to see it survived another storm. Thanks!

Cache is still here, even after the monster storm. The last 10m to it is pretty much decimated by fallen trees but I made it easily, just climbed through a couple. The tree it is under is now only a stump, with quite a few fallen trees surrounding. Image attached, as it's a bit harder now than it was! Here is the view looking towards the path in, and at the stump hiding the cache.

Found @10:11 #7752
A bonus extra find for today given the streak is nearing the end. Time to start clearing out the 10k. Wow great area and cool moss and plenty of leaves on the ground a nice peaceful spot. Thanks for bringing me here nice track.
TFTC ilukaperi

Found with goldfish

Crazy daisy 4 me

Nice stone work nearby. Big patch of weeds. Ha ha. Quick find. Tftc tnln
Hi Iluka, down for a post covid visit to my caches. Asked at bakery for you and where told you where holidaying in tassie. Hope you have a great time.

Very cute find, really enjoyed the serenity of the secret garden. Thanks for the cache, bringing me here and for the adventure!!!

What a fun adventure!!!

We walked around and explored the beautiful garden going of the track and up some weird staircases got a couple leeches on us too thanks for taking us to this amazing spot tftc hide

Beautiful area! Had some trouble finding the entrance to the garden from the road, did a few laps back and forth, but it was worth it.

I knew it was raining and I stupidly chose to wear the wrong walking shoes so now my shoes and socks are all wet but was very happy to be able to find this one in such a pretty place. Was suprised about what we found.
TFTC and the beautiful location

We picked a wet old morning to find a cache nearby that had the souvenir we needed and you can't stop at just one, so after some too-ing and fro-ing to find one we both hadn't found, this was the winner, and it really was! I was a bit worried about the wet track as we hadn't really planned for it, but the walk was shorter than I expected and it was definitely worth it. It was a misty morning which just added to the feeling that we were in the jungle finding a lost ancient civilisation, very cool plus some awesome trees which is a big bonus for me.

Thanks ilukaperi

And what a magical first hide it is! As a horticulturalist, I really appreciated this one. What a fascinating, hidden little pocket of the world. It was like stumbling upon ruins in an ancient land TYSMFTC!

PS I left a Woody ooshie in the cache in the woodies

Popped out with the kids on Sunday, (dragged them away from the gaming PC) with the promise of finding a secret garden. What a great little spot! Never would have stopped here, never new the path was there, a secret garden hidden in the trees, was wonderful. So many little gems out there ready to be found. Thanks for the advent ilukaperi

We were in awe as we strolled around the remnants of this garden, gazing at the magnificent trees and scenery, with all its beauty surrounding us. It felt like we were intruders in some secret enchanted woods where you expect to see characters of fairytales suddenly appear.

We had no trouble following the GPS straight to the cache for a nice quick find.

Congratulations ilukaperi on a great first cache and thank you for sharing this little piece of paradise with us.

At last the four reasons for leaving home have been lifted and we are allowed to travel in a 25km radius of home so we mad the most of it by coming out to grab some labs and of course grab anything else that was near by

We grabbed a cup of coffee here to help the local business's before heading off to gz. With gz being nice and secluded from prying eyes the cache was located nice and quickly and we added our name to the log, feeling like things were starting to get back to normal.

Many thanks ilukaperi for the cache

I love this garden so much I had a little look around off the beaten track I’ll taking so many photos but none of them will them justice on how gorgeous this location is thanks for placing and bringing here. I think I might be my husband back here one-day

I love this location so much thank you for bringing me here I’ve taken so many wonderful photos I can’t wait to come back here again and show my husband is fantastic location

Thank you for the secret garden. Great spot

Lovely spot!

Lovely walk. Thanks

A little cache before we came back from "The Secret Garden Letterbox" (A premium cache). Ithad quite an amazing veiw!

Went out at lunch time today in search of the FTF nearby this one.

This area was quite reminiscent of the nearby Pirianda Gardens, just a little more run down. It's a beautiful spot, and all the better for having it all to myself. You do get car noises from the road nearby though...

Broke off my search for the letterbox to find this cache, and it was quickly located and signed. Thanks for the cache, I may never have noticed this little park without it and its sibling.

A great time of year to visit this one, with beautiful autumn colours contrasting with the mossy greenness. Thanks for the cache.

So beautiful, thank you. We went for Mother’s Day. X

So, I go past this spot on the road to the East every few weeks or so during the course of my work. I noticed that when I’m in this area I have no coverage at all.
Hmm what to do? Downloading offline maps is a thing apparently but retrieving them for use later has eluded me.
Only one thing for it. Take a leap of faith.

