Sunday was the Cummins Air Show. There hasn’t been an airshow on Eyre Peninsula in over 25 years, and we had free tickets, so there was no way we were passing it up. The wife carefully marked out a route that would take us past 7 geocaches and only add 50kms to our journey. Then she worked out that if we were going to get those 7 caches before we went to the Air Show at 11.30, we were going to have to leave home at 7.30am. Fortunately, it was also the day that daylight saving ended, so we tricked the kids and had them in the car by what they thought was 8.30! Half way to Cleve the wife changed the clock in the car without the kids seeing, then about five minutes the other side of Cleve H9 asked “Muuumm, have we only been in the car for 10 minutes?” “Yes dear, your father is a fast driver”

Our first cache of the day was Little Fishy. H9 found this rather quickly, while the wife went to take photos of the “creek”. Small fish are supposed to live in this creek, but with the drought, it is looking pretty sad. There were however, a few protective cows hovering around a brand new Hereford calf and one very protective looking bull. We couldn’t hear the ticking of the electric fence, but the wife wasn’t going to take any chances and took a great deal of care climbing over it (looked like a clumsy preying mantis feeling it’s way over twigs). We left the World Diabetes Day Geocoin here and got back in the car. It was then that we discovered that C6 was still holding onto some of the treasures that belonged in the cache, so we had to go find it again to put it all back. 

We headed north-west to look for Hikers Hide on the outskirts of Ungarra. The wife has family that originally come from and still live in Ungarra, but she had never been here. The cache was located in an area that is dedicated to the early pioneers of the district, so she spent some time checking out the local history while I located GZ. C6 found this one, after I gave him a nudge in the right direction and tricked H9 into going to the windmill for no apparent reason. The usual swaps were made, and we were off again (ahead of schedule according to the wife).  

 Our next find was the Moody Blues at Moody Tanks. We were surprised to discover that this was more of a dam than a tank. It was a standard collection tank, built into the side of a big hunk of granite. Well, we climbed the rock, hacked our way through some bushes and C6 found the cache. I suspect that it is just because he is closer to the ground and gets to see things from a different angle. The walk had lost us some time (putting us back on schedule according to the wife with the watch)  so we continued with our westward journey.

 The name of the next cache Moreenia Siding indicated that it would be on the railway line. We had been following it since we left Ungarra, but we still managed to miss the turn. A bit of reversing fixed that problem (although the GPS hates it and spits the dummy and locks up). We headed down the access road and took the short walk to GZ. The wife located the cache while H9 stood on the tracks going “where is it”. Eventually, after a few hints, she saw it as well and dragged it out of hiding. Unfortunately, this cache was water logged. I removed everything and laid it out in the sun to dry off for a bit, so the kids took the opportunity to re-enact the scene from the old Disney movie “The Aristocats” where the cats walked down the railway line. Not wanting to spend too long here, we put most of the stuff back into a new ziplock bag and replaced it. Either a new location or a different type of container might be required here.

Even though we were getting closer to our destination, the route now had us turning back towards the south east and to the “town” of Stokes for the cache Stoke the Fire. The map shows it as a town, but there is nothing there but the church and a monument to the early pioneer women of the district. H9 and I went off to look for the cache, C6 sulked in the car and the wife went off to look at the church. At this point, the wife started to worry, because we were on a geocaching adventure and so far there were no cemetaries. The fence had a ”Private Property” sign on it, so she wasn’t able to have a look behind the church for headstones. This trip would prove to be graveless.  

Now we were heading south west again, to pass by Wattle and Daub. The instructions said that we didn’t need to climb any fences – and we didn’t (because a big tree had fallen and was holding it down for us). I’m guessing that if we had stopped a bit up the road, we would have found the picnic area and toilets, but we didn’t, because we went cross-country. I’m also assuming that if we had found the picnic area, we may also have found a Wattle and Daub hut. I know that it is just another name for Pine and Pug (or wood and mud) and was the main form of construction that the early pioneers used until they worked out how to mine the local lime and sandstone. According to the wife, we were right on schedule so we headed for the town of Cockaleechie (be careful how you say it).

 The wife has an Aunt that went to school with John Fitzgerald, and quite possibly played tennis with him when they were young(er). Fitzy’s Home Town had to be located at the now defunct tennis courts. Looking at them, it is hard to imagine that one of Australias best tennis players started out here. Anyway, the wife located the cache and then went on to investigate the rest of the surroundings, including the shed with the remains of the post office boxes.

 

From here it was a quick drive into Cummins and we arrived just in time to get our good seats by the fence line and see Dave Benson jump out of a perfectly good plane with a 30m x 15m Aussie Flag closely followed by Chris Sperou doing the impossible with his Pitts Super Stinker. It was a great day, finishing up with Fish’n'Chips from our favourite fish place, “The Fish Plaice” before heading for home.