Coorong Camping

January 24, 2010 Scott Leave a comment

It is Australia Day Long Weekend so that can only mean one thing – camping at the Coorong. During the summer, this is one spot that is bearable for camping although this year it is almost winter with night temperatures getting down to near 10C.

The days have been good with mid 20’s and plenty of sunshine. The advance party of Bookers, Goss’s and Hattons arrived on Friday securing our campsite but one other managed to sneak in but they were warned. We came back from Renmark Friday so we didnt get down here until Saturday afternoon. Also the pallecon from the Jamboree had to be unpacked prior to us leaving.

Sunday most of the crew headed down to Robe for some beach, icecream and caching (well I cached).

Lunch was on the Robe foreshore then we ventured to Long Beach for the kids to have a swim and sand play while the adults relaxed on the beach.

After setting everyone up, I headed off to do some caching in the Little Dip Conservation Park. It was fun 4WDing through the Park. Came across others, which was comforting should I have got into trouble. Checked out some spectactular coastline at the various cache locations.

Also travelled to Drain L for a cache. It is amazing that this engineering feat was carried out back in 1911. The 1 hour caching trip lasted 2 hours then it was pick up everyone then into Robe for icecream and back to the campsite for Curry Night.

It took a little while to coordinate everyone but about 1/2 hour before dusk, the camp sat down for the communal Curry Night. A great meal was had by all but look out tomorrow morning.

[Show as slideshow]

Geocaching, Holidays

Knee Boarding & Overland Corner Caching

January 20, 2010 Scott Leave a comment

I thought that my back was up for some knee boarding this morning and after wallowing in the water for a while acclimatising, it was time to get going. It was a deep water start and as we got going I was kneeling on the strap from my life jacket – this was fun. Managed to get all sorted out and we headed down to the lock and some choppy water. Rachael decided to do a 360 on the edge of the wake and came off. As we headed back to pick here up, I ended up on the outside of the wake and was starting to overtake the boat – time to bail out……

We picked up Rachael and we both had a couple more stacks then back to the beach with a few more muscles found that I am sure were not there before.

Enough of the wet stuff. This afternoon I headed down to Overland Corner for some caching. If it wasn’t for caching it is one of those places you would never stop at, yet there is a lot of history there with one of the oldest structures in the Riverland, ancient oyster beds, copper mines and the Bookmark Biosphere.

I grabbed 10 caches in the area:

GC1ETN0 – Lock Three

GC1ETN1 – Hey, nice box …

GC1QAJ4 – Overland Corner Regulator

GC1QAJ2 – Floodplain Cache

GC1QAHR – Heron’s Bend Oyster Beds

GC1H9EZ – Old OC Quarry

GC1FFJK – Overland Corner Quarry

GCJF90 – Overland

GC1H9F9 – Heritage Walk Mineral Mine

GC1ETN5 – The Ghost @ Devlins Pound …

$Heron\'s Bend Oyster Beds$

$The Ghost @ Devlin\'s Pound....$

[Show as slideshow]

Geocaching

Barmera and Berri Caching

January 19, 2010 Scott Leave a comment

After a good morning of skiing, it was time for some driving and walking to find some caches. Today I tackled the Barmera and Berri areas. In total I found 14.5 caches. The half a cache was I could see where it was – there was 5m of river between me and it but I didn’t have a towel to dry off after a swim.

My travels today took me through Monash, Barmera, Cobdogla, Kingston, Loveday, Glossop and Berri.

Caches today were:

GC1KE9J – Go’n’do Malleefowl

GC14P7J – Come Make a Road with Me

GC14P7Q – Come Across the Lake with Me

GC1F98X – 1st Overlanders

GC1A80Q – Go’n’do Cobdogla FC

GC21MW7 – Williams Wife

GC1AP4D – Go’n’do Who was Francesco Fantin

GC1AP4T – Go’n’do Loveday GHQ

GC19VEZ – Vice-Admiral Who?

GC1AEKB – Go’n’do Berri Lookout

GC1EK15 – Welcome to downtown

GC19M1Z – Go’n’do Tortoise Crossing

GC1FNAN – over U go

GCHD3J – Hole-In-One

$GC1KE9J – Go’n\'do Malleefowl$

$GC1A80Q – Go’n\'do Cobdogla FC$

$Go\'n\'do - Chambers Creek$

$GC1AP4D – Go’n\'do Who was Francesco Fantin$

$GC1AP4T – Go’n\'do Loveday GHQ$

$GC1AEKB – Go’n\'do Berri Lookout$

$GC19M1Z – Go’n\'do Tortoise Crossing$

[Show as slideshow]

Holidays

Morning Skiing at Renmark

January 19, 2010 Scott Leave a comment

After a couple of ordinary days with water you could surf on, the wind let up and it was skiing time. The barefoot guys were up on it at 6:30am but we were a more realistic 10:00am.

