Category Archives: Geocaching

Geocaching up north …

November 4, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

Today was going to be the warm one and it certainly was. We broke camp early with the group splitting up. My plan was to spend the day geocaching, camping somewhere on the northern Yorke Peninsula.

There were a few more caches to find before getting to Quorn. One involved a walk in to a lone grave from the old mining days. It is believed to be linked to the Comstock Mine.

Following on from Quorn there were a few caches to grab through the Pichi Richi Pass. At one point it involved walking through a few hundred metres of high grass so I was always looking for the elusive snakes that may have been lurking.

After crossing the railway line to venture to yet some more remote graves, there was a train whistle. What a bonus, to actually see a train travelling on the old Pichi Richi Railway. After grabbing the geocache, I followed the train down through the Pass, getting some more photos on the way.

It was really starting to warm up when I got to Port Augusta with strong northerly winds. I continued to geocache through the afternoon when the temperature started to tip 41C. This really had worked up a sweat so grabbed a shower at the BP roadhouse before heading south towards Port Pirie.

There were blue skies above but over to the east it was black and thundery and on checking the weather radar it wasn’t looking much better to the west and it was heading my way. I don’t think I would be camping out tonight.

I remained in Port Pirie until dusk geocaching, but the weather had made it to me. It was still hot and the winds were still strong and you could see some rain coming down but it never reached the ground. What did make the ground was lightning. It was time to head south.

The farmers that hadn’t already reaped their crops were out in force trying to get what they could in before either the rain or lightning got to them. The lightning show continued all the way to Port Wakefield and normally I don’t mind a lightning show but it is different when it is hitting the ground around you as you are driving.

So instead of sleeping out in the scrub in the rooftop tent, it was home in my bed.

$The \"Wreck\" at Pt Augusta$

[Show as slideshow]

12 of 12, 4WDing, Geocaching, Out and About

August 12 of 12 …

August 12, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

A clear start to the day, not as cold as expected and we were soon on the road heading to Axedale. Today we were meeting up again with the Central Victorian Geocachers for a 4WD trip through the hills around Bendigo. The event for the day was CVG 4×4 Adventures #3 – Fosterville. In all there were 8 vehicles attending with around 30 geocachers.

It was pretty easy going early on with a couple of hill climbs and descents. Then we came to the mother of all hills and there was a new cache at the top – On top of Fosterville for the seriously insane! We were not set up to drive up this one as you would have needed some serious clearance and winching. So it became a heart starter with a climb to the top.

Continuing on again we came to an issue with washed out tracks which were not suitable to all our vehicles so a change of plans saw us not get some of the new caches that had been placed out for the event.

A stop for lunch at the Gunyah Picnic Area with another 22 caches published in the area for the Event and we were off trying for as many “First to Finds” as we could. We managed to get 10 FTF’s 🙂 – not a bad effort for the day.

The sun was getting low and we had one other task for the day. My GeoBuddy Garry was on track for his 5000th find and we found It’s all about the NUMBERS Challenge #1 as this milestone. It was time to head back to the cabin but not before grabbing some more geocaches on the way.

Another 12th of the month is finished.

[Show as slideshow]

12 of 12, Geocaching, Out and About

A stormy day for the 12 of 12 July ….

July 12, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

I guess my 12 of 12 started yesterday afternoon with a return to night shift after a number of years. It was a busy night in Adelaide station but I only had one incident to attend – a motor vehicle accident at Flinders Park.

With the lights and bells going all night, I was a weary boy this morning and after collecting the mail from the post box, I was met at the door by Molly – our maltese shitzu. It was then to bed to catch up on a few hours sleep.

The house was busy when I woke with Jenny and Rachael taking a load of bottles up to the wood yard to get the refund money. Rachael is busy raising money for her World Challenge Expedition to Vietnam next year and bottle collecting along with chocolate selling and baby sitting are some of the ways she is raising money.

After lunch I decided to go walking through the grounds of Flinders University and then O’Halloran Hill Recreation Park to find some geocaches. This was about the same time as Adelaide and surrounding areas was getting hit by thunderstorms. The Barossa area became white with some large hail stones blanketing the area.

After a quick stop at the Scouts Rally SA office to do some maps and other administration things then it was back to work for my second night shift in a number of years.

$O\'Halloran Hill Park$

[Show as slideshow]

Family Life, Geocaching, Out and About

Did you miss the leap second ….

