Never too hot to cache

After the excitement of the fireworks the previous night, the geokids were up at the crack of dawn and were ready to be gone. We told them that we had to pack up the camp first and then have breakfast before we did anything. I reckon I caught a snippet of conversation that went like, “But we’re not hungry and packing up is what Mums and Dads are for.” Eventually the tents and everything else was packed and we drove over to the BBQ area and cooked bacon and eggs for brekky. With a high temperature predicted for today, we agreed that we would do the few caches left early and travel home in the heat. Our first cache took us along a 4WD only track (I could see why once we were on it, there’s no way the Commodore would have made this one), out of Lucky Bay to Victoria’s View and a pretty beach. What wasn’t apparent at first was that the tree where the red ammo box was hidden must have been a favourite roosting place for the local mosquito population. I’ve seen some mosquitoes in my life, but not in a swarm as large as this. I sure if they would have all taken off at once, they would have blocked out the sun. And hungry, they could’ve sucked a bullock dry in minutes. The Wife assured me, that if I came down with Ross River virus, she would get us home safe and sound.  We completed this cache by doing CITO (nearly $3.00’s worth) and getting the heck out of there after tending to C6 who had stepped on a thorn, in a hurry to get away from the mozzies, which lodged itself in his foot. 

 

Our next stop was on the outskirts of Cowell heading in from Lucky Bay. What a dump was exactly that, a dump. Despite a rigorous search from both the Wife and I, using both GPS’s, we couldn’t find the darn thing. When we returned home and to the computer we found the co-ords had been updated. As you can see from our tracks (from my Quest) in the first photo, we were that close, just not close enough. We gave this up as a DNF and continued on our way to the next cache.

Down by the sea is located near the boat ramp and we were in two minds whether to attempt this one or not because of all the muggles around. We knew there was something wrong when we located GZ. We were standing knee deep in water. This suited C7 perfectly and he was happy to look in the water all we wanted, except we knew it wouldn’t be there. The only things nearby were saltbush shrubs and so they were told to put their branches up to be searched vigorously. After, what seemed like ages, I decided to head for the only solid structure around for a quiet breather and give this a once over. Who knows, I might get lucky. I hopped onto the table and BINGO, there it was. We worked out it was approximately 17 – 18meters from the GZ, which is probably why we couldn’t find it near GZ. I think the muggles were too busy looking at this to bother seeing what we were up to and I’m 99% sure we got away with it.

 

Buoyed by our success on this one we thought we might as well round out the morning by finding our last cache in Cowell called Have a look. By now the temperature was starting to get a little warmer than is comfortable and we didn’t want to hang around any longer than we had to. Upon arriving at GZ in the middle of the scrub, we scouted around for a good ½hr with no success, before giving up. Geokids even climbed the lookout in the vain hope of spotting it, but as this was several 100 meters from the GZ the Wife and I figured they had no chance. As the same person who created the last two created this one, we suspected that the GZ was out by a fair distance and decided to head to the Cowell bakery for lunch and a cold drink instead.

  

We have noticed that the co-ords have been since updated for both our DNF’s and we plan to go back and attempt them at a later date.