Bowerbird Blue Pallarenda, Queensland, Australia
By cassowary on 10-Jul-04. Waypoint GCJYWA

Easy find once I stopped focusing on the exact location my phone was pointing me to. Great view from up here. Cheers Fergus

TFTC

Thanks, not what we were looking for, but cool

Tftf:)

Thank you for the great walk. Forgot pen sign log. Great place thanks for bringing us here

Keen to get this oldie cache so it shows yellow when I search by oldest on the website. A nice mid-afternoon stroll up the track and sat and signed in once found. Some great views down onto the lagoons, which was nice. Good to see the coordinates written in the lid too.

After a small amount of tasks in the morning I managed to score a vehicle for a few hours and my target area was Cape Pallarenda for a couple of desirable Challenge caches and a shot at Townsville's oldest cache in Bowerbird Blue. I was out for about 6 hours and only modest find numbers but a good trip away from Base, and 13kms walked. As always, thanks to all COs.

Third visit with the group.
Last 3 entries in the log book in-fact.
More people should visit this one.

Out with the goals group for some daily activity. At the lookout we realised we were only 12m away and the SPOR was staring at us.

Great views from GZ.
Thanks for keeping this old one alive.

Impromptu hike up the side of a mountain in a dress and thongs after lunch with husband to look for the cache that eluded us the first time we tried to find it. We were successful this time. Dedication to the cache.

Found it TFTC Found in good condition. Geogran kids did good swaps

Continuing on with searching for at least 10 of the oldest 20 caches in Townsville saw me walk to Townsville’s 2nd oldest cache and oldest without Island hopping to Magnetic Island. It also is a cache without any numbers in the cache code, something we haven’t seen for many years, I’d imagine. Walking to this point opens up a glorious view of the Town Common and across to Castle Hill. Looks pretty fantastic and you can see why it has garnered a few favourite points in its 18 year history. Mount Marlow is covered in cloud at the moment and it would be rather dark up there if I was to continue climbing to it tonight. It does look to be a quicker find from the other end if I cycled in so I will see what I think of that over the weekend. It would probably be a mightier find than Bald Rock to bring up my 10th to qualify for for the challenge but Bald rock would be easier. Will see how the weather holds up tomorrow. Till then, I will just enjoy the walk back down from this vista. What a great old cache, complete with original log book. Can’t see what the needs maintenance was all about. Nothing wrong with this one.
Our state reviewer didn’t seem to grab many when he came up here for the mega but I would have expected to see his name on this and there it is mid photo. Thanks for the cache

Found together with my son on our roadtrip along Australias eastcoast.
Thank you for this cache and greetings,
Nambawan from Liechtenstein

Tftc

Great view

Thank you for the cache!

This is as far as we are going in here today.. A bit of a walk in. Found it o.k. tftc and the walk.

#17432 @0735
Day 16 of a 3 week holiday driving from Canberra to Townsville and back to attend the Mega. Today my focus was completing the book series, and then traveling across to Magnetic Island. I started with this Golden Oldie. A pleasant early morning walk to and from the cache. Soon found once at GZ. Lovely views. TFTC.

Found at 2:50:00 PM(t) GAFF1.
After a big morning of tree climbing and poling, we headed over to Cape Pallarenda to find a few more of these challenge caches.
Found that I had to walk about 800 metres, but it due to the great views, it was quite pleasant and didn't take too long.
That now completes our requirement for 10 of the oldest caches in TVL
Thanks cassowary.

Would have liked to have found enough old caches for the challenge nearby but we're nowhere near close. Still great to find one of Townville's originals. TFTC cassowary.

As part of the CacheQLD committee I am here working, caching, catching up with friends and generally having a fab time. Some awesome puzzles up this way and some tricky and adventurous hides! Awesome experience! Loving the oldies

I made it. 18 days on my bicycle cycling over 1850km.
Now to catch up with friends and find a few caches.
I nice short hike to it and
a quick find.
Thanks for the adventures and cache.

#5601

MEGA Trip - day 4

Assembled the full MEGATRON crew (bella at waggy, dahumbug, tardis0061, crash2079) for an early CITO at Rowes Bay. Then the plan was to tidy up the remaining caches at Pallarenda, before heading towards the book series and the bone yard.

This was a special target to get us one step closer to qualifying for the challenge nearby. There is something quite special about finding these old school caches.

TFTC cassowary

An early morning start for the CITO and then up the trail and hill to pick up this old one. Nice views and being a D1 we took too long to make the find until we just about tripped over it.
Signed as The Megatrons being The Bug, Crash, Tardis plus myself. TFTC

Day 4 Townsville Mega
Found it with TBU1BIKESU Tftc
cassowary

Oh another Oldie! Great!

