Category Archives: Geocaching

Family Life, Geocaching, Holidays, WA NT Trip 2016

Now that is a straight road …

May 25, 2016 Scott Leave a comment

Given that it rained most of the night, we were not expecting much of travelling today. We awoke to more drizzle, low cloud on the hills and a lot cooler than yesterday. This wasn’t to last though, with the cloud lifting to sunshine and no wind a couple of hours into the day.

Not a lot to see on this part of the trip but the wildlife started to show and we are not just talking the dead roo roadkill that littered the highway. This provided a rich food source for the crows and Wedge Tailed Eagles which were plentiful. There were even a few live roos that played chicken with road trains in front of us.

At one point there was a flock of camels (flock doesn’t sound right but caravan or train don’t sound right either). They hung around to get their photos taken and we were on our way again.

Just after Caiguna, it was time to engage cruise control and kick back for 90 miles or 146.6 kilometres as this section of the Eyre Highway is Australia’s longest straight section of road. The end of the section is near Balladonia and apart for a few stops for geocaches and the camels, all went uneventful.

One of the geocaches was an earthcache (GC2NNJ6 – Caiguna Blowhole) which is a virtual cache that relates to geology. This blowhole is an air blowhole rather than the water ones that are normally found near the coast. Instead of water, air is expelled and as I was carrying a portable weather station (doesn’t everyone), the measured air speed from the blowhole was 10 kph. Very interesting.

At one point, a road train overtook us and struck up a conversation to where we were headed and suggested that instead of Norseman as todays final destination, he suggested Fraser Range Station. It was 100 km short of Norseman and we were headed into dusk so Fraser Range Station it was for the night. Look forward to seeing it in daylight as many friends have raved about this spot.

Family Life, Geocaching, Holidays, WA NT Trip 2016

Wind not so glorious wind …

May 24, 2016 Scott Leave a comment

Checked the forecast for our travels to the border today and it was to be clear sailing with light winds and sunshine. How wrong that was. The clear skies was right, it was just the winds were closer to 30 kph than light and they moved from a cross wind to a head wind for all of the day.

Fuel economy went out the window. I had been achieving around 20 litres/100 km but today that shot up to 27 litres/100 km. And with increasing fuel prices the closer we got to the border and further from civilisation, I did not need that.

Knowing that fuel price was going to skyrocket to $1.67 at the border and then drop to $1.48 over the border, continual calculations were made to ensure that there would be enough fuel to at least Eucla if not Mundrabilla.

After filling at $1.179 in Ceduna, we topped up at Penong ($1.199) and Nundroo ($1.209) which should be enough to get through to Mundrabilla. We bypassed fuel at Nullabor ($1.619) and Border Village ($1.67) making it into Mundrabilla with 17 litres to spare.

Some of the highlights today included the impressive display of windmills over the ages at Penong and the breathtaking views from the cliff tops of the Great Australian Bight.

Border Control heading into Western Australia was interesting with all those fruit and vegetables that Jenny had bought a day ago were taken to be destroyed. Seemingly WA does not like any produce from any other State. What a great way to sell your home grown produce. We asked if they supply a local restaurant at the Border but the reply was that it is all destroyed – what a waste.

The highlight of Eucla is the Old Telegraph Station and having last seen it when I was a way lot younger, when it was covered with sand, you would have suspected for it to have disappeared by now but it seems to be the same. Do they have a crew that keeps digging it out – I wonder.

It was coming on dusk and the wind had abated so it was an uneventful last 70 kilometres to Mundrabilla where we filled up with fuel and booked into the caravan park.

It wasn’t long when our van must have just been enough to trip the circuit breakers for the power supply at our end of the park. After all they were plugging in 2 vans into a 10 amp socket. To solve issues, we moved our van to the last power box available and then down came the rain.

Met up with some Victorian Geocachers we had been trailing for a couple of days – Maccamob, Alansee and Micaparamedic before going to sleep with the gentle sound of rainfall on the roof.