Having spotted the entry to the East on other occasions I knew I had a great spot to park.
I found the path in very tranquil as I was the only vehicle around for miles. A side effect of home isolation. Very few cars on the road.

With no idea of how far or even what direction to go I followed the most trodden path hoping that my magical geo senses will save me when the time comes.

No such luck.

It’s at about this point that I realised that nobody knows I’m here. If I drop dead it would most likely be a fellow cacher that finds me in a few months or so. Stop thinking about that. Admire the old growth forest for what it is. Stunning. Autumn in full swing.

Just about then I came to a small level clearing with tall timber and found something truely remarkable and unexpected. It bought me so much joy that I thrust my arm into the air.

One bar of 3G service.

With my extended arm reaching to the nearest satellite in no time at all I discovered that I was only 91 meters away from being lost forever. I pushed on with my one bar dropping in and out when I found the structure that some have photographed and published. Marvellous and unexpected. I went up and down a bit and pondered ‘what the hell?’

I poked around with my eyes for an obvious hiding spot when my one bar of service jumped in to say I’m still some way off. I’m definitely taking a picture of that on the way back. Don’t want to upset the satellite Gods by starting the camera up.

Such a curious spot and a great spot for a cache although I would have been just as happy to have walked away with a DNF. It’s all about the location folks. I would never have happened by this place any other way other than for you and geocaching.
Thank you so much for showing me your secret garden.
Sadly my votes are already in. So a well earned favourite added.

Grabbing a rare opportunity to do a very few caches during the almost lockdown while we used a chance to briefly visit my almost 90 year old mother. This was on one of the possible routes. I badly needed a geocaching ‘fix’ to help my major depression. I am trying to find as many of the COTY nominees and the exercise of both body and mind geocaching gives me. This was a perfect length walk , a bit of up and down and not too slippery. I was able to negotiate the walk with the aid of my walking pole, which gives me confidence more than anything. I was blown away with the location and would be interested in more information if it’s available. Thanks for bringing me here. Worthy of a favourite point.

I had a great time finding your cache wow it's very interesting place. fav from me.
ilukaperi, thank you so much for placing it.

Sensational location! Made even better by the soft rain, which made everything even more lush. One of the best first hides I've had the pleasure of finding

Let's hope for many more ilukaperi. Day1976 has trained you well

Beautiful green ferns while I walk and also “half temple of a rainforest “ nearby seemed so amazing to see. Easy to find. Thanks ilukaperi for placing the cache

Great magical place

I was driving by and saw the lights on so thought I would drop in for a coffee. A nice peaceful spot in the middle of suburbia. Thanks For The Cache

What a beautiful little place to find this cache ... we loved this secret garden

Such a hidden gem of a location! We felt like we were walking through an enchanted forest in a fairytale.

Find number 8215 at 3:04:11 pm
Ducked out for a few caches after work this wonderful autumn afternoon in and around the Dandenongs.
What a beautiful hidden gem.
Dropped TB
**Thanks for placing this cache ilukaperi**

---
Big things are continuing to happen in Victoria! *Are you joining in the fun?*
[**The Whittlesea Event 2020**](https://coord.info/GC8EW40)
*14th & 15th November 2020 - GC8EW40 - Whittlesea - Victoria*

*Found on the 7 Mar 2020 @ 5:42 pm.*
*Cache find # 10790.*

After spending some time at Mt. Cannibal, it was now time to find a few more caches with some COTY nominees and old caches as my main targets as well as a few others that I was going by at the time.
Well this is an interesting area, I wasn't expecting that when I came around the corner.
I headed to GZ first, found the cache and then had a bit of a look around.

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

The 2019 COTY nominees are thankfully pushing me to explore further afield and also at higher altitude! The Dandenongs are an unexplored geocaching smorgasbord for me. I do love it up here! Phone reception caught me out though, and as I set off down the trail my phone suddenly decided it was SOS or nothing!

I had the faithful geohounds with me and they were a little confused with our quick about face, and then walk back up and up to the main road again where reception and caches returned. This time I downloaded the cache information and we were good to go.

Back at the gated green road entrance it was hard to imagine any nursery here, 90 years is indeed a fair amount of time!

We wound our way down and were soon at GZ. The hint was a great help and soon the cache was in hand.

We continued on to explore the rest of the trail, and then returned back, discovering some stone steps to nowhere as a relic of the location’s past.

A great spot for a cache and a worthy nominee for Best Location. Thanks for bringing us here on this beautiful morning ilukaperi.

Local knowledge is why I love geocaching!

A fave from me.

