Feb was a busy month for me as caching goes. I managed 25 geocaches in the month – my busiest ever (not that I’m a numbers man!)
I was also lucky enough to do some travel caches – in Perth and Fremantle, Western Australia. I managed to grab 5 caches in the 4 days that we were in town. One whole day was lost to a wedding and another to travel and the heat (42°C!)
In the early part of the month I also took a bike ride from Croydon to Blackburn north and grabbed a few caches along the Mullum Mullum Creek and the Koonung Creek cycle trails.
I attended a lunch event and made some new friends too at the “Another Bung Lunch” event.
My favourite find of the month was “Wetlands Walk” which I did with my 3½ year old son. My favourite hide was “Mont Court Reserve“, a very stealthy hide in a kids’ playground.
On the last weekend of November, I went caching in Heathmont, a suburb of Melbourne. I filmed the whole experience on my iPhone for your viewing pleasure.
I only managed to find one cache in Heathmont because of time constraints and LOADS of muggles, but I grabbed another in Vermont in the afternoon.
November wasn’t a bad caching month for me. I managed to grab 10 caches and attend an event – the WWFM VI!
The WWFM was fun as per usual. 54 teams attended this one which just happened to fall on the same day as the Myer Christmas Parade. Luckily our massive event didn’t interfere too much with theirs although I’m sure more than a few muggles grabbed log sheets without realising what we were up to!
After the event, I headed into the city on my bike to grab some caches that had been placed since my last visit to the CBD. This included an interesting Earthcache! I also cycled out to the Rod Laver Tennis Centre to grab a few caches out that way. I also managed to log 5 different types of cache today! Event, traditional, multi, earthcache and locationless.
WWFM VI
Improbable Fossil Stones Earthcache
ACDC Lane
RSL War Artifacts
On the last weekend of the month I went caching while the family were out Christmas shopping. I have made a short iPhone video of this expedition (to follow shortly).
While I was away in South Africa and during my stopover in Singapore, I managed to do a few geocaches. I didn’t get to as many as I would have liked to, but I did manage to get 3 earthcaches! I had planned to do 2 (2 Oceans – GC1H9WR and Table Mountain – GC1ABZK ), but when the opportunity presented itself for a third (Cango Caves – GC1DTQF), I grabbed it!
I didn’t have much time for caching as I was “acting tour guide” for most of the holiday as I had my in-laws and a friend with me. Luckily the friend doesn’t mind a spot of caching. I dragged him all around the top of Table Mountain to help me with the Earthcache answers. It was a mere 7C up there too and we both had shorts on!
The 2 Oceans Earthcache was much easier to log which is just as well as it was pouring with rain and the wind was howling. We quickly took the required photo with the “Southernmost tip of Africa” marker, took some notes, grabbed another nearby cache and then dived into the warmth of the car.
The Cango Caves Earthcache was by far the simplest to log. We did a walking tour through the caves, I asked all the right questions (to log the cache with) and then some photos. Thanks to Adrian for allowing me to log this (I had taken the group photo in the wrong place).
In all, March was quite a successful month. I have also applied for my Earthcache pin from Earthcache.org. April is not looking too flash on the caching front as I am yet to log a geocache!
On Friday morning I got up at 7am, packed my rucksack and headed out to Don Valley in the 4C temperature and pea soup mist to get my first ever FTF! Now that’s dedication!
I found a spot to park the car then followed my instinct instead of my Garmin and headed in the WRONG direction! After about 300m, I realised that the Garmin compass was NOT going to change direction, so I did. I had taken the wrong fork in the road.
The first 300m or so was a decent enough climb and by the time I reached the level of the aqueduct, I was quite our of breath. I stopped to take some stunning photos as the sun started to peak through the mist. I continued along the winding, twisting Aqueduct Trail for about another 2km until the beep of my GPSr pierced the silence of the thickening fog.
After a short search I had my 100th cache and my first ever FTF in my hands. I dropped off a GeoCoin, signed the logbook and took a couple more photos before retracing my steps through the ever-thickening mist back to the car.
By the time I was back on the tar road, I could barely see 15m in front of me, but the trip to Don Valley had been worth it!
