Winton Solar Farm Winton, Victoria, Australia
By Harrowang on 08-Feb-21. Waypoint GC9625A

Im on my own travelling home from Albury and decided to take the scenic route. Its a beautiful night, cool night and moonlit. I usually spend a bit of time before use the hint and since it was night, I had to. Im glad I did as I didnt notice the hint, it being night and all and it was about 10M out, I approached from two different ways and got the same.Cache looks all good, no writing implement though, I didnt have a spare so make sure you bring your own. TFTC Harrowang

Ants

Quick find whilst passing thru this beautiful areaTFTC

Found with jackez74 on the way home from Shepparton It's amazing how far the solar panels go. TFTC

Matho64 and I are on our way from Shepparton and decided to stop at the solar farms. It was very interesting to read about the solar farms providing energy to Glenrowan. A quick and easy find. TFTC Harrowang

Late this afternoon we headed south from Wangaratta but used an old road parallel to the Hume Freeway. Along the way we saw the extensive solar panel arrays and also noticed that there were two caches highlighting the solar farms. This was one of them.The hint was very useful when looking for this cache. Once found, it was about 8m from the published coordinates. This time both the outside and inside of the container were in very good condition, and the cache it contained were in excellent condition also. Thanks Harrowang for the cache highlighting the solar farms in the area.

Quick find after dodging a very large wolf spider TFTC

We were heading to Canberra for our second Mega in as many months, and when you are driving a long way, it is wise to break up your drive to prevent driver fatigue.With this in mind, we stopped quite a bit on the journey to find a good number of caches and endeavoured to get closer to qualifying for more Challenge caches.We will use some relatively generic logs with the sheer number of logs we need to complete after the Mega. We are tired and have insufficient brain power to do much more than that.We would like to thank all the cache owners for placing the caches for us to find, and unless otherwise noted, we found all caches in excellent condition.Thank you, Harrowang, for this Traditional cache.

During our weeks trip with Bare Foot Guru, Infoferret and Trinity to the Canberra Mega we logged as a combination of "BFG, CF, BIC, BITC" depending on who we were caching with at the time. The trip took us on a flight to Melbourne first, then a drive to Canberra, followed by a drive to Sydney before flying out again. Where possible I will add commentary to each find about the cache. Thanks for all the caches, hides and effort put into hiding and maintaining them.Once we dodged the spiders the cache was a nice easy find. Afterwards took a few photos of the solar farm. Pretty impressive farm.

An expedition with Crystal Fairy & Barefootguru to the 'West Island '. Most logs signed as BIC to save space and time. 27 March 2024 12:26 Number 13825 TFTC Harrowang !Heading north, so parked up and waited for the gaps . Quick find by the others, while I was distracted by walking into a spiderweb!I would like to show my respect and acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the Land, and their continuing connection to it. I wish to pay my respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures; and to Elders past, present and emerging.

*** draft log for stats tracking, more later ***GC9625A Winton Solar Farm27 March 2024T12:25:42 AEDTTFTC HarrowangTravelling north so had to hop across the highway and walk down the now closed road. Quick find of this large cache, cool seeing the solar facility.

Paul's words..Going by the size of that brown snake it can friggin stay there!

First day, Benalla to Ballarat. Beautiful start of the day, lots of caches and labs. Thanks to all the CO for their hides. J+J.au

First day of a little road trip to Victoria. Travelling from the Illawarra via Batemans Bay to Benalla. Lots of driving and only a few little detours and stops to pick up caches.TFTC Wilbert67

Lovely cache, big effort. Thank you.

I continue to be amazed. I wonder if the panels are, or could be, set up to automatically align themselves to the best angle of the sun? And could they be mounted higher, so animals could graze underneath? Or is there not enough light for the animals, or growth of grass? So many thoughts going through my mind.The cache is in excellent condition, being cared for by way more ants than at the other solar hide. I guess ants need to live somewhere!Thanks for bringing me to these impressive farms, Harrowang. Your work is appreciated.

Thanks

#7026 @ 08:23:28 AEST on Saturday 2/9/2023
Day 2 of our Ned Kelly Country roadtrip, Glenrowan -> Beechworth!