After the CITO event, we headed on further north for traditional and challenge caches.

We found this one.

Tftc Cassowary

Day 7 and it’s a group assault on the Breaking bad series with the BBQwP crew. We started early to beat the heat and it allowed us time to get extra caches including this one. Tftc

Full log to follow

Day seven and Friday of the big Townsville trip for Fangsoki, Crew 153, 1MinnieMoo, Pprime and myself. Today will involve a lot of driving for the 'North Loop' up to Ingham, Wallaman and Paluma. It started before sunrise and involves plenty of old geocaches, a mountain climb, a rainforest hike and many, many kilometres. But we're still on the move, now in Townsville again and powering through the itinerary until last light.

It was here the group split. Lots we each want to find around Pallarenda. My priority was this old hide. Most of the others already found it, so it was to be a solo effort for me. The deal was I'd be dropped at the trail head, and they'd go find some others. Alrighty then, I'll likely run this as I don't think I have much time and it is already after sunset.

So I take off at my best clip, westwards and towards the failing light. I get to a track junction and check the Open Street Maps. I really hope I can stay on the main trail but alas no, I must take the road less travelled up the side of the hill. Not a big worry, but I am cautious when alone about what critters might be about.

Onwards I continue moving as fast as possible along the ever-narrowing track in the increasingly un-bright evening. Ducking under some trees, hopping along some rocks. But when I arrive, it is thankfully slightly perched, offering up the last reflected rays. But still, out come sthe phone torch.

Maybe a slight panic given time, and thus erratic in my hunt, but I take a few minutes to even find the geocache. It isn't too tricky to find really, and all in good condition. Logbook signed at 18:25. I take a moment to admire the view towards the city, and of course the darkening sunset. The jog back is fully by phone torchlight and one quick stop for another geocache. How lovely to visit Townsville and collect such an old geocache too. A sweaty end to the day. Thank you for this geocache, cassowary

During the Easter long weekend, it was all about the Townsville Mega event! Highlights included a hike at Cape Pallarenda Conservation Peak, walks atop the local mountains of Mount Stuart, Castle Hill, and Mount Louisa, checking out a few shady spots along Ross River, sewer pipe / tunnel adventures, and a scuba dive to see the Museum of Underwater Art at John Brewer Reef. The Mega events themselves were fantastic: Gadget lab caches, GPS maze, trivia night, tree planting CITO, and Cal's Escape Room. There was also plenty of geocaching to be had, such as power trailing through the geoarts The Saint and the Book, and the collection of challenge caches at Bushland Beach mudflats. My view of Townsville had completely changed from my trip experience, and much kudos to the Cache Qld Townsville Mega Committee.

The main expedition today was a walk around Cape Pallarenda Conservation Park making a circuit of the *Breaking Bad* series. We set off on our walk at 06:00 hr, and despite it being so early, we managed to beat most of the heat as we made the circuit in a clockwise direction, finishing along the beach section and under the shade of the trees. I don't think I've ever managed to drink all my water before on a hike, but my 3.0 L of water was out as we walked the last section back to the car park just after lunch. A total distance of about 20.5 km was walked in 4.5 hr. A pretty cool area to have walked, and thankfully no crocodiles were seen.

I was really enjoying this section walk, and perhaps we had misjudged the terrain of this walking track. Within a few minutes of searching, we had located the cache. The cache container and logbook were in good shape. We decided to sign the geocache as BBQwP (Breaking Bad Quest with Peppa) to save space in the logbook. Thanks cassowary for the cache placement and ongoing maintenance. It was nice to have found this oldie 07/2004 hidden cache, of which is one of Queensland's 500 oldest yet active geocaches.

Found while in Townsville to attend the Mega event.

I travelled up from Adelaide, taking a week or so so get here, meeting up with FeatherWaite to do some caching around the Cunnamulla area then continuing on to Barcaldine and Charters Towers.

While in Townsville I teamed up with Budgietas, Stainless-steel-rat and Gooseandegg on some days, including a day on Magnetic Island, and with Davidwazza at other times. When caching with Davidwazza, logbooks were signed DWEG1. This cache was found and logbook signed today as part of the BBQwP group.

All in all it was a great week or so in Townsville, with plenty of great caches found.

Thanks cassowary for the cache.

Not used to a lot of elevation as it is quite flat where I live. Was a good workout. Thank you for keeping an old cache alive.

