Geocaching

Saturday 26 January 2013 We were going to the Salamanca Market and decoded to look for a few caches in the area. After parking in battery point our path took us through Princess Park and we made a diversion to St Davids Park and also around the waterfront. This route brought us to close to several caches.   Nelson's signal Worked out stage one for this on way. Remainder will have to wait another day when we are in the second stage area. Antarctica TB Transit Lounge This was reached with very few people nearby, despite it being market day. Sue had the container spotted as a little bit was visible. Although lots of travel bugs were listed they had all gone. We left a car trackable and covered the container well.   Hobart City - Scratchie exchange On reaching the top end of the market we branched off to look for this and the GPS took us to what looked the likely spot going on the hint. However as we got close the seats were all being used and no one appeared to be likely to leave

Thursday 24 January 2013 Powerful Chemical Conundrum 12 After reading that this area has an endangered plant (Velleia paradoxa) we decided it might be a good spot to place a cache.  The first thing to do though was locate where the Barad Bunch cache lay so we could be the requisite distance away.   On reading the description we realised that unless a map was taken and a compass we probably wouldn't be able to work out the first position needed. Our first excursion involved finding the poles and the numbers on them.  Peter didn't think to get a GPS reading of the position of the poles, so had to make the best estimate using Google Erath and some map software. Today we went over to the reserve again hopefully with location of the first container in the GPS.  As we arrived Peter discovered his paper with the information and for writing any further clues had been left behind. The GPS  brought us reasonably close and after circling round a bit, Sue called out that she found the sp

Tuesday 22 January 2013 The option we chose to visit some caches along the ridges and peaks overlooking the North West Bay River was by riding our bikes along the Pipeline Track then walking circuit via Wellington Falls, Montagu Thumbs and Cathedral Rock. After parking the bikes the three of us, Barad Bunch, Dave a non geocacher and Peter set off on the well-built track to the falls, after that the rough track to the old Montagu fire trail was used. The last part of this is getting overgrown by Bauera as was parts of the old fire trail. There had been some overnight rain and the bushes were quite wet to push through. It was good going along the Thumbs cathedral ridge, although parts are starting to degrade from use, then down the zig zags to North West Bay River in the rain. After crossing we then struggled up the Siphon track, which is an almost unrelenting grunt for nearly 800 metres at a 1:3 gradient. No wonder we were tired by the time we got on our bikes for the return ride to Ne

Wednesday 16 January 2013 Walked up from the Waterworks along the pipeline Track and found this one, stopped for a coffee at the Wildside Café (which is now part of the pub) at Fern Tree then returned to the start for a BBQ lunch.   We had two friends with us and this was the first find that Dave had made. This was a bit of a contrast to the Pipeline Track series from Neika where we went 11k for over 20 caches  to this walk of 5.6 k for a single find.    

Tuesday 15 January 2013 Devils throne is a walk we do fairly regularly, but on this occasion it was influenced by the geocache that had been put there just last month.  It was a pleasant day for a walk and we were joined by Barad Bunch as well as two others; one familiar with geocaching but the other not being aware of it.   Our GPS's were accurate and the hint pretty clear and on top of that we had the hint photos, so with this and five people we  would have quite surprised not to have been successful in finding the container.                     Ozothamnus on the way Barad checking his calculations for the next cache   Mt Montagu and Devils Throne

Wednesday 9 January 2013 We had been invited for lunch at a friends place and this seemed the opportune time to get some of the caches we did not have time for on our last visit to the Sandfly Margate area. Bunyip Walk On our return to the area we didn't take very long to find the critter. Quite a novel one really Down by the River When we got to the end of the fence lines there was some tapes marking a track downstream and away from where the GPS suggested, however Peter thought that maybe the pad headed back in the right direction once near the river. Not so and we returned and followed the GPS until coming to a widish track and while Peter was busy studying the GPS , Sue said look to you right it must be there, and it was. For a change we didn't even need to look up the hint. We left the scout buckle travel bug which seemed appropriate as it took a bit of scouting about to find the cache. As he attempted to hide the cache container a little better Peter managed to get

Wednesday 2 January 2013 We went for a walk along the shore area and nearby streets, which included Geilston Bay and Natone Hill.   A Dinkum Dunny Whata beauty this was and brought quite a laugh, just as well no muggles were about. Didn't spot the log at first and thought for a moment that there wasn't one. COTFTF #12 "Sog's Redemption" Didn't take long to spot the hide Flight of the Double Sunrise Collected but the GPS had us searching the wrong big tree. Has been moved a short distance on.   More Russians? At first was attracted to the wrong tree until the GPS told us otherwise. Dropped off Brisbane Storey Bridge TB Natone Hill Collected trig whilst searching for Russians cache

Monday 31 December 2012 The pipeline track series was started November 2011 and, apart from a quick search for a few at the start, we had not got stuck into them. The best way we reckoned was to take the bikes, which had not been ridden for about 2 years, so they were dusted off and away we went. Things did not go as planned because we could not find the first one, nor the next one previously unfound. But after that finding them didn't prove too hard, but on the return ride Peter discovered his front tyre rapidly went down. The repair kit was opened but all that remained in the glue tube was air. An attempt to replace the tube failed because Peter did not have the strength to unbolt the nuts with his small shifter. Rather than push the bike the 6 kilometres back he decided to ride the bike and put up with the consequences. The tally for the day was 25; easily our most for one day. We enjoyed the pipeline series and will go back for the one at Wellington Falls and put in a new PT