Today is the shortest drive of the trip, so that means lots of caching! We spent most of our day out grabbing particular caches at the NKH, around Wangaratta and of course, Beechworth… Lots to do and not enough time, so we’re just grabbing cache types, DTs and oldies!

First one of the day! A quick find and a very well put together cache, although the grass isn’t very T1.5 anymore! FP for the nice sized container and a nice cache.

Thanks for placing and maintaining this cache Harrowang!

#7026

Day 2… We’re spending the weekend caching way through Kelly Country, aiming to fill in needed DTs, do some fun climbs and generally have a good time.
We’re caching between Glenrowan and Beechworth with a list we want to fill, we’ll call it a day when we run out of light!
What a beauty! We’re big fans of multi layered containers, of course everything was dry. That is the biggest solar farm I’ve ever seen…
TFTC

Nice cache design again. TFTC

Out and about today with Geowife and Geodogs exploring the local area. What is it with ants , they are everywhere. All good here. Now onto the next one for the day. TFTC

Found at 10:50pm on our trip to catch up with infrastructure developments around Wangaratta with friends Harrowang who gave us no clues! Glad we came in the wintertime to this one! SL TFTC

Got out of the GeoCruiser to check on the condition of this one as markndee signed the log book. The grass is long and wet on the way to GZ, but otherwise all is good here. They have planted lots more solar panels since our last visit along this road a few weeks ago.

Last stop before rejoining the freeway and heading for home and thankful for another large hide in the failing light. Thanks for the cache Harrowang.

Find number 12035 at 1:34:22 pm on Wednesday the 17 May 2023
Travelling from Croydon to Goughs Bay via the long round about way chasing favourite points for this months GCHQ souvenir challenge. The bonus is that I get to find some great geocaches in the Victorian counrtyside
Must be plenty of juice flowing this nice sunny day.
**Thanks for placing this cache Harrowang**

---
Did you nominated your favourite geocaches from 2022 for the Victorian Cache of the Year Awards?
Join us for the announcement of the finalists on 21 May at the nomination event at Edwardes Lake Park in Reservoir, see [GCA69WK](https://coord.info/GCA69WK) for more details.
To find out more about the Awards click [here](https://geocachingvictoria.com.au/category/awards/#:~:text=Victorian%20Cache%20of%20the%20Year%20Awards%20Program%202023)

Speedy find on the way to Wangaratta.
TFTC

Nice little trip with the GeoKids and our niece. Easy find, the kids were super impressed! TFTC

Heading g into Wangaratta after spending the day at Winton raceway grabbing a few caches on the way in the fading light. Stopped at this one next - at what used to be the road to get back onto the freeway before it was permanently closed! Had the cache in hand fairly quickly. Thanks to Harrowang for this one

Driving home from the Rutherglen Mega Event I mad a point of driving past this cache so I could make the find.

Found on our journey home from the Rutherglen mega, thanks for the cache
Took nothing left nothing signed log

Accompanied crank1 on the way to mega Rutherglen. Detour and find it and sign the log. Thanks for the cache and hunt ️
FP ️ ️ ️

Found and log with Everlasting on the way to Mega detour Harrowang, Thank you so much for placing it.

On our way to Rutherglen to make a start on all the caches in the area before the Mega, we couldn’t go past a large size cache. After checking out the racing, we then checked out the solar panels and after carefully making our way through the grass to GZ, were rewarded with a nice size cache in excellent condition.

Thank you Harrowang for bringing us to this location today.

This was the last on the back road up to Glenrowan today. It will be interesting to see how things go with the solar farm but I don't reckon I'll be around in 30 years to see the end of its service life.

Anyhoo, down to the task at hand and it took a few moments before we homed in on the prize at 15:05 after avoiding the myriad (big) spidey webs!

TNLNSL, although our BYO pen geocoin had a visit to mark the occasion. Thanks Harrowang.

PS: I didn't see the *[Geocoin Club February 2020 - Dwayyo](https://coord.info/TB9KD4M)* trackable in the cache.