Saw the map for this cache location and thought it would be a good flat walk. If I had decided to read the tourist blurb as well, I would have been prepared for the incline but I wasn't. Took the ground level journey before the GPS suggested yes it's up there. Back tracked to the trail head and covered the same distance but this time at an angle. Great views here, thanks for bring our group here cassowary.

A 9 day roadtrip to Townsville and back to Brisbane in the Fangsoki Pajero with the usual cast of cachers.

A stroll up the hill before the daylight faded to get this old cache. No problem finding it.

TFTC cassowary

.

Day 1 officially, day 3 actually....

Woooeeer! Great climb, easy trail and rewarded with awesome views ??

So excited to be attending my second MEGA and to fly
to a destination for fun! And return to the tropics in an equally long time ????

Great to meet new faces and to spend caching time with some familiar cachers as well.Find #5453

A few days ahead to explore this beautiful hot city. So much caching on offer, and apologies for the generic log. ??????

And so it goes, just happy to pick up caches such as this one. Thanks to cassowary for putting out and maintaining this cache for our enjoyment! ??

A plan was hatched in Brisbane to visit this corner of Townsville… the challenge and quality of caches was to much to resist… I’m not entirely sure how we landed on Breaking Bad Quest with Peppa, but I only found out about that nugget when we were a couple of caches in…??

A great group assembled at 6am and with much enthusiasm (someone’s not a morning person) we set off…

That early start has allowed for some good detours…

Log signed BBQwP… ??

Special thanks to Domsky without whom it would have just been BBQ…??

Found with the MEGATRONS consisting of dahumbug,bella at waggy, crash and tardis...log to follow.
The lap around here was very...very...very long.
Looked short on the map, thats for sure.

Sorry, I will endeavour to regress and write a decent log on most caches.

Thank you, Thank you.

Bowerbird Blue
D 1.0 T 2.0 Regular Traditional Cache

Great fun with the marvellous Domsky Dou. Picked up some caches before the MEGA.

Thanks for the cache and taking us here cassowary. Enjoyed the adventure.

After a lovely morning spent out in this area, we decided to take a walk a little higher to search for this old cache.
We had begun our day early with a walk around the hea
dland which was absolutely beautiful. Incredible views across to magnetic island.
After arriving back at the car, we could see this one on a map and were not sure how high we might need to head.
As it turned out, the walk was beautiful and followed a gentle contour of the mountain.
At GZ there were spectacular views across to the mountains.
Log signed. Photos taken. Very happy to visit this location!
Thanks cassowary
Domsky

Found on an adventure around Cape Pallarenda during our Mega trip. TFTC cassowary

Day 5 of our Mega road trip. Track was a bit more overgrown then expected but still easy to follow. Beautiful breeze at the top and a nice sized container to find too. On our return to the car park we met the group of Tassie cachers who were just heading out in this direction. TFTC cassowary.

23/10/21 Find #5121
Far North Queensland Adventures, day 15. Fangsoki and I decided to head early up here for this one, hoping to get both this and Mt Marley before the heat kicked in. Well, we didn’t really plan it all that well. Because we made it up here ok and I found my cache, but it was already getting a little warm. We continued on for a while but with a lack of adequate water supply and the heat, we decided we would be smarter to pull the pin here and come back earlier still and with a good supply of water.
I was at least happy to cross this one off my list this morning - not a bad way to start the day!
Thanks for the cache cassowary.

Out for a walk today, enjoying the views and grabbing a couple of smileys. A nice hike up here and stunning views. After a quick find, sign and return, I sat and enjoyed the view and rehydrated. Then I spotted a couple of brolgas on the recently burned wetland below. I decided to see if I could get closer, so retreated to the track at the bottom of the hill and headed towards where I had seen them. I was soon rewarded with a much closer view.
Thanks for the cache Bowerbird Blue !

Thanks for the cache. All in good order here. My first find in Townsville!
Cheers

Got there only to find a gaggle of abseiling school kids. However, I think I did a reasonable impression of an old lady sitting in the undergrowth, well away from the beautiful view. At my age, I seem to be invisible anyway so I got away with it. TFTC

With an unexpected week off work I managed to get myself to Townsville and be able to spend 3 days here, caching. My aim was to get a few as I passed, the breaking bad series, a few old caches and some puzzle caches, even finish off some challenge caches of the area, yes I had a list, lol. This was day four of my road trip to Townsville and now my second day in Townsville.

So today the plan was to start the Breaking Bad series; I got the bike ready and then found I was missing my phone holder. After 3 hours of driving around town and calling bike shops I finally had a holder. All geared up I set off, then my charger cord fell and got caught in the chain and broke, then I hit a stick and it punctured my water bottle. Ok so that’s three should be set for a fun time now.

