Old Bonnie Dams Morning Bay, New South Wales, Australia
By Shifter Brains on 19-Apr-06. Waypoint GCVH2W

Archived

Pending a cache check.

I'd like to look for this but it's a long walk in for a probably DNF. Could a cache check be done?
Great area - we were at The Basin yesterday.

I walked to Bonnie Doon from West Head Road via the Bairne Trail and a great little side trail that starts at S33° 36.795 E151° 17.449. The walk takes about an hour and I had crisp clear winter skies overhead.

I found the old dams and had a search for the cache but no dice. Actually, that's not entirely true because I did find one (see attached photo).

TFTH

Turned back at 8:51 AM

Found the dams and the water that is still flowing over the spillway. Checked a few likely places according to the hint but didn't have success.

I would have liked to have found this as it is over a year since the last find. I was given 25 minutes by my friends and family on a boating trip and while others have found it in less time I would have liked to have spent more time looking. At least next time this will be familiar territory. Thanks Shifter Brains.

Got to the dams with lots of trouble. Spotted no snakes but there were a couple of wallabys hanging about. Had a good scout round where the clue said, but didn't find it. There were a couple of toys strewn about, but not sure that they had anything to do with the cache. Finally gave up when I looked at my watch and realized the ferry was nearly due....scampered away.

Somewhat of a challenge finding the best way to the cache. Eventually found the more obvious route. In the meantime, lost a brand new pair of sunglasses whilst making the search. Maybe this will be an added incentive for the next visitor. Was also a bit wary as a result of previous logs which talked about snake sitings! Hence, was not massively keen to retrace steps to recover above-mentioned glasses.

I was also a little amused to see that the cache had been visited the day before we got there and yet had not been visited since April 2010! Maybe this is about to have an influx of visitors this year.

TFTC.

TEAM SANRANN

Found it with The Adventurous One. GPS got us to the right spot, so I sat back and watched the boys climb up some scary slippery rocks to reach the cache. TFTH

Little bit of wading,bush bashing,climbing. When you get to the dam becareful not to slip. Cach easy to find.

Found it after a bit of a search and just escaped huge southerly storm and rains.
Great location . TFTC.

No hard legging it to this one, we boated it into shore with help from Feral Five getting here then Team Webguy stood watch whist we waded in and found the cache. Who would have thought the last 50m would be such a bash?
After logging our finds we traipsed down a different way and slid back to the entry point.
Thnaks for bringing us here Shifter Brains Top spot. TNLN

a fairly straight forward find after taking a not so straight forward approach to GZ.
TFTC, a great spot...

dropped off some trackables.

On reaching the Basin after walking down the service trail from West Head Rd we were immediately pounced upon by a ranger seeking the $3 entry fee for the reserve. We got a brochure of the area plus a nice little map/leaflet but were amused when she said it was a nice spot to camp and "get away from it all". Barely being able to hear her above the racket of the horde swarming the place, we said it's not the sort of place we would come to "get away from it all". She took offence almost as quick as our money and disappeared towards another landing craft dumping another regiment of picknickers on the shore.

Still it is a pleasant enough spot despite the aforesaid hordes and we were able to find a nice spot for lunch and a swim after doing the cache business. We had to wade across the other side to get to the cache of course but that was no trial on such a brilliant warm day. Made no swaps here.

Well i went about this cache the wrong way, came from the top down and was stopped at the cliff with the cache 60 meters in front of me. was about to give up with the rising tide but decided to give it another try , found it within 15 mins from the basin. Nearly trot-on a red belly black on the way up but continued up to GZ. slipped and slide on my arse all the way down. would of been funny if someone had of been there to seen it.
TNLN
TFTC

Climbed up in bare feet and found quickly, even though the GPSr had no signal under the trees. A beautiful spot. TFTC

Rated: for Overall Experience

This is a great little spot for a cache. I was camping with friends at the basin, and I was lucky that my hare-brained idea to wade across the basin with a DSLR, radio, GPS and shoes hanging from my neck didn't end in disaster. After traversing 1/3rd of the mesh fence across the basin, I decided that wasn't a good idea, and resorted to a thigh-deep wade further upstream. Then it was back on with the shoes and off to the cache.

The area around GZ is lovely, if not a little overgrown, and 4 kookaburras kept me company as I took some snaps and located the cache.

I took a slightly deeper route back across the basin and drowned my keys, but everything else managed to stay dry, no thanks to me.

TFTC

Cache check done and all is in place. Took a few photos of the location to aid in searching - will post these soon.
Stand on the spillway of the lower dam, facing the upper one and the cache will be on the right, up the hill a little way.

After an hour searching I had to give up (I would have normally given up before that but with the 3 hour round trip of walking, I really wanted to find it). Cache appears to be under thick tree cover which rendered my GPS useless.

Attempt was not a total loss, I found the worlds best walking stick (light, straight and smooth, ill be holding on to this one) and on the walk back to the car I saw the mother of all lizards, it looked like one of those Mikado Dragons you see at the zoo.

Ill be back for another search and next time ill take my togs and have a swim.

I’ll give you a picture, I won’t forget
It was gusty and grey, high seas and we were wet
No covers, no coats, no fish would come
To top it off we were sinking due to a split in the boats bum
Bugger this fishing crap lets go caching
An nemesis this one, I was facing
You see, I have looked for this one before
And failed as GPS cover was poor
Still with no proper satellite fix
I wouldn’t have found this without the help of
The Handle Six
My first combined effort for which we looked
Again sorry mate for getting you hooked
The exercise did us good and now a little thinner
And don't forget dude, who came home with dinner!!!!!

bad days fishing great day caching. Found with Antpadgem. can't fish can't find caches.
TNLN

Went there with our little commuter boat . First we were climbing too high and were then struggeling to come down , but did the find it easily. Beautiful spot and great weather.

Cheers
AuC

Out: travelbug
In: batteries

1:35pm
This little ferry ride was to be a surprise for the kids, and they loved it, the boy and I got off here and the rest went one further stop to the basin.

Did not take too long to find the dams, and we took as many damn pictures as we dam well liked. Cache was easy to find!

Took a survival thing and left a freaky lookin face thing. Also dropped off a coin. Interesting spot. Back down to wait for the arrival of the ferry once more.

a very good location amongst a good fishin trip ,after lunch paradox and i jumped to this 1 , bare foot and still managed to get to gz with out spilling mi beer
ty shifter
TNLNSL

Found this cache at the end of a days fishing. Called into the basin for a late lunch and descided to have a go on the way home. Due to recent rain it was a bit of a slippery scramble to GZ but the find was good and I signed the log. Nice to get a bit of a history on the place too - been comming to the basin since I was 12yrs old but had never landed on this little beach.

TNLNSL.

Thanks for the cache!

Our second virgin cache for Anzac Day. Not quite as easy to do as the first one. Luckily we had our own boat. After a bush bash and rock scramble we found the cache and grabbed the TB. Left Snoopy the Scuba Diver in case he wanted to go swimming.

Bug drop.

Published