Tasman Duo

9 and 10 May 2012

It was hoped to be Tasman Trio as the story below will reveal.

Hauy

We camped overnight at Fortescue Bay and planned to take the opportunity to collect the aHauy there! cache at the end of the Cape Hauy walk, and pick up a couple more whilst on a walk to Shipstern Bluff the following day.
The new track to Cape Hauy was very impressive, with a huge number of rock steps and the rest hardened to a high New steps on Cape Hauy Trackstandard. It is a very expensive construction but, as it is a single file track, maybe money could have been saved by making it narrower. Mind you any saving would be most unlikely to get spent on another track elsewhere. We have been on this walk quite a number of times over the years and felt that although it was a good surface it was actually not any easier because of all the steps to be climbed.
Steps near end of Cape Hauy
The scenery is so impressive that we almost forgot about looking for the cache. A search about by Sue, Peter and Mike the Muggler did not locate it and we thought that it may have been lost during the track upgrade. Mike isn’t really a muggle because he knows what geocaching is all about and helped us find caches before. However Sue spotted a disturbed looking bit of rock that was so close to the track we did not think to look there and soon the cache was to hand
. The Totem Pole and Candelstick

 

Shipstern

Now there are two caches on the way to Shipstern Bluff, well one Roul Look Out! is a bit out of the way but Fluffy Tonks is on the way. There is now a new parking area at the end of road with plenty of angled vehicle spots. The start of the walk was a little muddy but after that it was a nice dry track.
On arriving at the Raoul Lookout IMG_6713Peter discovered he had not entered the details into the GPS and a check for suspicious rocks and the like didn’t reveal any clues, so it will have to wait for another day. In this case we are not going to log it as “not found”
Back on the Shipstern track it did not take long to get to the cache site and Sue quickly found it as described. In the log there was an entry between July 10 (Katie B) and Feb 12 (Tassie Trekkers) that was quite disgusting and was removed, so it looks like a muggle had spotted it.IMG_6755 Raoul Coast Panorama
After taking in the stunning views we continued on to Shipstern Bluff. The descent was not as sharp as we remembered but the distance from the old 4wd track junction to the base of the cliffs was further than we recalled. It was easy enough to get on the platform below the sheer cliffs and we went aIMG_6741s far as feasible where a view into a sea cave was had. We did wonder if the little track going off the main one back on top led to a blowhole; something to explore on another day.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Freycinet Bushwalk

Image
3 – 5 October 2012 As we were going on a bushwalk to Freycinet Peninsula the potential geocache finds in the area were checked and several were close to our route. We went for three days, camping at Cooks Beach for both nights and heading down to a rocky peak beyond Passage Beach. Graham (Graham51) was with us although he took the longer return option over Mount Graham where he also managed to locate a cache on his journey. On the way back in the car we picked up a couple in the region. Top of the Pass Our first for the day, located by Graham, and although a few muggles were about none took much notice of us,   Half empty or half full ? We dropped our packs and with two people holding GPS’s and three heading to GZ it was surprising how little attention the muggles paid to our activity. One looked up for a while but soon turned back to look at the scenery elsewhere.   Blue Champagne Our objective for the days bushwalk was the southern peak on the Freycinet Peninsula above point Geo
Read more

Off to the Thumbs

Image
Wednesday 27 June 2012 Well the weather was just ideal for a bushwalk to the Three Thumbs and to collect a few geocaches during the trip. However, the geocaching part looked a bit shaky as Peter’s GPS did not display any in the area. A later check at home showed the records were on the GPS and when overwritten with a new copy they displayed OK; puzzling! All was not lost because Barad Bunch had notes on the caches and the grid on his GPS. This enabled us to locate the one near the cars. After morning tea at the lookout over Maria Island we commenced the walk to the Three Thumbs. Shady spots had plenty of frost but a fair bit of the way was along the tops of the main ridge and in the sun. Eventually we w ere on the highest peak, presumably the third Thumb and also what we presumed would be the hiding placed of the “ Three Thumbs Up ” geocache. But when Barad checked his GPS it indicated it was over 400 metres away on the peak previous climbed and descended from. Oh well that would have
Read more

Myrtle Forest

Image
20 June 2012 A bushwalk to the top of Collins Cap was in the plan for the day, with a couple of caches to hopefully be the bonus. On the way up we had a quick search for Myrtle Park, but didn’t latch on to it and left finding it until the return leg. As we got high frozen snow on bushes was met and as planned we went down part of the old Glen Dhu track before seeing if an ascent of Collins Capo could be made from that side of the mountain. However the snow on the bushes was going to make us a bit too wet, so it was back to the track and the normal way up. It did not take us long to discover that it was quite overgrown with very wet chest high scrub which caused us to give up on the attempt. There were four of us on the walk and on returning to the “ Myrtle Park ” cache site all began the search based on the hint. Greg managed to find it fairly quickly. The log was interesting in that two entries were made by people who wrote they knew nothing about geocaching, but spotted the cache c
Read more