While I was in the area grabbing the CO other one, I still had plenty of time up my sleeve as I'd allowed a significant amount of time to find the last one as the rumour was it was quite difficult.

Lucky for me though, it was pretty easy and I didn't need all that time so I had time for this one too.

Enjoyed a great walk in to a wonderful location with an easy find at the end.

This one has the lot. A nice walk, a great location and a find that doesn't try to bamboozle you. A FAV point from me.

We were in Olinda looking at the shops and after finishing, we saw a close by cache less than 100m away so we stopped to pick it up. After that we looked around another and then after that, this one. This was interesting as I had just had this cache recommended to me a couple of days ago by Pprass and also that the the CO, we had both just met and shared the walk on a 6.5km multi cache just a week before that. It was indeed an interesting spot and also on the map, although we have found hundreds and hundreds of caches in the Dandenongs, this spot was smack in the middle of the largest cache void in the area from which we had never found a cache. Not a cache find within 1km of this spot, ever. Amazing. Also, a few minutes ago, we had never found an Ilukaperi cache and now we have found all of them. Looking forward to the next secret spot. This was our 158th closest unfound cache to home. Thanks from D & HA B-A

After a blazing hot day yesterday it was a very cool morning, perfect to go out walking. This was a great area to discover, but took me a while to find with a dodgy GPS! Eventually found the right place to be and it was a quick find from there. Great fun, TFTC!

Found at 10:25 AM GAFF1.
As today is going to be a really hot day, I decided to do a couple of caches close to where we are staying with the main criteria being that they had to be in the shade and this one certainly met the brief
This bush reserve certainly was one of the most interesting that we have been to in a long time. Everywhere we looked was an amazing sight - from the stumps of cut down trees along the start of the track to the massive conifers that dwarf everything else around them. Then the remnants of walls and steps down below. Wonder why the owners of the nursery abandoned this lovely area?
With accurate co-ords the cache was spotted quite quickly even in the heavy tree cover.
Thanks ilukaperi - deserves a favourite point.

Found this awesome spot had a great adventure looking around after we found the cache! Thanks for the cool spot!

Well that certainly is a secret garden. I've lived by the Dandenongs for 45 years, and travelled this road hundreds of times, without realising that this treasure exists. Thanks for bringing me here ilkaperi. Log signed and TB taken to relocate. A fav point from me.

A lovely hidden garden

Out and about on a warm afternoon trying to fill my local map with smileys . I saw this pop up a day or two ago , thought it would be nice to check out this trail as I haven't been here before . I certainly wasn't disappointed . Thanks ilukaperi for placing this cache here and congrats on your first hide .

This popped up just after I had put my pjamas on and snuggled into bed. I decided it was too far and I would get it before work in the morning as I needed some motivation to start up my morning walks again. Well this has certainly motivated me, what a beautiful place visually and aurally. I was suspended in time just for a few moments as I embraced my surrounds. Thanks for bringing me here.

Thought we'd try for an unlikely FTF and after hesitating for a good 45 minutes we had to settle for 2TF but what a location. a bit eerie at night but added to the atmosphere. very interesting location TFTC

A slim chance at a FTF had nanton34 and I in the car and headed towards MtD. Another fascinating spot up the hill with the former nursery leaving behind a somewhat spooky scene at night. It was a short hunt for the cache and we were unlucky to be next in line to sign the log. Congrats on your first hide. tftc

Published - Congratulations on your first cache placement.

If you haven't already done so, please make sure you have a look at these items on the Geocaching Blog titled;

- [**9 Tips for responsible cache maintenance,**](https://www.geocaching.com/blog/2017/06/9-tips-for-responsible-cache-maintenance/)

- [**Geocaching Etiquette 201: Cache Ownership**](https://www.geocaching.com/blog/2019/06/geocaching-etiquette-201-cache-ownership/)

and have a read of the following Help Centre articles:

- [**Managing Your Geocache Listing;**](http://support.groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=234) regarding looking after your cache page.

- [**Edit a Listing After Publication;**](http://support.groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=201) which explains what you can change on your cache page.

This one popped up as I was putting the geokid to bed. I was about to head off to sleep myself, but then thought stuff it - how can I resist a new cache so close to home! I left the geopartner in charge, grabbed the geodog and headed off. No cars were parked at the suggested parking spot so I was pretty confident I’d get in first. I meandered through random tracks with geodog excitedly staring around at invisible wildlife and when I got close to GZ, a short search yielded the prize! Woo! I never knew this area was accessible and I’ll definitely be back in daylight to explore properly with the geokid. Thanks so much for introducing me to it!