The Old Thief Inverell, New South Wales, Australia
By Waters Too Cold on 24-May-03. Waypoint GCG5BN

Found it after a long prickly search. Thanks!

Another great location with some great features and views. Well worth the walk.The cache is a bit scorched from recent fires but the contents were all good.A full day in Inverell, but being Sunday things were pretty quiet. We still had a few caches in town to find but also wanted to head out to the Goonoowigall Conservation Area. We were glad we did as there were some great features to see in the park, and the walk was a gentle one although we still walked nearly 10km. We enjoyed The Slot, Thunderbolt Rocks and the falls, appreciating the views back to town too.Finally we headed out to the lake, another beautiful area.Some good caches were found on our travels as well!Thank you for your efforts in creating and maintaining the cache HoSports.**SKI Pair****

Unable to find today, and with daylight getting on, we had to call it a DNF.

It's great to get such an oldie and in such a beautiful spot. Older than my oldest child who's almost 21. Found on an impromptu Easter road trip with CaptainVimes and little_miss_cacher. Thanks for the cache HoSports

Found on a little explore around Goonoowigal. Nice to see this once has survived so much. Thanks for placing

What a walk! Quick find once at GZ - as others have said cap missing, but contents dry. Relaxed the torn log bag. Took a toy car, left a minion! TFTC and thank you for bringing us here! Lovely view!

A nice early morning walk and a cache at the end. Cap missing and contents wet. Pick up travel bug will move along

Found with Dora the Explorer. I nice hike to the top. A travel bug dropped off. TFTC

Didn't take too long to find. Log bag needs to be replaced. Container is missing lid and log book is damp.

Little bit burnt but still managed to sign the log. Great spot thanks for bringing us here.TFTC

Had us going around in circles for a bit but we eventually zoned in on this cleverly hidden cache.
Lovely hike on a beautiful day.
TFTC

Loved the hike and the hide, left a pathtag.

Finally found this one after a few failed attempts!! Didn’t have a pen to sign the log. Beautiful views of the town. TFTC

Went for a walk thru this park today and grabbed a couple of caches along the way. This was our first find today. You can see the affect the container and some swag has been affected by the fire.
Nice hide. Thanks for the cache

Great little hiding spot.

Nice container. Unfortunately it’s been a bit annihilated in the fires. TFTC.

Too hard for us today.

I had to have a go at this one,spent way too much time here but still couldn’t come up with it, I feel it’s probably here somewhere,next time.Great view though.TFTC

Unfortunately didn't find it
Goonoowigal conservation park is only a few minutes up the road from me so decided to go for an early morning walk.
Searched for about half an hour with no success. I'm fairly certain from what I have read that I was in the right area but unfortunately no luck. Will go back and try again soon.

Missing log from our trip earlier in the year.
TFTC

This cache had clearly gone through the wars, but it was nearly 100% intact. Took the TB that was here to place in somewhere more accessible

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Oh what a trip! We finally bit off more than we could chew but it still somehow managed to end well!

Aquilus1 and myself have been striving on a mission for some time now... to get ALL the counties in NSW. We did the hard ones early actually, via two trips flying to Adelaide and driving to Sydney/Melbourne respectively. The previous trip was a simple Newcastle loop, so....finally the time had come....six months overdue because of Covid lockdowns to complete the last loop: Armidale/Ballina.

Of course, its not just about the counties, we crammed in a bunch of larges, DT, virtuals and even a Wherigo.

Day -30: Qantas screw us over and cancel our Armidale flight.... so a frenzied replan and Qantas agree to fly us to Ballina instead....bonus is that the car hire from Ballina comes with UNLIMITED km's.... this is great as we knew we would exceed the max by about 1200km...not cheap!

Day 1: We fly into Ballina, marvel at the super crap roads and all the people not working, but exercising, without shirts, in and around Byron. So glad my tax dollars support these people! After driving north to scary cow country we went west and made it as far as Tenterfield, but not before we got an amazing surprise FTF on a challenge cache in Casino....happy days! Yet another crazy late night pizza guy, and a lovely motel manager who had the BEST beds in NSW greeted us.

Day 2: Tenterfield to Tamworth, the long way, via Moree. Long drive through windmill country with some amazing walks for oldies and great views of cool mountains.....we said to ourselves "wow, look at that, there should be an Earthcache here that we could log fro the road".... and there WAS!!! We repeated this trick on day 3 as well. Got to love that. Outside Moree we found piles of various grains at the rest stop.... I wonder what that was about.