Family Life, Geocaching, Holidays, WA NT Trip 2016

Time for some Big stuff ….

May 23, 2016 Scott Leave a comment

An early morning walk to grab a geocache in Mambray Creek afforded views of the local kangaroos and on return to the caravan, I was welcomed back by an emu sniffing around.

It wasn’t long and we were headed north to Port Augusta. Just out of town were the familiar stacks of the now closed Playford Power Station. It is unusual not to see the smoke emanating out of the stacks. Something new next to the power station was an strange looking tower which is part of the Sundrop Farm using seawater and sunlight to grow high value horticultural crops.

My huge mistake was to follow with allowing Jenny to go shopping. An hour later and we were finally on the road again, but I now have some new thongs (given that the puppy had eaten my old ones yesterday).

With a stop for the Big Galah at Kimba and the Big Farmer at Wudinna, we arrived at Ceduna just after dusk.

Family Life, Geocaching, Holidays, NZ Holiday 2014, Out and About

Lets head to the mountains …

November 28, 2014 Scott Leave a comment

We awoke to blue skies and warmer temperatures than yesterday afternoon but I feel that will be short lived as the clouds started rolling in at 10:00 am. Another day and another struggle to get kids out of bed.

Even though we didn’t do the observatory tour last night, you can still drive up during the day to have a look around and check out the view. As it turns out all tours last night were cancelled due to the weather and it doesn’t look very promising for the rest of the week.

It is fairly steep going and a tight road up to the top and it is amazing how many people make the trek up by foot but we got up there in the motor home.

The view from the top is spectacular with snow capped mountains to the west and the bright blue Lake Tekapo to the east. It even started snowing while we were up there.

I did the short walk around the mountain grabbing some geocaches and we seemed to have grabbed some passengers for the return journey. A couple of Malaysian girls that had done the 2.5 hour walk from town appreciated a lift back to Tekapo.

After dropping the girls off and filling with diesel it was traveling time again – this time to Mt Cook which is only a couple of hours with a few stops along the way to take photos of the lakes and mountains. It seems that every time you come around a corner there is another breathtaking view or vista.

First stop at Mt Cook was the information centre which had a lot of useful information on the glaciers and the history of the region.

It was now time to do some walking. We decided on the Tasman Glacier walk first. Even though there is a new sealed road to the start of the walk, the first single lane bridge is original and the motor home just fit through it. This walk soon gets the blood pumping and even though the distance isn’t too long you have to climb up the moraine piles to the viewing areas. It is even possible to get down to the Tasman Lake to touch the water and given that there are icebergs floating in it – it is cold.

Walking back to the motor home, rather than stick to the track we headed cross country over the moraine piles and of course the kids didn’t want to follow Dad and Mum and guess what we were back 20 minutes before the kids.

Tonight’s campsite was at the base of the mountain – what a backdrop. Jenny got to try the oven out and roast lamb was had for tea.

Tomorrow will be a big walking day with a couple of glacier walks.

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Geocaching, US 2014

Long distance caching on the same day …

April 3, 2014 Scott Leave a comment

It is not often that you can find 2 geocaches 16174 kilometres apart on the same day but it helps to have the International Date Line on your side and be on an annual trip to the northern hemisphere.

At 4:15 am, on the way to Adelaide Airport, a quick find was made on GC4GQBZ – Lest We Forget…… at Mitcham.

32 hours later and 3 flights, Adelaide-Melbourne, Melbourne-Los Angeles & Los Angeles-Indianapolis it was still April 3rd so time to find another cache.

Despite being fairly tired and having a hotel bed calling my name, I persisted to eventually find a micro cache – GC2Z2VG – Indymonks Trail of Tears – Chippewa Indians. This was after 5 others that eluded me. Some of them could have been underwater, as there had been around 75mm of rain in the Indy area during the day.

Not sure if this is some kind of record but it certainly is for me.