Rachael did a double ski then Bradley and Jenny went up on a dual knee board followed by Rachael and Jenny on a dual knee board. My back was playing up so I sat in the boat to observe.

There were a few good spills but missed them on camera.

[Show as slideshow]

Geocaching, Holidays

Loxton Caching …

January 18, 2010 Scott Leave a comment

After the wind of yesterday, there wasn’t a lot of enthusiasm to go skiing today as the water was still a little choppy. So after a relaxing morning it was time to go down to Loxton, Moorook, Taplan and Nangari for some caching.

I was a good day for caching with mid 20’s and some wind with clear skies. Most of the ones I attempted were multi caches, puzzles and those that required some walking that I had been leaving for such a day.

Travelled about 250km for a total of 13 cache finds for the day.

Caches found today were:

TP4113 – Wonuarra Area

GC1AYW1 – Big old Gum

GC131G6 – Red and Blue Landing

GC1FNAR – Barking Mad!

GC102FF – Kabbarli

GC1BT4G – New Home

GC1EG3D – Lagoon with a view

GC11B25 – Pumped Up for a Smiley 🙂

GC1A80V – Go’n’do Morook – Kingston FC (RIFL)

GC1QDY8 – Hanging out for a coffee

GC1ZK0Z – 2 Schools?

GC1ZK0X – Unexpected Tree

GC1ZK0V – Nangari Leftovers

$Go\'n\'do - Moorook-Kingston FC (RIFL)$

[Show as slideshow]

12 of 12, Family Life, Geocaching, Holidays

January 12 of 12 – Sydney

January 12, 2010 Scott 1 Comment

This month found me and Bradley in Sydney.

Our day started waking up in North Sydney with a view of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. It was then a walk down to McMahons Point to grab the ferry. We did the loop around Darling Harbour, Milsons Point and into Circular Quay.

First stop was a ride on the Shark Attack Jet Boat. We were told that we would get wet with or without the coats so we chose the coats any way. The ride went for about 35 minutes getting up to Watsons Bay across to Chowder Bay and back doing 360’s and bow wake jumps. Did we get wet – YES!! Bradley had a ball.

Bradley wanted to go back for a shower but that was not going to happen.

We then checked out the Opera House, Botanic Gardens then back to Circular Quay to watch the street performers. The main one was a juggler with flames, chainsaw and knifes on top of a bike on a pole.

It was then a walk around to the Harbour Bridge to look at it up close – it is an impressive bridge. We then continued to the Rocks for lunch and to check out some of the history.

It was then back to the Quay to catch the train back to North Sydney.

Still had some time for some caching with:

GCJFY5 – Writers of Renoun

GCXDDN – Campbells Cove

GC21VP4 – Sydney Harbour Bridge EarthCache

$Sydney\'s Fire Boat$

[Show as slideshow]

Family Life, Geocaching, Holidays, Scouts

AJ2010 – a day off …

January 10, 2010 Scott Leave a comment

Sunday the 10th was a “rostered” day off for most of the leaders of Troop 0404. The plan today was to pick up Jenny, take her to lunch then show the sights of Wollongong.

I picked up Jenny around 10:30 – it gave her a chance to do some washing. I had left Bradley in bed so that he could catch up on his sleep (there was no “Do Not Disturb” sign so I thought housekeeping may wake him up).

After picking up Jenny, we headed down to Cataract Dam as it was only a couple of kms down the road from Cataract Park and of course there was a cache. The dam was reasonably full and they had one of the pipes open to release some water into the Sydney Water system.

From there we headed back to Wollongong via the Bulli Lookout then back to the room just as housekeeping was about to do our room. Bradley was still asleep. Jenny woke him up then had a “real” shower.

Lunch was at the Mt Keira Cafe with a friend – retired NSW Station Officer Paul Baker and his son Jack. Paul had organised Table 21 (the one with the best view) as he had done some plumbing work for the owner.

The meal, view and company were great. We were not to know but Jenny was going to go back the next night for the Contingent Dinner.

Paul suggested a couple of spots worth checking out – Sea Cliff Bridge and Bald Hill.

The Sea Cliff Bridge is a bridge that was built out away from the cliffs due to road and cliff slippages. It is used a lot for car commercials. And there is a cache under it as well. I walked the bridge while Jenny and Bradley drove it.

From here we went up to Bald Hill where the local hang gliders and para gliders take off. There was a good crowd to watch and a lot of craft taking off as well. It is one spot that you wouldn’t want to fall off.