Day 3: Tamworth to Kempsey, we saw Armidale on Sunday... so quiet, but a great Virtual and a ridiculous journey through head high grass....for someone with allergies this was nuts! We managed a tricky challenge cache series and a multi that required Aquilus1 to go crazy high on a tree.... that ladder was well worth it yet again!

Day 4: More larges and then a great paddle for some great DT. The water at Stuarts Point was so nice, we kept going and going.....which in hindsight maybe wasnt the best idea, but we knew how far we had to get, and how much time we had.... the windy roads then roadworks however messed those plans up. 15 minutes late, watching them start to load the plane we werent on just sucked.... but, the HJ's (and our desperation) fueled the many new plans until Plan 'F', for fabulous, came to fruition.

We made it home, a little later than expected with slightly grumpier partners than ideal.... but we made it! Planes, trains & automobiles in the end..... so glad we didnt have to walk from Goulburn!

GreyHams and myself have been targeting counties for some time now and this trip was to be the last of the NSW counties... It would see ALL NSW counties complete!

It sure has taken us through some amazing places in the state as we journeyed through all of the counties, this trip would see the last 23 counties needed of the 129. One again we saw a lot of variety over the four days from the scenic coast, lush green country side, rainforest, mountains and out west to a much drier and flatter landscape.

Counties were our priority for this trip, and an abundance of larges also made the select list, Virtuals, types, old ones, interesting ones and of course DT, if your cache made this list it had a quality that was needed... we also managed a surprise FTF along the way as well!

It wouldn't be a trip without the ladder, or the esky... and good old Qantas happily checked them in with our bags!

GreyHams was as always a great companion, driver, navigator, cache finder, planner, ladder carrier, disaster management solver on another very enjoyable trip, NSW counties complete... go team!!! Looking forward to the next adventure!

CACHE DETAILS: We were not sure of accessing this cache as we had read that the area was closed but with no logs for a while we decided to just go see. The area is again all open and their are no signs to state other wise. Of course, with the fires the odds of this cache being damaged or missing was a possibility.

It was a warm day so we opted for the slightly longer but less hilly way, the area is still really nice despite the fires... although not as shady any more! Lots of regrowth and a pleasant walk, soon enough we had made our way to GZ and the giant slab of granite had us hopeful of a cache find.

Quickly spotted a piece of the lids rim on a rock, a small piece and burnt. Not the result we wanted but continued to search, it wasn't looking good and then GreyHams pulled out the cache, mostly intact, not as straight but it remains.

The contents are in remarkable condition but the heat would have been immense. A very bent pen a deformed plastic car, the logs zip bag a bit melted one side but the log is good but the tiniest melted cover, so slight. a little burnt on one side, looks like the heat in the container burst the lid off? luckily really as it would not of been able to open otherwise. all bits are there and the cache is tucked away in a good spot as this has lasted all that time and remains dry and well. Didn't flick through the pages of the log but attached photo of the last page this cache was left on, we signed on the new page over.

Very pleased to see this survived and still remains. It will need a new container but hanging in there at the moment well enough given the circumstances.

We came to find this cache today but this area of bushland is at the moment closed to the public due to the recent bushfires and dangerous condition of some areas. Trees have been badly damaged and could topple.

Interestingly I sent an email to the CO and reviewers suggesting this should be disabled back in mid December, as I watched aerial bombers dropping loads on the fire engulfing this area! One of these bombers was a DC10 dropping huge amounts of retardant!
I was there as part of an SA deployment battling this fire!

I have been to Inverell several times. I went for this once but I was running out of time and had turned back. But this time I did it. The old thief has been captured another of Thunderbolts hide always conquered. Thanks for this one and for the exercise now to go back uphill.

Love this cache, had the coolest stuff in it took a while to find

We’re slowly travelling south and stopped in here for a bush walk and to find this cache. The view from here over the towns is a bonus. Can see how ‘the old thief’ could easily ‘disappear’ in this rugged countryside.
Thanks heaps for this cache HoSports.

Given the name of the cache and that several finders mentioned the view in their logs, we deduced that the cache would be at the lookout on Thunderbolt’s track. We doubted ourselves a few times when we appeared to be getting further away from the cache but we stuck to our decision and was soon at the lookout and GZ was only 40m away. A surprisingly quick find was made.
TFTC

TFTC!
A lovely meander through the bush, which got a bit tougher at the end, but well worth it for the view. Lots of swaps.