Found with Eudes at 3:05pm after almost having an argument with a rather large spider as we came close to walking through its web.
thanks Harrowang

On my way up to the mountains for the weekend for the Hut2Hut running race, and I decided to take the slightly scenic route beside the freeway for a bit.
Wheeled in here and did the obligatory mad spider dance over to GZ, where the quick find and sign went on before fighting with all the spiders and their webs that I missed walking over.

Just checking these two solar farm caches whilst working in the area today. Took the unusual TB for further travels. All good with the cache, and the long dry grass is easily stomped down to get to GZ.

*Found on the 16 Jan 2023 @ 8:24 am.*
*Cache find # 14054.*

After completing half of my mission yesterday, It was now day and it was time to find a few caches in the Benalla LGA before heading to the centre of the Wangaratta LGA and then moving on to Craig’s Hut for a CITO.
As I was passing by this one, I had to stop for a look.
I headed over to the coordinates but at first they had my at something that wasn’t the cache but after checking the hint, I then headed over to the real GZ and the cache was found.

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

Suscoe was heading to Canberra today and we decided to have a short break along the trip for a cache.
We had seen these farms from the highway before.
We were glad that we took the side road to see them much closer.
Thanks to Harrowang for this hide.

Caching on my way to Melbourne today. A quick find here today. I found this 7-8m away from t where the gps was putting me.

Ants were protecting this one. Good to see some large containers being used

Whittlesea Mega Trip Day 2. Holbrook to Whittlesea. I thought I had lots of time today, but wow is it easy to spend. I spend two hours doing the Labs, Lab Bonus and Multi IN Holbrook before heading onwards and southwards. I did a few rest areas and a few clusters of caches along roads parallelling th highway, but I only managed to get into the Whittlesea Show grounds just before the first event. The social event was fun and then there were a few extra caches to get once it was dusk. A great, if long day.

The next detour off the highway took me to three caches along the solar farm road. Three great caches.

Thanks for the cache Harrowang

38957.9 TNLN
Visited: World Traveling Gold GC A#6 & 2011 Compass Rose Twilight A#214

**Albida**

Emergency find last night trying to keep my 4 year monthly streak alive. At GZ the cache was found pretty easily... good to see such a big cache. Anyway signed and returned TFTC

??

Flood waters across the road stopped us from checking these two solar farm caches last weekend. Water has soaked in and disappeared now, so a quick check as we headed home. Cache and contents all dry. After all this rain, gumboots need to be added to the geocaching tool kit.

OCW EverestHigh. Like the themed container and love the solar farm. Worth an FP. TFTC.

Nice to find a large cache. OCW MaxAdventurer. TFTC Harrowang

With the rest of the family in Sydney and a busy few weeks coming up at work I decided last week to have a day off to go caching. Looked at the map and initially thought about Shepparton but then saw an intriguing collection at Mount Major so that became my target. Picked what would be a sunny day (was raining when I left Albury but was fine most of the day - though very windy). In the end a successful day with 26 caches found and one DNF. Turned out to be a Team BGF day.

Was worried about traffic but dead end here. GPS was all over the shop here - ended up 12m away in the second I searched. A lot of long wet grass to wade through but all good here.
TFTC Harrowang

Way too wet. All the ground around it was under water today. I’ll come back when it’s hotter and drier and risk the snakes instead

On my way to Melb for work training tomorrow. With plenty of time up my sleeve I decided to cherry pick some caches along the way being a beautiful Spring day.

Love the big container here! This type always puts a smile on my face.

Tftc !

GPS coordinates were jumping around a bit for me making it harder to find. Eventually it made sense and was a quick find. TFTC!

Couldn't go past a large cache! Aysen loves these for the swag. Not interested in the smalls. Particularly given this wasn't a tough find. Hitting dusk soon and better start making our way home to Geelong.

Thank you very much for this cache

Spent a couple of days caching with Bogonghazy around Corowa. Finding a couple of geocaches on our way home. Thanks Harrowang for placing the geocache

On the way home from a couple of refreshing days in Corowa with LittleBoss2, we decided to do a few caches. Another great cache worthy of a fave. Thank you

This was my first stop on this afternoon's drive between Canberra - Melbourne!
Leaving after a morning work shift meant I had a strict schedule to get to Melbourne in time for a late dinner with a friend, so only grabbed 3 caches along the way!

