Had a phone call from Bill Griggs earlier in the week to see if I was up for a challenge to find 52 unpublished caches in the Kuitpo Forest. Sounded like a fun challenge and it was decided that an early start Saturday morning was in order.

Well our challenge was somewhat thwarted with the 52 caches being published at 0400 Saturday morning so it now had become a “First to Find” (FTF) run to see how many we could get before the forest was besieged by FTF Hounds.

So with me and my $100 bike and Bill with his somewhat more expensive eBike arriving at 0730, we set off on our anti-clockwise journey.

Even though we were not going to do our original challenge, we had some other challenges to contend with.

One – it was bloody cold and even though there was no wind the temperature remained mostly in single figures.

Two – my chain on the $100 bike decided it was not up to the challenge and promptly broke at 3km, 4km and 5km. We repaired it two times (handy to have a doctor with the right tools), but in the end it became a 5km ride and 11km walk for me.

The outcome in the end was 52 FTF’s with coffee at the end at Tinjella Hut where my brother and sister were camped for the weekend (was unaware they were there when we started off).