July 1, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

Every now and then, due largely to the action of the seas on the surface of the earth, an extra second has to be slipped into the calendar because the earth’s rotation is being hindered by the friction. The days ARE getting longer. The latest one happened at 23:59:60 UTC on 30th June (09:29:60 CST July 1). One second later it was 00:00 (09:30:00 CST July 1).

The first leap second was in 1972 and the most recent in 2008.

So to see if we could feel it or see it I organised something of a flash mob event, Probably the World’s Shortest Event – 09:29:60 for the local Geocaching community.

And it was not a bad turnout for 9:30 am on a Sunday Morning with around 75 people turning up. This event was the first of a challenge today to get 10 different cache types culminating in a CITO Event, 10/10.

My personal tally was only 7 different types:

Traditional Cache – Life of the Beach – SLSSA Headquarters
Multi-Cache – Frequent Flier Mach Two
Mystery Cache – Nearly Gone
Wherigo Cache – Beware Drop Bears!!
Event Cache – Probably the World’s Shortest Event – 09:29:60
Cache In Trash Out Event – 10/10
Webcam Cache – Sailing the Web

To finish up the day, we had the family around for afternoon tea to celebrate Rachael’s 15th birthday (where did those years go)

[Show as slideshow]

Geocaching, Holidays, Out and About

Another long distance First to Find …

June 22, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

Prior to leaving Alice Springs, I checked for any new cache listings since I had left South Australia. What luck, there was a new one at Glendambo – only 940 kilometres away. And at this time no one had made a find on it. The cache is Dam Glenbo.

It is only 10 hours driving away. Sounds like a good spot to stay tonight and maybe grab a FTF as well. 🙂

Today was uneventful, however, it was getting cooler the more I headed south. There were clear skies all the way to Coober Pedy and then there were some rain clouds heading over from the west. It is probably a good decision not taking the Oodnadatta Track as I wouldn’t want to get stuck there (or would I 😉 )

I arrived at Glendambo just after dark, negotiated a few tracks to find a tree on the edge of town.

Out with a torch, found the cache, opened the cache to find a virgin log book – Yay, another long distance “First to Find”. 🙂

Another big drive tomorrow across to Loxton.

[Show as slideshow]

4WDing, Geocaching, Holidays, Out and About

A Town like Alice …

June 21, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

Today was a “rest” day of sorts. This meant that no long distance driving but take in some of the sights around Alice Springs.

I started at the northern end of town and drove what is left of the old Stuart Highway into the Alice Springs Telegraph Station Historical Reserve. One of the popular spots for the locals is Wigleys Waterhole but there was no-one there today.

Next onto the old Telegraph Station with a walk along the Todd River and up to Bungalow Hill to take in the view.

Up to Anzac Hill for lunch which has commanding views over the town and the MacDonnell Ranges.

I traveled west along the West MacDonnell Ranges and through Honeymoon Gap to the old Ghan Rail Line.

It was interesting that the track alongside the old rail line was in better condition than the Old South Road. Also managed to take in some of the track used by the Finke Desert Race.

After visiting the Ewaninga Fettler Cottages and Ewaninga Reserve it was back to the Heavitree Gap Outback Lodge to feed some very hungry Rock Wallabies.

Tomorrow is a 940 kilometre drive to Glendambo.

$Wigley\'s Waterhole$

$Flynn\'s Grave$

[Show as slideshow]

Geocaching, Out and About

2902 kilometres for a First to Find ….

June 15, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

On the back of my challenge of the longest distance in a day for 2 cache finds (one in South Australia and one in Nevada), I thought I would do another challenge – longest drive for a First to Find (FTF).

My drive started at the Clare Caching Capers II Event GC3FXFG, where I was told of an unfound challenge cache up in Darwin.

The challenge involved having found a cache in every 10km band from your home location up to your age x10 so in my case 490 km.

It is GC3MBC5 – The Well-Travelled and Aged Cacher: NT.

I did the queries in GSAK and found that I had found a cache in the 49 distance bands required. Now to get the cache and hopefully a FTF.

I was heading north anyway so a long distance FTF was going to be a bonus.

Well after 4 days and 2902 km I arrived at ground zero (GZ) to find it all burnt out and on the ground were some burnt spray cans and a sorry looking eclipse tin. Surely this wasn’t it.

I looked over a couple of metres and there appeared to be something buried. I unscrewed it and it appeared to be the cache or was it.

I opened the container only to find a puzzle to be solved to find the final GZ.

Thinking caps on and a few texts to the owner on clues to solving the puzzle then finally about 10:30 pm I had the puzzle solved.

The only problem is that I would not be able to get to the final GZ for another 18 hours due to my commitments in Darwin.

It seemed a long day but finally the time came to find the cache.