This was specifically chosen out for its "Large" size, which I can never go past and love finding a large cache!

What a shame you can't access this from the highway, I wonder why they blocked off that access..... maybe there was a bad accident? Oh well, the detour didn't hurt me too much and I was able to find this great container!

Coordinates were quite off for me, I think it was 10+ metres from memory, I recorded coordinates from my device which I have added below. This didn't really matter much as it's pretty hard to miss the only stump I would say this is why nobody else has brought this up, as they probably spot the stump from their car and don't even follow their GPS!

TFTC Harrowang

**S 036° 29.778' E 146° 07.242'**

Catching up on some very late logs, now that I have time, while travelling.

Another in this area which has multiplied solar panels. It has changed so much in recent times.

Thanks for placing this cache and doing the maintenance, so we can enjoyed finding it.

Found by The Empire + H
On our way to Albury and the surrounding area for the long weekend! A quick pit stop here in Winton to check out a few of the caches around the raceway and cemetery. Now back on the road and heading into Glenrowan for popcorn. Thanks for the cache Harrowang.
- M

Instant find, TFTC. I always love seeing the bigger ones!

We are still being distracted with cache icons on our map as we head south. A ‘slight’ detour at the Winton turn off has us headed back north for the 2
Solar Farm trads.
A great container all safe and sound.
Thanks Harrowang for the placement.

# 14283 Found and logged at 11:09:00 AM
Completed Nad Kellys Letterboxes and a few otner while in Glenrawao for a few days
Thanks for the cache Harrowang
Lgoody

On the hunting trail again with SeasonedBird. I’ll leave the more interesting detailed log to Mrs Geo (aka: SeasonedBird, Salty Chook, the Old Boiler, Old Chook, Dirty Bird or Angry Bird) because she writes so much more eloquently than I and usually has much more time to do so while I’m driving. It’s a great day for caching. TFTC Harrowang
Find #8488

Found out caching with Wollaston following a great MEGA event at Wangaratta Mega.

Container condition good
Log condition lots of room

Thanks to CO’s for taking time to set out and maintain hides and for showing us your very special part of the world

Log signed in first open spot with stamp

TFTC Harrowang

Find # 6080

Today we found Winton Solar Farm on our travels. A good find opposite an interesting site.

Thanks Harrowang for being part of our geocaching fun.

02:14
On my way home after a way too brief trip to the Wangaratta Event.

This was a cheeky grab after a quick trot from an even cheekier park.

Thanks, Harrowang, for a nice big cache. Needless to say, I saw nothing of the array st stupid o'clock in the morning.

#5698

It seems I am still catching up on caches that I signed during the Mega Event in Wangaratta. It was a fun 4-5 days in wang and the trip down was nice, it will be a quick trip home and a long one as it is all up hill to Brisbane from here.
Thanks for the cache and the nice spot. Log was signed along with others in the group. Cache was replaced as found.

Day 2 of the Mega for LuckyL10n and myself and after grabbing one or two more caches in Wang, we headed down to the NKH series to finish these off before heading off to Echuca on our round trip to Mildura before heading home.

On the way to Echuca we grabbed another 20 odd caches, while also visitng some of the silo art around the area as well Lake Mokoan for a few caches in there. A couple of interesting features were spotted, a bit of history learnt and a few dirt tracks where the AWD preformed very well.

Thanks to all the CO's of the caches we found. Most logs were signed SDL and L.L10n.

We approached from a sideroad over the freeway. We waited quite a while until it was safe to dash across to log this great cache. Little did we know we'd drive along the correct road the next day and stop right near it.
Loved the container and relevant paintjob. Fav point
Thanks Harrowang

I had been set to attend another Victorian Mega but the damn pandemic began and for obvious reasons one was cancelled and one was postponed. I was pleased the postponed Wangaratta event went ahead but have to admit I was still apprehensive about the COVID situation. Although attending all events, (except 1 of the CITOs) keeping distance was still a priority. I had a great time touring with 1TOOLMAN and Budgietas although there was an empty void where SSR should have been.
As well as Wangaratta, we visited The Paps, Mt Buller, Benalla, Glenrowan, Winton and even popped in to Lex country, having dinner at Brady’s Railway Hotel. Our find numbers were low but our laugh count was high so I call that a win!