Being on the bike was a big help today, turns out I took the easy route and followed the car path to most caches and a short walk. The first two caches were trads then I started the series of puzzles and letterboxes. It was a fun day with the puzzles and twists and turns along the way.
This was a nice find and was the complete opposite to the rest of the day. Thanks for placing this one here, log signed and cache replaced as found.

After riding around on the bikes we attempted to hike to the top of Mt Malrow, only making it half way we returned the way we came to find this cache and enjoy the view. TFTC

Been here many times but as I only downloaded the app again after some time I never realised there was a cache here. Will have to take the kids back next time. thanks

Good find

Nice cache ... this one rocks!

TFTC

On a road trip from the Gold Coast with hatzofff, grannysmith1947 and RoddyC on to Day 15 & now back again to tackle what we couldn't finish yesterday in this beautiful location.

This was a lovely pleasant walk along the well man-made trail to get to GZ where we had a reasonably quick find and enjoyed the beautiful views.


TFTC cassowary
Found December 11, 2020

TFTC smile 8050 out and about with Hatzoff RoddyC Snickersallan and no miss Millie geo dog today having a great time day 15. Hello Townsville good to be here having a week to find as many caches as I can with all the heat
walking the Breaking Bad trail again
love this cache and view. oldie for a oldie


Thank you, cassowary, for placing this cache for our enjoyment.

Day 15 of our northern trip. Our team members are RoddyC, hatzofff, Snickersallan, and Grannysmith1947. Caching day for completing the Breaking Bad series, some challenges and letterboxes left over from yesterday.

Well, a sort of reasonable hike, I guess. Needed this one for the Oldies Challenge. Hope we can find enough of the others to qualify for it!

"Thank You", cassowary, for the cache.

Day 15 of our northern adventures with RoddyC, Snickersallan GrannySmith 1947 caching in and around Townsville for some challenge and targeted caches.

Back into the forest for a few of the oldies

TFTC cassowary

Nice one

Day 14 of my awesome road trip, spending another day in Townsville finishing Breaking Bad series and collecting some other target challenge caches.
This one was a quick find this morning. Stunning views here.
Log signed, cache replaced as found.
Thanks cassowary for the cache.

It was getting late in the day so wasn’t too hot. The walk in was enjoyable and the views from the rock spectacular. I overlooked the obvious hide at first but soon spotted it. Thanks for the cache

A very nice trail up the hill. I haven’t been here before and the cache is at a nice lookout, perfect for a short rest. Thanks for showing

Christmas time in Townsville - time to walk off some of that 3rd helping of pudding. I got going at dawn to try and stay ahead of the heat - and largely that worked well. Up the hill side to get to this point - not a worry, and a nice track it is as well. A good quick find, suck in the views and then onward along this Many Peaks Trail I went.

Thanks cassowary for entertaining me at this location.
*{Overall find #7215}*

Nice easy find. Only thing is it needs a pencil to log finds and write notes. But overall a good cache and a nice sunset.

This Cache was on my watchlist since our holiday planning back in Switzerland, because it was hidden on one of my missing months. So this mission has been completed today .
I am very glad having the opportunity for visiting this Cache. What a wonderful little hike to the GZ! I enjoyed the walk very much. Nevertheless I had to be very careful. There have been some pretty active snakes around. TFTC!
# 3425

Caching in and around Townsville and surrounds we picked up a few caches and this was one of them.

Cache and contents were in good condition.

Thanks for placing and maintaining this cache for our enjoyment.

Found on a weekend in Townsville with the Brisbane Babes thank you for placing this cache here for us to find.

4541

Saturday. Couldn’t pass by this cache without claiming a smilie. Quite an old cache, so this was a must do! I can see why this cache has its name. I stopped a few moments more and took some happy snaps of this trip.

This was the 3rd of 15 caches found on today's trip.

Thanks ***cassowary***, for showing us this place.

Awesome views. Thankyou for taking us here. We are up from Brisbane. Thanks for placing this cache here for us to enjoy

What a great view. Thanks so much for the cache.

TFTC. Last one for the day. Great walk over the many peaks.

Victory plus a view. Tftc

We took the wrong trail to begin with. We walked the 2km Graves Trail before getting to the fort trail. The kids were exhausted with 500m to go so we turned around. We will attempt it another day and take the right trail beautiful view nonetheless

No pen but thanks for the view

Found ok with jo. No pen so photo log nice spot!