Spending a couple of days at Copeton Dam, went into town after lunch to do some caching.
This was a great way to visit the town. A good variety of hides & caches found.
Too windy for hubby to fish he decided to go for a walk to this old cache. He had read to keep right but this wasn't always the case as at one intersection it took him in the wrong direction.
FP for making him do this walk
Thanks for placing this cache HoSports

Drove as far as we could on this cold, blustery day and had lunch before walking the trail. We spent the day caching, completing our finds in Inverell. A good walk throgh typically granite country brought us at last to the GZ. This is where the fun began. Round and round in circles being led by Monty, aka my GPSr, until in the end I opened he ache again and Monty took us straight to the cache. After my name was added to the log I replaced the container where I had found it. Thanks for placing and maintaining this cache for us to find Waters Too Cold. It is full of swag so left a Tb to be discovered.

Great little hike with an easy find! Nice view just near the cache.

Found at 2:24 PM GAFF3.
We targeted this cache for some time as we are after all of the caches that are still active that were published before we started caching and this one is probably the closest to home that we haven't found!
A beautiful winter's day - clear sky and a slight breeze and another adventure that we have been looking forward to. We headed off along the track and then after a short while we were not sure we were on the right track as the track was meandering left and right, however after a short while we came across a wonderful sign - Thunderbolt's Track! Now given the cache name we knew we were on the right route - so off we go and within a few moments we were looking over Inverell and enjoying the view.
Looked at the GPSr and it said to go another 54 metres so of I go looking at how many possible hiding spots there are. I then reminded myself at the date that this cache way placed and thought the worst regarding GPSr accuracy, but I persevered and at 1 metres distance guess what I found! Spot on - there was the cylinder and what an amount of stash was in it!
Thanks HoSports - really enjoyed it.

A satisfying find. Took a selfie with the camera token. Ha ha. I am pleased I did the walk in winter. Not too hot. A pleasant hike in . . . and back. tftc.

Took some finding but got it in the end.There are lots and lots and lots of rocks that I couldn't lift to choose from. The quality EDGE watch in the cache needs a new battery!. Didn't use the sparklers.
Great cache.
Thanks

After finishing work i decided to find a few caches in the area. this was first one. I managed to pick the correct track after taking a slight wrong turn initially. took a few minutes to locate as my GPS wasn't settling down. I admired the view whilst I signed the log. TFTC

tftc nice view

tftc

It's still here nice view

Found it on day after Boxing Day with our friends Gemstar.

After a slight detour on the wrong track, finally found the correct route. As often is the case, the walk is it's own reward with great birdlife, unique flora & a view to tell others about. Dropped off a geocoin. Thanks for sharing this great spot.

Took a fair bit of searching! But found it in the end. Great spot. TFTC TNLN

This has been a cache that I have wanted to find for a long time and I was not disappointed as there was a spectacular view back to Inverell.
I also enjoy walking on bush tracks and this was a great walk.
I took the track on the right which was the best way to go as it is not very steep. I walked down the hill on the way back which is a steep walk down. I caught up with a large school group on my way back.
I was caching with my phone and it got me right to GZ. There is lots of stuff in this cache. I took the geo coin and will move it on.
I will give this one a favourite point.
Thanks HoSports for a great hide.

Day two of our five day geocaching trip to Canberra for Easter. Today we cached Inverell and Warialda.

Oh goody! Another walk. Not sure where we were going or where we would end up, so we consulted the notice board at the parking point, and decided that the hint meant that we take such-and-such a path. OK - let's go. Passed a couple of people returning for their walk near the beginning, but none after that. Turned at the appropriate point where the trail went up across some rocks then Mrs RoccyC comes to a sunned halt and starts stepping back into my pathway. It was a very large red-belly black snake on the path. After a while it decided to move off, and we continued, following now the compass which soon led us to a likely "leave-the;trail" point. This was a very very large flat rock. So the cache must be over there. Having found it, the clue made sense - sever pipe is what we call a PVC pipe. Ahhhh! All in goo order. Took a few nice photographs of the view of Inverell, then set off back to the parking point, glad that the steepness of the track was on the downwards direction for the return journey. A Favourite from us.

Found at 10.40am on 21st March 2016. TFTC.

FP

Good cache, nice walk and great view! What more could you ask for in a geocaching experience? Dropped off geocoin, FP awarded, tftc

This is our 100th cache - its taken a while but we have enjoyed the journey. Thanks to all the cache owners out there. And thanks HoSports for this cache. Our favourite caches are out in the bush and involve a bit of a walk. This cache fit the bill perfectly; a well-thought out hide, a nice view and a great walk through some really interesting landscape.

What a view! Great find tftc

Awesome spot!! Thanks

I enjoyed the walk, loved the cache but think the signage is confusing. Sign board says Thunderbolts track starts at car park, but track signs call it waterfall walk.
Best parking and entrance is off Goonoowigall road, then take the right hand walk with Parks and Services sign at beginning, about 1.4kms along turn onto Thunderbolts track (it's signed). The cache is easily reached from the lookout. You can complete a loop back to the car. Sign boards at carpark.
I had awesome weather, great views, hot winters day.