I drove up to GZ, thinking surely the FTF would have gone by now. Opened the ammo tin, took out the log book, opened it up to find …… I was FTF. 😀

So after 5 days and 2902 kms (plus a few extra back and forth into Darwin) I had a long distance drive FTF.

I guess now how many have driven further for a FTF …

12 of 12, 4WDing, Geocaching, Holidays, Out and About

Coober Pedy to Alice Springs – June 12 of 12 …

June 12, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

What a great day for travelling – clear skies and not too warm and no wind (although there was a little cloud around Coober Pedy). Today was another big day on the road with a 700 km drive from Coober Pedy to Alice Springs.

After filling up and a quick drive around town it was time to head north. The landscape around here is a bit of a moonscape with all the diggings – you wouldn’t want to stumble around here in the dark.

Made the diversion to the Breakaways and was surprised to see no-one else out there.

The further north I went you could see the results of the good rains over the last few years with plenty of growth in both the trees and the grasses. The colour of the soil also changes to a deep red.

Continuing along the Stuart Highway through Cadney Park, Marla and then crossing the border into Northern Territory. Of course there is the obligatory photo at the border. 🙂

While at Marla, I checked wotif.com as I knew that accommodation would be scarce in Alice Springs including the caravan parks due to the Finke Desert Race having just finished. Although there were a lot of cars and bike returning south, the locals were cleaning up with their rates and minimum stays. I managed to book a room in a B&B for only $10 more than what the caravan parks were asking for an unpowered site. My digs tonight would be the B & B Pathdorf.

It is almost as soon as you go over the border that the rocks start to rise from the ground with a lot of Ranges starting to appear. Next couple of towns are Kulgera and then Erldunda.

I had filled the tanks at Coober Pedy thinking that I had plenty of fuel to get through to Alice Springs. From previous experience, when the low fuel light came on there was about 10 litres of fuel left which equated to 80 kilometres travel. At about 80 kms out from Alice Springs, the low fuel light came on. I slowed it up a bit and took it easy into Alice Springs.

After arriving in Alice Springs, it was a struggle to find a petrol station that was open and eventually found one with only 4 litres of fuel remaining.

Through Facebook, I found that a work colleague was in Alice Springs as well so we met up in town and had some steaks at Bojangles Saloon – this place would look right at home in the Wild West and the meals were good too.

That is it for today. Tomorrow will be a bigger day as I have 1000 km to drive to get to Mataranka.

[Show as slideshow]

Geocaching, Holidays, Out and About

Day one up the track …

June 11, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

Another below zero start to the day and once again the Clare Caravan Park’s power system overloaded and our power went off (we had been lucky to miss out all weekend).

This meant that we packed up to keep warm in the cold conditions. The final event for the weekend was the Riesling Trail Recovery Ride but unfortunately I had to hit the road for Coober Pedy. After getting a few photos of the riders and waving them off I started north through the Bundaleer Valley grabbing caches along the way.

One of the caches was at the Bundaleer Aqueduct. This was constructed back in 1903 and is some amazing engineering for the time. If it wasnt for geocaching, I probably wouldnt have found this.

The rest of the day was travelling through to Coober Pedy, taking in the Outback regions north of Port Augusta and the Woomera Prohibited Area.

Finally arrived in Coober Pedy around 7:30 pm, bunking down for the night in the Stuart Range Caravan Park.

[Show as slideshow]

Geocaching, Out and About

A new Geocaching Power Trail for SA …

May 19, 2012 Scott 3 Comments

South Australia is starting to get a reputation for being the Geocaching Power Trail State of Australia. To keep the reputation going, I spent today out near Port Wakefield and Inkerman laying yet another Power Trail.

The series that I have put out is the “Premiers of South Australia“. Originally when doing the research, I thought. “how many could there be?”. Well there has been 45 in total since Parliament started in South Australia in 1856. Some like Thomas Playford were in for a long time (27 years) while others were only in for a few days such as John Baker. The early years of South Australia were obviously very tumultuous.

Rather than just a long line of geocaches, I hid them in the shape of South Australia and was lucky to find some roads that fit the shape well, just south east of Port Wakefield.

After spending a few hours hiding the caches, it was time to grab some of the caches that I have been passing by over the years due to lack of time. Most of these were along the coast and required a 4WD and some others didn’t but did require a lot of patience – a nano cache on a Leopard Tank. 🙁

Following the coast down, I traveled through Port Parham, Thompson Beach (couldn’t miss this one) finishing up at St Kilda on sunset. A good finish to the day. 🙂