We took Jenny back to the Jamboree around 5:30pm and we headed back to the hotel. Not a bad day off.

Caches for the day include:

GC130KN – Cataract Comedy

GCM3EX – That’s Tops

GC1B9KB – Grand Pacific Cache

GCT02F – Eyrie

GC1REGR – Gateway to Heaven

GCF28E – Number Game in Wollongong

GC14608 – Nun of This

GC1YEF4 – Picnic in the Gong

[Show as slideshow]

Family Life, Scouts

AJ2010 – Visitors Day

January 9, 2010 Scott Leave a comment

Today Bradley and I made the trek up Bulli Pass to Cataract Park not sure if we would make it as the car was working on fumes as I had forgotten to fill it up. We made it OK but would we make it home?

Our trip today was to the AJ2010 Visitors Day to catch up with Jenny and Rachael after their first week.

It was a warm day (35C with about 70% humidity) which made for close conditions with plenty of sweat and keeping up fluids.

We managed a car park very close to the entrance (our arrival time was 11:00 am) and they had finished sending all the cars down to the dam and were filling up spaces that were left. Through the entrance was quick and we were on site within 5 minutes. Seemingly those that had entrance times at 8:00am only got on site about an hour before we got there.

The thing with Cataract Park is the walking and distances. Of course Troop 0404 was not the furthest from the entrance, it wasn’t far off. (1.3 km from the entrance).

Jenny and Rachael were happy to see us and we had a quick look at the cap then headed to Sub Camp 4 Market Area then back for lunch with all the other family members that had made the trek across from SA. Meat and Salad Rolls for lunch today.

After lunch, the kids disappeared, and I headed off to the Geocaching Event that was scheduled for today on site. They introduced Geocaching as an activity for this Jamboree and it was being taken up by many with a number of temporary caches set up on site. I caught up with many cachers from Australia and NZ. We exchanged tips, pathtags and travel bugs and headed on our way.

After walking around some more, taking in the Contingient Tents, we went to Sub Camp 2 to catch up with Liam and Lochie McHenry who were attending their first Jamboree. An exchange has been set up for Tuesday night where Rachael’s patrol will dine at 0224 and Lochie’s patrol will dine at 0404.

After another meal with Troop 0404, Bradley and I made the trek back up to the car and into Appin to get fuel (we made it).

While in Appin and on the way back to Wollongong, picked up some caches of course.

Caches for today were:

GA1702 – Jamboree Scout Geocacher Get Together

GA1691 – Where the wild things used to be

GA1747 – Scouts, Why Knot?

GC10F0X – Cataract Scout Park

GC22ET3 – Ferals

GC22ERZ – Eye Spy

GC13R02 – Appin Gateway

GC21KRZ – Barefoot in the Park

GCYJ6N – Da BOM

GC1A9BY – Copious Caches on the Coast #2

GC101VK – Dharawal Gateway

[Show as slideshow]

Family Life

The second wave heads to AJ2010

January 6, 2010 Scott Leave a comment

It was time for the second wave to head to AJ2010. Bradley and I were heading to the Visitors Day to catch up on the first week of Jenny and Rachaels Jamboree.

Got away from home on time at 9:30 am but later in the day I realised that the water fridge was still sitting on the lounge room floor. 🙁

First stop was Nairne to pick up Bradley as he had a sleepover and was supposed to be ready when I arrived – was he – NO!!

Next stop was at Mannum to drop off Molly at Grandma’s for our time away. Molly is always happy to see Grandma but I think she still wanted to come with us.

Travel today was pretty good stopping at Pinnaroo for lunch. We headed to the bakery to find Alex and Lachlan Brockbank there. They travelled with us to Ouyen then we parted company as they were heading south along the Murray and we were heading north.

Our first night stop was the Balranald Caravan Park where we had a comfortable cabin.

Not much in the cache stakes today but managed to grab a few mainly Trig Points.

Caches today were:

TP2424 – Kay Hill

TP0340 – Kiamal Area

GCMQYR – WeirBal

TP5310 – Balranald Area Trig

[Show as slideshow]

Family Life, Scouts

AJ2010 – Troop 0404 Departure

January 2, 2010 Scott Leave a comment

It was 12:30 pm and all except 1 family were waiting at the Blackwood Primary School (the missing family were at the Belair Primary School wondering where everyone was). We were wondering where the bus was. It didn’t arrive until 1:00 pm.

Once the bus arrived, bags were loaded on and kids found their seats. It was then back off the bus for the departure photos, final farewells and then it was time for Rachael and Jenny to depart for the AJ2010 at Cataract Park for the 22nd Australian Jamboree.