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12 of 12, Geocaching, Out and About

November 12 of 12 …

November 12, 2013 Scott Leave a comment

It has been not quite a week since getting out of hospital after the “heart attack” and today I needed to go to a funeral of a motor racing identity, Peter Hall, who has driven his last race.

Of course, as I haven’t been driving, the car had a flat battery. Lucky this morning was sunny and the solar panels were soon connected and there was enough charge to get the motor going.

The turn out for the funeral was enormous, filling both chapels, the auditorium and outside. It was a fitting send off for an Aussie Legend.

Part of my rehabilitation involves a lot of exercise to get the heart ticking and the blood flowing. This afternoon, I took off to Belair National Park to grab some of the geocaches that involved a bit of walking near the Upper Waterfall and the old Fire Spotting Tower.

The beauty of this area is that you will always spot a koala or two and today was no exception as well as lizards but luckily no snakes.

Until next month …

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12 of 12, Geocaching, Out and About

October 12 of 12 …

October 12, 2013 Scott Leave a comment

After a week away 4WDing and geocaching up Googs Track and back through the Gawler Ranges it was time to head home. We had spent a couple of days trying to clear the map around Whyalla but failed even though we found 200+ there still are plenty still to go.

Before heading north, we spent a couple of hours getting a few of the picturesque caches mainly along the coast, doing a mini power trail as well.

Arriving at Port Augusta heralded a milestone of 12000 geocache finds with a find of the cache, Dead Boats Don’t Float Two. This is the third attempt on this one and good to get it off the list.

There were some interesting caches including a Japanese puzzle box and one near a giant thong.

That’s it for this months 12 of 12 …

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Family Life, Geocaching, Out and About, Sporting Life

We are the champions …

September 7, 2013 Scott Leave a comment

Rachael had her Netball Grand Final today. Her Ironbank team has been undefeated all year and got to play against the Uraidla Netball Club at Piccadilly. The weather was perfect for the game which is unusual for Piccadilly as every other time I have been to watch her here it has been cold, wet and foggy.

The girls played well with:

16 goal lead by quarter time;

22 goal lead by half time;

23 goal lead by three quarter time;

and a final lead of 24 goals for a 50/26 win.

Well done to Rachael and the rest of the team.

With the the perfect weather, it was time to do some geocaching around the area and made 13 finds for the afternoon with a couple of walks.

I had a 3.5 km walk through Mt George Conservation Park following parts of the Heysen Trail and a 1.5 km walk through the H.K Fry Reserve.

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Geocaching, Out and About

Walk in the Badlands ….

August 26, 2013 Scott Leave a comment

I had finished early at a Workshop at the Fire Service Training College and needed to find a cache for the August Geocaching Challenge.

Looking at my map, there were plenty to be found in the “Badlands”. The “Badlands” is a term given colloquially to the area north of Grand Junction Road and is one of our busiest areas in the Fire Service.

I gave my mate Garry a ring to see if he was up for a walk along the Little Para River behind the Old Spot Hotel. I had heard that there were some very good caches up in that area. What I didn’t tell him was that the terrain on one of the yet to be found caches was “4”. The highest terrain rating is a “5”.

But a “First to Find” is a “First to Find” especially out north where they don’t normally last longer than about 30 minutes. I guess the terrain scared off the local cachers. 🙂

We parked the cars and counted the tyres and headed off up the river. The going was easy to start and the caches were just as good. In fact the work put into the cache containers was exceptional.

The bar has certainly been lifted with these caches. They have been engineered by a new cacher called clojo1 who is also a boiler maker.

The caches included:

GC4FTT2 – Ophidiophobia – a snake;

GC4G7G5 – Arachnophobia – a red back spider;

GC4FWY1 – Chelonaphobia – a turtle;

and GC4K56W – Apipobia – a bee.

