Going in circles Port Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia
By Husky_ on 03-Aug-24. Waypoint GCAW34J

Found at 3:24 PM GAFF5/1. What a stroke of luck with the puzzle! GSAK just about solved it for me At GZ though it wasn't as easy and once again we had to deploy an assistant TOTT. Gosh we now have to carry extra stuff with us just in case Thanks Husky_.

A clever and succinct puzzle which initially had us going around in circles, seeing circles and lost in a maze. A nudge, gratefully received soon had us back on track, and so we sat down at our campsite after the drive and without too much effort soon had a set of coordinates and a green light from the checker. Today, we were able to retrieve this small and high altitude cache! Returning it proved more difficult and we needed to head back to the car to bring back some extra resources which made the return somewhat easier. (we add a favourite point, however, if it were placed any higher it would discourage people, even those who have perhaps solved the puzzle themselves and would like to collect the hide). Although we had enough equipment to retrieve and return, it was time-consuming, and above all a good puzzle like this one deserves to be found. While at GZ, the COs arrived, having seen our car parked nearby. It was great as always to say hello to a couple of cachers in the field. Keep up the good work with the puzzles and hides Husky! Thanks Husky for the puzzle. Great to meet you. A FP added. Domsky

I had preconceived idea about where this was before coming across the solution, and once I had the final coordinates at hand, we made a fairly quick "find". The next part, the retrieval, was going to be a little more difficult. Having learnt from our previous find this arvo, we had to combine a couple of our TOTTs. These recent puzzles and hides have been crazy. FP awarded. Cheers from Browngang.

We had to go to the UNI to do a KWmoo cache so we decided that we would continue on to look at this cache. Rang KWMoo who met us at GZ with her fishing pole also.Bill made some adjustments on the spot combining the two poles & now we had enough fire power to make the attempt. The wind was no help but after some time we managed to get it down, returning the cache to it's lofty heights was a little easier.I remember seeing the puzzle before it was published & I thought it was something I had not seen at all before. Looked it a few times & had to get a push to solve it.FP givenThanks Husky for the hide

I had partially solved this one but was stuck on what to do next, when I saw a photo log from team 737 and knew exactly where to find the cache... in the same row of trees I was planning to hide my first treefishing cache lol! I walked over and unfortunately my TOTT was a little too short to get it down.Fast forward to this morning when I had a late morning wake up call from DiMorgan who were in the area. I jumped out of bed to join them. A quick craft project by Bill joining our 2 poles and we had the length needed to get the prize down, signed, and back up.I must say this is a little ridiculous when a 10 metre pole is not long enough to get the job done. Hopefully this isn't some competition to see who can put the highest cache up where no one can get to it?! Kinda takes away from the enjoyment of the game. TFTC and stealing my hiding spot Husky

Adding a favourite point now. It was a favourite because of a cool puzzle and the awesome help we got from the CO, Wollaston and grey team here. There is no way that we would have been able to retrieve this and other similarly-placed geocaches without them. This type of placement puts these geocaches out of reach for us in more ways than one. Geocaching is a really fun game but were just not so into it that we will invest in the required TOTT. And its a favourite for being singularly memorable. Cheers Gaztek

Up from Sydney for casual geocaching in the Mid North Coast and staying a few days in Port Macquarie. Now this was a challenge!! Mrs Gaztek solved the tricky puzzle last week after going around in circles a bit. Previous logs indicated we would need a specialist TOTT so we travelled from home with one attached to the geo-vehicle. Arrived at GZ and were surveying the situation when up pulled grey team. Weird but very welcome timing!! Once the container was spotted we clearly knew our TOTT would be ineffective but Wollaston was very, very well prepared. Apparently, theres a thing going on in this community. Mrs Gaztek got to assemble the tool for the first attempt but it was not sufficient. From there Wollaston got in the drivers seat and his skill and obvious experience plus some back seat driving from the rest of us, the container arrived in his hand. Of course, the tricky bit was the replacement. Despite a 3-1 vote in favour of not quite replacing this as found, Wollaston did the right thing - a model geo-citizen. Thank you so much, grey team. Without you, we would be writing a very different log. Happy travels for your upcoming trip and see you in Sydney at the GeoQuest Block Part on 26 January 2025. Will award a favourite point when we collect enough! SL TFTC Cheers Gaztek