With the wet season pretty much behind us, the view across the Common is magic. The effort the last finder put in to create the bower was awesome, to bad the only way to remove the cache saw that effort implode on itself. Signed and replaced. Couldn’t recreate the splendour. Tftc.

Best fun finding this one. TFTC

TFTC

Great hiding spot

This one had been on our list for a while and today was the day. Midday hike usually not recommended however breeze kept the temperature just okay. Liked the bower bird theme and came with a few blue items to contribute. Thank you Bubblensqueek for bringing us here.

TFTC. We are camped at Ross River Dam until after the V8s. We took the opportunity to,go exploring along the road between The Strand and Pallarenda. We had not been along this stretch for at least 5 years on our first Motorhome visit to Townsville. We parked under the Strangler fig and walked out here and up to the lookout . Quick find after shooting past the right track. A family was walking up to the lookout, so it was probably good I missed the turn. Great views and worth the hike.

What an epic view! Thank you for sgowing this plaache and the cache!

Thanks for showing.
Greetings from Austria _9604mec_

Found today with Curley_brown tftc

Nice hike and beautiful view on the way down! TFTC.

First find... Had lots of fun finding the "treasure" and trading something Blue with Charlie (son)

??

Lovely walk and amazing view.

Found it nice and easy. Thanks!

TFTC! Came back today again with geonan and rethought our gameplan. It only took a few minutes for the geonan to locate and sign the log. Afterwards we ventured on on the trail. Geonan rolled her ankle so we had to go back. A hint: The man guards the spot.

This was a tough one and took much longer than 15 minutes. We kept going to the wrong spots and I will return again and try to find it. I think I know were it is. Any help to were it is is greatly appreciated.

So I had a bit of time to kill before starting work this morning - I thought I would go look for this older beast today.

*SIGH.* Seems I have managed to pick a day they are holding a marathon in the area. Thankfully, most of the runners were spread out enough and it didn't prove to be too much of a problem.

The GPSr told me which tracks to take and I motored up the gently sloping path. This is just the kind of cache I need to do today. The views became spectacular and I could see the marathon runners huffing and puffing along below.

I eventually came out where the GPSr indicated the cache would be. It wasn't forthcoming to start with. And I made life remarkably harder than it needed to be in my search - but I soon came up with the prize. I had unfortunately forgotten my pen and the ones in the cache weren't working. So I just etched my name in the log book using one of the pens and took some photos.

A great little walk. Not quite sure why the poor old cache only has managed to get 1 favourite over the years. Have another on account of the view. TFTC cassowary

Enjoyed trecking Many Peaks range and collecting a few caches along the way. TfTC.

Lots of crazy little trinkets in this one for the kids and spotted some brolgas from the rock lookout

A great walk up to the cache today. Plenty of sunbirds, rainbow bee-eaters and red backed fairy wrens. Even could see some Brolgas down below. Cache took a bit of locating until I extended my search a bit. Plenty of blue inside. TFTC!

Great day for a cache

I have heard of this area before because they have asked me if i have visited this part of Townsville when i give blood as apparently there can be done mosquito born diseases here. Fortunately there was hardly and mosquitos and the path had just dried out enough after the recent rain. An excellent little walk while waiting for my plane for Toowoomba. I took the wrong way up but found the right way down on this one. Make sure you turn off the main track at the bench seat. Great views over Townsville from the summit. The cache had water in it which i tipped out but the log was dry because it was in the top of the container.

A favourite lookout.

Have walked this trail so many times before knew about geocaching. Great hiding spot at one of my favourite places in Townsville

I grumbled a little about having to climb uphill as we approached GZ, but the spectacular view was definitely worth the exertion. As Persmoirre mentioned, we rock-hopped from the trail to GZ and only discovered the easier way in on the way out! Thanks for bringing me here - it's one of the best places I've been in Townsville.

After a long hiatus involving packing, moving and lots of driving, we finally got out of the house and grabbed our first Townsville cache. This is a great spot. I walked the whole trail about a decade ago and can't wait to give it another go soon, but for today we were content with a short walk to the lookout in the late afternoon. Grabbed a decent photo as the sun dropped.

We approached GZ from downhill, which was a mistake. Much easier to follow the track a little longer and grab it without the need to rock hop.

TFTC!

Checked on this one on the way back from Mighty Marlow. I hid it a little better as it was exposed. Other than that all good. Does anyone know what those strange space/circus tent like antennas are as you look to Castle Hill?

The route from the west is marked now for an adventure race so I took the advantage! TNLN nothing blue! TFTC and exercise