What a lovely way to spend a morning! View from the top is beautiful. Thanks for adding a cache to a great spot.

Wow what a Cache. well done only thing is could you please add a starting point into the description as it took me a while to realise where I should start.

Not being a local and must have had a senior moment as It took a while to realise who the old thief was.

Yes I was kicking my self when I realised who he was and where to start.

Enjoyed the walk but had to travel 1.3km in 1/2 hour before sunset.

Looks cool TFTC

This entry was edited by Littlerober53 on Saturday, 02 May 2015 at 12:09:52 UTC.

Yay

What a wonderful walk to GZ. Suggest you leave geo mobile in the parking area as others have said. There's a large map on a display that you can also study before your venture, which shows all the various trails. Be sure to take the correct trail or else you could be in for a loooong walk.

Normally I don't like caches that are out in the middle of nowhere, but for the scenery, the interesting rocks along the way, I'll award a favourite point.

Well done !

Suggest use Goonoowigiall Road not Stagg Lane .VERY wet day but good fun. left lamp.Thanks HoSports , ps(mist) the veiws..

Did not find this cache as we took the wrong path!! Walks a bit longer than I first thought but still had a great time with the kids

No luck. Don't you hate it when the co ords are sus. I recommend the walk to the falls. More like cascades but nice.

Awesome view but more of a treck then first thought! TFTC

Pretty view, but you need good walking shoes! TFTC!

Oh what a disaster this turned out to be, the track that I had to follow in the end to reach this Cache would require a 10 Star rating for terrain. My mistake was to enter the park by the side entrance, and followed the walking path which led me to a position approximately 300 meters from the high ground and continued to in an ark at the same distance from GZ until the path swung to the left and due south away from the Cache location. At this point I decided take to the dense bush and huge Granit boulders. And steadily worked my way up to the top where the large flat rock was located and homed in on the Cache.

This with a doubt was the toughest climb that I have ever experienced in my life, and at age 75 I think that I deserve a Medal. I then located the Cache which was several meters off the coordinate (about 7)
With that done and dusted the next challenge was to find the track that led down from the top, but look as I may I could not locate any track. So I made the decision to descend in a northerly direction toward Inverell, as the path that I had previously traversed was in that direction. After a difficult descent I joined the path that I had come in on, the total journey took me 4 hours, and I was totally buggered at the end.

Those of you who may read this Log report, make sure that you enter the park through the main entrance and join the path that will lead you to the summit where the Cache is located. Do not enter where I entered from, as that path will not lead you to where the Cache is. The view from the top over Inverell is very good. But my journey was the journey from HELL !!!

Another one down

Enjoyed the walk and the view. Will return another time to do the longer tracks. TFTC

After a nice lunch on the rock and 30 minute trek about the beautiful look out we found the cache.
Took hose clamp, sticky hand and toy horse. Replaced with finger puppet, bouncy ball and tin with toy dog.
Great find, thanks.

Thunderbolt could have hidden here forever if only he didn't get greedy, SL, TFTC

Found by Deb accompanied by Rob and Daughter Tiffy.
Nice walk lovely views coordinates out by 12 meters.

Go Team Croaker C/B


.

This entry was edited by Littlerober53 on Sunday, 03 February 2013 at 09:15:23 UTC.

Our first find in the Inverell. My home town but haven't been back in a long while. Enjoyed visiting old haunts and showing the family around. Thanks for the cache.

found with pikapene tftc

great cache, location and walk all in one. number three find for us on our day out, some decent loot compared to alot of others. left tigers mini cap and kids camera. tftcsl

great cache, amazing view! love it.

Found after Aussie_Rover89 SL
TFTC

Very nice cache, beautiful view make sure you take a camera... I didn't and so will be going back to explore some more and take a few snaps if I have time while in town.

Found it after a long walk 5km or so. Took traveling thomas

Had a picnic lunch and walked the circuit track. Thunderbolt sure knew the vantage spots-guess there's no point in being a bushranger if you're not smart. Great cache chocked full of swaps. Took pathtag, left TB.

# 224. This was a great cache and gets a "Favourite Point" from me. A lovely 3.8km return walk doing Thunderbolt's Track with GZ at about the 2km point - going anti-clockwise. A beautiful walk through the little wildflowers and great boulders and lovely trees. Well worth taking the time and the effort to find the cache. And, this is from a non-walker. There are a lot of different walking loops here.

A nice quick find at GZ.

