Rocky Road to Nowhere

For starters,  let me apologize for the quality of the photos on this blog. Nothing more frustrating than getting to where you were going and finding you have left the digital camera at home. So these photos have come courtesy of the Nokia 6120 mobile phone, (and I must say, the pictures are crap it leaves a little to be desired in the photography department), and have required more plastic surgery than Michael Jackson to get them to the stage they are at. Now that the apologies are out of the way, I shall continue with the story.

 

The Wife had just finished coming off night duty (she’s a nurse), and being the kind and thoughtful person that I am, I said I would take H9 & C6 to Whyalla and do some of those caches that we haven’t attempted yet so that she could sleep undisturbed.  So we piled into TheWorkUte (if you read it right you just heard a deep booming voice) and set off.

 

Leisuremaster had been bugging us since our DNF of a couple of weeks ago, and a phone call from Team Astro earlier in the week had made me think that something was not right on my side of the equation. We worked out that, somehow, when I downloaded the co-ords to my GPS they were incorrect, which had us searching in the wrong location about 40m away. I put in the correct co-ords and so hopefully we would be on the right track this time. We arrived at Leisuremaster and proceeded to inspect the GZ with a fine toothcomb. The clue soon had me within the vicinity, and when I saw the object, as described by Team Astro in a previous conversation, I knew I was on the right track. Back into the Ute for a very short drive to the next waypoint. I hadn’t even located GZ when H9 had removed the cache from its hidey-hole and with C6 was rifling through it to see if there was anything good. Swaps were made and log filled in and then we were on our way. I can now remove this one from our DNF list.

 

Arriving at the waypoint for Littorally Flat we noticed the tide was out and that we would be able to walk along the beach. This pleased C6 no end. He just loves the beach viewing it as an opportunity to get wet and dirty. H9 and I located the GZ for the 1st stage and started searching. Sure enough, another one of those little round things with numbers on it. Input this data into the GPS and off we go with H9 holding the GPS and navigating. Next thing you know, we are knee deep in seaweed and struggling to fight our way out. H9 decides to head for the dunes so that we can attack GZ from the rear. It was a good idea that fell down badly as the GZ was right on the edge of the seaweed. This is when I decided to decode the hint, as I have had experience with seaweed before, and didn’t want to end up looking like the monster from the black lagoon again. Fat lot of use that was. The only piece of sand I could see was 10m away from GZ. Nevertheless we half-heartedly searched GZ and then every other bush within the vicinity with no luck. H9 decided that this was going to be a DNF, for now. It wasn’t  until we got home and I log the visit that I notice an addendum to the log, telling all and sundry that the environment of the place changes faster and more often than a chameleon changes it’s spots and there’s a spoiler photo. Dagnab it, we were in the right place all the time, just needed to dig a bit more. Oh well, always another time.

 

From here we headed for Port is Red. Yes I do know that, I have drunk a fair amount of it in my time. This time however, it was relating to the colour of the harbour area. A bitterly cold wind was chilling us the whole time as we walked to GZ. Rocks, rocks and more bloody rocks. I hate bloody rocks, caches in rocks are nothing but a pain in the proverbial. (I have hidden 2 of my own caches in rocks, but that’s different, I know where to find them). C6 was enjoying climbing around on the rocks, which didn’t really help in the searching for the cache, but he was happy. H9 was more concerned about freezing to death than anything else and so it was up to me to locate the cache. Having read the hint, I sat down. No point spending more time here than we had to. Wouldn’t you know it? Wrong bloody rock. Ended up searching for it anyway and jamming two of my fingers, (bloody rocks), before locating cache. If only I had sat on that rock instead I wouldn’t be in pain right now. Completed the formalities and took a couple photos (who knows, one might turn out) and left.

 

By now C6 and H9 were both “starving”, so we headed for HJ’s and stopped for lunch. Having satisfied the hungry beasts, it was agreed that we should head out of town for the afternoon to do some of the caches hidden in the scrub surrounding Whyalla. This was how we ended up at What the Heli? .  Not much to tell here, except we turned off the road, down a side street and parked. C6 had the GPS and navigated very well to GZ where he was promptly pipped at the post by H9 spotting the cache. We did notice that this must be the proving ground for the 16yo ‘P’ platers to learn their driving skills and also for the hoons to test their cars, judging by the number of black tyre tracks on the bitumen. No time for reminiscing, we got some more caching to do.

 

The track that I located and turned onto for Dragon’s Lair was more suited for 4WD access but that didn’t deter me in TheWorkUte (did you hear the sound effects that time?). I’m a farm boy at heart, so I’m used to improvising. I am not completely ignorant to some of the hazards that could be encountered, but I’m usually willing to have a go. Sometimes it works, sometimes it’s a resounding flop. So that is how we ended up on a two rut track in the middle of a conservation park being bounced around like lotto balls before we arrived at GZ. I had my sword and shield ready sitting in my white steed but was sorely disappointed to find not a Dragon in sight, not even a fair damsel in distress. Cautiously, just in case, I approached the cache and did the usual stuff before fleeing, driving off into the setting sun, back to the Whyalla – Port Augusta road.

 

Driving back into Whyalla we stopped at Centenary Rocks and picked up an easy find, took a photo and we were on our way. By now the kids were hungry (again) and a bag of lolly bananas were devoured in no time at all.

 We had promised the Wife that we would be home before sundown, so we figured there was only time for one more cache. I had decided on Alternative Routes, as we had half completed this one once before, and it was only a matter of getting to the final GZ and locating cache. Easy, right? Not on your life. There was a big steep hill in the road. That doesn’t mean I didn’t give a fair crack of the whip as we tried driving to the 2nd stage from the 1st stage in TheWorkUte. The road proved to be too steep and rocky (see previous comment on Dragon’s Lair re judgement), so the TheWorkUte was carefully backed down so that we could try from another direction. We did manage to get to the top of the range with much face covering and “I’m not gonna look” coming from H9. She wanted to swap sides with me at several locations along the way. Apparently, the view from her side wasn’t very appealing. It was in the middle of one of these hysterical fits that I noticed we were driving right by Red Rock West, so we tackled that one instead. As it involved dangerous stuff, (climbing mainly), C6 got right into it. It was a bit of a steep climb down the rock face, and I’m sure that if I hadn’t broken his fall once or twice, he would have well and truly beaten us to the bottom. He likes to think he’s a mountain goat, but he has the agility of a drunk chicken. This was a sneaky one to find and guess what, more bloody ROCKS. Just happened to glance in the right direction and spot the container. What a relief. So while I was logging find, H9 and C6 grabbed their booty and started to climb back up. C6 must have been a bit more confident by now because he was waiting when I climbed over the top. We then hopped back into TheWorkUte and slogged our way up to the park at the lookout. We did think about trying to drive up further to Alternative Routes cache, but I wasn’t real confident that the Ute could handle the steep climb, so we packed it in and headed for home. That cache will have to wait for another day.