Solved this one recently after having trouble getting the numbers to work. Resorted to manually converting the numbers with a table to get the co ordinates. Today out caching with Wollaston before I head overseas tomorrow. Arrived here to find Gaztek here surveying the area too. Teamed up to collect this one although Wollaston did the retrieval while we 3 watched on and directed. The wind was not our friend today, nevertheless with persistence (particularly from Wollaston) we had a cache to sign. TFTC and reluctantly (because I do not want to encourage you to put out more high caches!!) a favorite point is awarded for this one.

Teamed up with grey team once again who was clever enough to solve the puzzle, my part was being clever enough to have a capable TOTT, a steady hand and enough persistence. On arriving at GZ, I was amused to see two people wandering around the woods looking high into the trees. it was lovely to meet Gaztek and we had ample time to chat and enjoy their company throughout the lengthy retrieval and replacement process in the wind. As much as I enjoyed the challenge of this difficult capture and as always, I very much appreciate the effort some of the local COs put into to these puzzles and containers, Im reluctantly breaking my own guide by not allocating a favourite point due to my concern that some tree fishing cache heights are now over the top which in my humble opinion, will severely limit the numbers of cachers that will either attempt or have a successful capture and replacement which is probably not much fun for anyone. That being said, I did love it! Its always a great day for caching. TFTC Husky_For anyone looking for bucket list event to attend, check out: GCANXX1 - GeoWoodstock XXI on 24th May 2025 in West Virginia, USA. See you there.

Whoa! That felt epic! Kept looking and my eyes were going around in circles. Something made me see them just a little differently and that set me on the road to a solution with some confirmation from the CO. Things still didn't look quite right until I finally applied some common sense to what the solution should be. Soon had coordinates in hand and now we learn that was the easy part. We'll drop in to GZ and see what we can do. Cheers... Gaztek

#8079We're on our way to Kempsey for the weekend, for some country-music-caching around the fabled 'Slim' trail. We spent the day in the Port Macquarie area, starting out in Kew/Laurieton and grabbing interesting caches as we went, managing a cool 19 finds in average weather - although despite a fair bit of rain we never really seemed to get that wet. Nice puzzle it gave way when I cast a hex on it, a few digital manoeuvres later and coords were discovered. Tricky fish, I failed, then consulted as Samuel landed itThanks for the cache!

#8079Hunter Cachers in Kempsey event has brought us up north for the weekend, and theres plenty to do. Targeting the good DTs mainly, and other cool types or caches that look fun! end of copy paste Relatively quick puzzle solve, but the retrieval took ages! Kept getting caught in the soft tree bark and missing the cache, but after changing trajectory a few times, it was down! Replaced as found, TNLN SLThanks for placing and maintaining this cache Husky_

I'm not doing a DNF on this one as we actually found it....... BUT no way right now can we sign the log. Time for some thinking about how to get our names in that logbook. ..

After solving the puzzle, and finding the cache in the new location, we were most disappointed to realise we were quite out of our depth (by approx 8m)! This cache type seems quite intimidating, hopefully can return one day when the kit has some more tools

Published

With the solve done late last night by Portstevo (unsurprisingly) we planned to grab this one before work today. With the soggy conditions Portstevo opted to skip his morning run in favour of caching so we ducked out earlier than planned. With some bouncy guardians nearby GZ wasn't too hard to locate, the guardians bounded off to leave us to it. With a little bit of reach left over we managed to to get the cache in hand without too much trouble. Another FTF! TFTC, Portstevo is certainly enjoying the puzzles in these new caches.

Tftc. Joint FTF with red_ear_slider. Getting ready for bed when a new puzzle appeared! Didn't take long for the oh moment and the keyword appeared. Up early and at GZ the cache retrieval was quitena reach. Hardest part was hooking it, from there up and down not too difficult.