Took: Billy Goat, Sheep, Indian, and Geoswag 2009 GC.
Left: Blue Frog, Keyring, Pathtag.

Easiest spot for parking is at Goonoowigall Bush Reserve: S29 48.971, E 151 07.036

Found with the help of a stray swapping item on the ground nearby. Good cache.

What a nice hike! Thanks so much HoSports for bringing this Canadian to this awesome place. I left a trackable coin. Thanks!

Enjoyed the tracks and the location although it was very wet underfoot after all the rain. TFTH

An absolutely magical spot. Perfect for a bushranger to watch for his foe

We couldn't find a spot to park because our Nuvi 500 took us to the private properties, no idea where to start the walk...we gave up without attempting to find this cache but if the owner adds a waypoint it would help a lot. Thanks.

Went for a walk up on Sunday afternoon to park the Jeep.

Nice to see some visitors have smashed a heap of bottles in the area.

Gotta love JD & JB's.

Walked and walked then searched and searched for what seemed like hours....beautiful location and met a loverly lady on the way down who gave me some of her fresh home grown rockmelon. Do you think it may have gone or been muggled?

Started off on a mild sunny day which was burny hot by the time we returned to the car. Quite distracted along the way with wildflowers, birds and rock formations but we kept the main objective (the cache) in mind and continued on our merry way. Found the lookout at GZ and after searching for about 20 minutes eventually found the cache. Interesting to find that an item dropped in in 2004 is still there and in good condition. Returned to the car by the same route with lots more photos along the way.

TNLNSL
TFTC
Magpyre

a great walk and fantastic location for a cache.

The GPS read 1.2 k so off we strolled without checking the signs first. 2k later and an interesting walk we arrived at the cache.
Thanks HoSports

Did the circuit walk .Love this granite country ,but it's a tad dry at the moment. Should have read the hint B4 setting out not just B4 writing the log entry. My GPS had me some distance away so it took longer than it should have. Enjoyed the walk and the challenge. On to the next. TNLN TFTC

Nice walk thanks for the cache and views....the rocks were just fantastic made me want to climb. Which I did, who sticks to tracks in this area other than the motorbikes who are not allowed to use the park!

Well after all the rain we had this week my Brother In Law and I took the Geo-pooch for a 6km walk around the tracks here. Once at the GZ we took about 45mins to find the cache. The sky Gods musta been toying with us today as the GPSr had us about 5m out and its usually spot on. Anyway took in the views and we were on our way. TNLNSL TFTC

Lovely walk! Wildflowers just about to blossom. Took a model car, left a garnet. TFTC. The Garnets.

A late afternoon stroll after work on my last day in Inverell. Easy find and lovely granite tors. Thunderbolt got around the countryside more than I do. I think more caches should be in PVC pipes - they are also in good condition with dry contents after many years. TNLN. Many thanks.

found it, thankfully today was a bit pleasent

After a hot day and lovely day spent out at Green Valley Farm we decided to do a Cache on our way back. Wow was a stinker and we were rather hot n sweaty upon our arrival at GZ. Took a bit of searching but we eventually came up with the Goods. TNLN TFTC Thanks Turbo Chickens

A good hike with zero breeze and lots of humidity - very hot and sweaty by the end but well worth it for a great view and top spot. Cache hidden well but not too hard a find. TNLN. Thanks for a good cache, Iveysleague.

Lovely walk to this one. Great views. We logged the first for the new year. Friendly goat greeted us upon arrival. What a whopper of a cache! Thanks for the tour around and history lesson. Found during a camping trip in Northern NSW. ...eatmorchickin and stigglepot from Brisbane.

This was a great walk saw a great heard of wild goats with very big horns .
found the cache in quick time t/n/l/n/s/l . thanks for the cache
regards Angel Dust.

What a fantastic walk to an interesting area. It was about to rain so we left the hats and tooks jackets to our distress as the sun came out and it became quite hot. Stopped and admired the view at Thunderbolts Rock and walked to the falls and stopped at the Slot. This is a terrific cache and really loved it. Thanks for taking us to this wonderful place. Left a friend.
John and Helen.

Pleasant hike, great views. Our first cache find & very enjoyable!

A great walk in the bush. This is one place we would not have found with geocaching. Arrived at GZ just as a storm front rolled over Inverell bringing a shower of rain. Enjoyed exploring the rocks and caves. TFTC. TNLN.

Enjoyable walk. We love these granite formations. The old thief certainly knew how to find some good higing spots. A bit like geocachers. Cache in good condition. TNLN. Thanks Waters Too Cold

Nice little hike for the kids. Great view. Tnx