#12900 - 1:02:00 PM; Day 2 of the Wang Mega tour with Sol de lune. Returned to the Mega venue this morning to catch up with a few fellow cachers. The plan was then to hit the road to collect a couple more caches in town before heading out to finish off the Ned Kelly Helmet series (almost!), then to points south and west, with Echuca our proposed destination for the evening on our way to our furthest destination in Mildura. A popular area for solar farms, with this our second in two caches! Great to get our names into the log. TFTC Harrowang

Ok - we parked up on the other side and cross the road to grab this cache. Great cache size attracted us to this one, and we were not disappointed

----------------------------

The Mega in Victoria I had always planned to attend, but due to covid changes I was concerned, I wouldn’t be able to due to work commitments. As these commitments cleared up, I planned to go over and catch up with GoosenEgg, Stainless Steel Rat, and 1Toolman while in Wangaratta for a day caching to attempt to find 100 in one day. As things turned out Stainless Steel Rat was unable to go, so I was invited to join GoosenEgg and 1Toolman for the entire period. 1Toolman collected us from the airport and we immediately drove to Victoria’s 1st Geocache. From there during the 4 days, we visited Wangaratta, Mt Buller, Albury, Wodonga, Benella, Glenrowan, and Beechworth (although we didn’t make the bakery much to 1Toolmans disgust)

The trip was less about numbers and more about visiting places that I had only driven through before. We did manage to complete the Ned Kelly Helmet series and find a great Earthcache at Murmungee Lookout and another cache at “The Paps” which gave tremendous views of the area. The GPS maze, which I must say was one of the greatest attractions was also attended as with another cacher I was first through on the Saturday Morning at 8.15. It was great to get this icon on my profile.

Of the trip, it was certainly hot and humid, but we really didn’t get rained on in any serious way, with the major storm passing through at night time, otherwise it was just hot or very hot depending on the time of the day.

TFTC

Another find on our way home from the mega. Big day but always room for more caches. Tfct

I was traveling to the Mega with Neville_devil leaving home just after 6am. This was the first cache that I targeted because of it being a large. with the GPS set from home as this for the destination. That was only 2hour 45 minutes to the first cache.
Lucky I decided to take the Winton exit rather than approach it from the Hume like the GPS said to do or we would have hit some trouble.
The cache was found after hopping some large pools of water signing in for the first cache of a very big weekend.
Thank you Harrowang for this large cache

Nice morning caching after NKH series run
All good here
TFTC

Friends of ours sold their farm to a solar mob, but they got stuffed around and the sale fell through, but I couldn't quite grasp the picture of a solar farm in my head until this one presented itself. Hooley dooley thats quite a lot of panels. Thanks for highlighting the farm for me with you placement. tftc

Heading homeward after spending a few hours at MEGA we stopped in here to make the find. tftc

15 January 2022Nice Find
TFTC Harrowang

Found with eighthknox while at the mega tftc

Another impressive container on a drive back to Wang for the mega. tftc

Found as I made my way from Adelaide to the Mega event at Wangaratta with Freddo.

We meandered our way across northern Victoria, camping along the river and generally avoiding contact with other people as far as possible to minimise covid risks. We targeted some specific caches of interest, but also took the opportunity to find other caches opportunistically as we were passing.

Thanks Harrowang for the cache.

Nice renewable farm.

e.Gregory1 and Freddo decided to travel to Wangaratta for Geocaching Victoria’s first 2022 Mega event. The attraction of GeoMaze icon was just too tempting. We packed the Land Cruiser for a bubble environment. There would be some public exposure but we would be keeping it minimal. Fortunately we did not bother with any warm clothes. Fortunately we packed some Bushmans with +20% DEET. There were caches to find and we found caches. We saw a lot of interesting places and met the occasional geocacher or two in the field.

I will apologize right now, because everything from here on is here solely for the purpose of padding the word count.

