Quite a busy day this month with a start at the chiropractor to get everything in line as I had some walking to do.

It was then up the Freeway to Callington and then onto Rockleigh & Bondleigh to tackle a couple of hike-in caches on the Lavender Federation Trail. The caches on the radar today were:

ALDWT #2 at Rockleigh

ALDWT #4 at Bondleigh

The first cache took me past the old Preamimma Mine which is an old copper and gold mine which was mined in the late 1800’s. Like the nearby Kanmantoo Mine, there is a bit of interest to rework the area for copper, gold and zinc. However today there was just me, a few grasshoppers and a cache.

The second cache was further north towards Bondleigh, where I parked near a few old ruins and rusting old farm machinery. The walk around to the cache startled a couple of kangaroos but that was all the wildlife I saw. It was then a matter of picking the right crevasse in the rocks and I soon had the cache. The walk back to the car took me through an old stone walled drive to what could be called a hermits shed or at least an old weekender.

As I came up to the back of the shed, I got a bit of a fright as I nearly stepped on a snake all curled up trying to get some heat although today was a little cool and overcast. The cool conditions probably helped as it was very sluggish and gave me a chance to get a couple of metres away.

It looked to be around 1.5 to 2 metres long with a body the size of my wrist. Initially I thought it might be some sort of python but following a bit of research it was more than likely to be an Eastern Tiger Snake. I tried to get a photo but by the time the camera was ready it had slithered back into the stone wall.

Picked up a couple more caches in Kanmantoo, Nairne and Mount Barker. The cache in Nairne called Pumba’s walk has had me beaten a couple of times but I found it today. There were a couple of DNF’s (did not find) and these were both hidden by the same person – I think there is more work required in his hiding methods.

A quick stop at home to pick up Rachael to get her down to the bus depot to pick up her purse that was left on a bus last week. Luckily everything was still in it.

The project for tonight was to get the Xmas lights up and running. We actually pruned out a few of the old ones that have seen the end of their useful life and added a few new ones. All are good to go.

That’s it until next month.