The terrain for the 1st three caches was 1.5 and 2 but the fourth cache was the terrain “4” cache. It wasn’t raining today but by the time we got to this one, the heart was pumping and the shirt was saturated with sweat. Lucky I have been hitting the treadmill lately. 🙂

After removing the impressive bee from its honeycomb home, time to check the log book and yes it was blank – yay a”first to find”. 😀

A easy walk back down the river to the cars and a check to see if all the wheels were still there and time to head south home. Today’s walk was 3.5 km but it certainly wasn’t a flat 3.5 km.

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Geocaching, Out and About

But I don’t need rescuing …

August 14, 2013 Scott 2 Comments

What are you here for? We are here to rescue you!! What, do I look like I need rescuing!

Lets start at the beginning…..

A geocaching trip and event had been planned for weeks to take a couple of US Geocachers – RoadRoach58 from Alabama, on a boat ride to Wright Island which had one lonely cache – GC12E7X Yeah Wright.

Mark had organised a tinny and I had borrowed my brothers SeaDoo. Fast forward to last night and the weather was getting rough and we are talking gale force winds and 3 metre swell. All the stuff that Gilligans Island is famous for :).

After some phone calls and checking radars, satellite loops and any other weather thing we could find, it was decided that we would cancel the tinny but would keep with the SeaDoo for those that want to rough it.

On the way home from night shift, I grabbed a new wetsuit as the old one seems to have shrunk in the wardrobe, then onto home to start up the SeaDoo and hit the road to Victor. An hour later and I still couldn’t get the SeaDoo started. Mark had arrived and rang to say it was still fairly rough so there was no need to bring the SeaDoo down.

I threw the kayak on the roof on the off chance that conditions would change in the next hour.

Arriving at the meet point and we were greeted with some friendly faces as well as flat seas and sunshine. What a difference an hour makes.

Well the decision was made, the kayak was in the water and I was on the way. There was still a breeze which was coming from behind assisting in a quick passage to the island. The distance to travel was 1 km.

Around 3/4 way, I encountered a couple of large waves and was soon in the water. Oh well, time to paddle the rest of the way like a surfer.

It wasn’t long and I was on the beach on the northern end of the island. Made a phone call to the others back at the boat ramp to say that all was well and I was on the way up to the top to find the geocache.

It was very windy up top with a few rain showers but apart from that it was easy going to GZ. Unfortunately the vegetation was reasonably thick and I was finding the cache a little elusive. Again I rang back to the boat ramp to see if anyone had any clues to where I should look but no luck there.

Another 5 minutes of looking with no luck and the phone rang. Gary said that I had better cut the search short as the rescue boat is waiting on the beach for you.

“What the hell!!! You are pulling my leg aren’t you.”

“No lies, they are down there waiting for you.”

I made the trek down the hill back to the beach to find the Sea Rescue “bogged” on the beach.

“Hey – what are you guys here for?”

“We are here to rescue you!”

“Do I look like I need rescuing.”

“No, but because the Police called us in, we have to rescue you.”

“To me, it looks like you are the ones needing rescue at the moment.”

The tide was going out and the boat looked like it was going to be there a while. In fact they got on the radio to organise another boat to pull them off.

“You won’t need another boat guys. The waves will be here in a minute as they are coming in sets and the boat will float off.”

I am not the local and knew that and sure enough another set came in and the boat was floating again.

So we loaded the kayak onto the boat and I got the limo ride back to the boat ramp. It was a shame as I was looking forward to riding the waves back to shore. 🙁

On arriving back to shore there was a huge welcoming party including Channel 9 News. There must have been a big breaking story around here somewhere. 😉

No chance of not getting photographed around here.

After talking with the local cop, it seems that one of the locals saw me go from being a paddler to a surfer and reported me as drowning and unconscious.

The Sea Rescue guys were good about it and the cop didn’t hang around and even the News cameraman lost interest very quickly. So much for my 15 minutes of fame.

So at the end of the day, I still have to go back to Wright Island to find the geocache.

But I don’t need rescuing ….