This particular geocache was found using one of the following GPS enabled devices, Garmin GPSr, Montana 680t, Oregon 650 or Dakota 20 and a Samsung S8. Waypoints and paperless geocaching were downloaded via GSAK 9. Log prepared, checked and submitted using GSAK publish logs...

Warning, this hobby can be addictive. It can lead to exercise, meeting new people and finding interesting places you might not have known existed otherwise. Beware: you may have fun.

Thanks for the cache. Merci la cache. Danke für den Cache. Gracias por el caché. Bedankt voor de cache. Kiitos kätköstä. Zikomo posungira. Terima kasih untuk cache. Hvala cache. Köszönöm a cache. Nga mihi mo te keteroki. Dankie vir die kas.

Another quickie on the way past to elsewhere.
Nice work on the cache. Easily found.
TNLNSL
Thanks

Heading from Winton to Glenrowan for a day of caching and just had to stop for a few along the way. Collected this one on our way back. Thanks.

Hard to miss this inedible crop that they are growing to the north of towne
I wonder if there are any plans to race electric cars at the nearby race track to take advantage of this abundance of 'free' power ??

After some wondering about how long it would take this large array of panels to offset the carbon credits used during manufacture and transport of all the infrastructure,
I poked around a natural source of carbon storage to find this cache

Odd choice of log book cover methinks

TFTC

Out caching today around Glenrowan looking for caches. Found many, so changing to yellow smiley faces. Thanks for bringing to this location. TFTC

quickly had this one in hand found with little blue wren
Signed and replaced TFTC

TFTC. Quick find while out with Aussie Fun Seakers.

Good spot

One of many caches found during the week of the 2021 Wangaratta Mega. Thanks to all Cache Owners for their contribution to our recreational activity!

I enjoyed finding a larger, themed container at GZ. TFTC

Nice pick up. So many solar panels here.
Day 2 of our Mega trip with Kittykatch, Grimraider, barb2e and Isopeda. So excited to have some time off and go on a caching holiday. Signing as Capital Crunchers.

Thanks For getting me out and about Harrowang

Found with Joolay, isopeda and Kittykatch on our second day in Wangaratta. Nice cache. Tftc

Out here for the Mega with Kittykatch Joolay and Barb2e.
Fantastic weather today.
Loved the Logbook cover.

TFTC

Dropped some TBs
Found as part of our roadtrip to Wangaratta to attend the Mega with GrimRaider, Joolay isopeda and barb2e (signed as Capital Crunchers). Thanks for your hide here Harrowang

I’m ducking home for a few days to check on the menagerie of animals we have before going back up to Punka to continue our holiday leading up to the Wang Mega.

I needed a swish stick here to swish the cobwebs away when I initially searched in the wrong area. Finally I found the spot the cache was hiding. Not sure why I make things harder than they need to be sometimes.

The cache and log in good condition.

Thank you for the cache here Harrowang ??

A quick find with Sheepdog91. TFTC.

Good one

On our frequent trips up this way we have always looked at and wondered about these solar farms. They just seemed to appear and are vast.
Great to have a cache nearby for a closer look.

After a short trip to Tumut to catch up with family and friends it was time to head for home today.
It had rained all night last night and was still raining as we left. This continued all the way until we reached Wodonga where it began to fine up. This meant we had no opportunity to look for any caches en route until then, but we still were organized to look on the remainder of the journey. We managed to find a number of traditionals, some of good size, a pre-solved puzzle and an Adventure Lab in Healsville.
They broke up the journey well!

Thank you for your efforts in creating and maintaining the cache Harrowang.
**SKI Pair****

The last one in a very long and enjoyable day's caching. It was well after dark and we were on our way home, but we called in to mark this one off my list. Thank you Harrowang for providing this cache.

17 October 2021
12:11 pm
1054
Many thanks Harrowang for providing and maintaining this game piece for our enjoyment.

Unfortunately the trackable is missing.

Long green grass to walk through but the promise of an ammo can was the reward.
On the back roads towards the NKH series today.
Thanks Harrowang.

Nice spot on the old Highway. Lots of goodies in the container! TFTC Harrowang.