What is that Thing? is one in a series of cleverly-positioned geocaches by “bainsworld” inspired by the film The Matrix (1999). This movie was filmed in various locations in Sydney, and the bainsworld cache locations takes you back to those locations.
What is that Thing? is from a well recognised scene in the movie, located underneath an stone arched railway overpass which just happens to be a 3 minute walk from my work. I had some time this morning, so I couldn’t really resist the temptation to wander down there for a brief look and to see if I could locate this nearby micro cache.
One needs to practice the art of stealth here! Although it’s not a very high pedestrian activity area, there is a moderate and steady volume of slow-moving, stop-start vehicular traffic passing by, and a police centre nearby with a number of Federal Police cars parked on the street in the immediate area. It is also near the railway tunnel entrance to the city circle underground, and hence is a security hotspot.
Today I was armed only with my iPhone to get a fix on the coordinates. Unfortunately – it didn’t like the built up area and I couldn’t get a proper satellite fix. Despite this, however, I was still able to use the GeoCaching application on the iPhone to look up the cache and get a pinpoint on the Google satellite view which lead me to an area where the cache should be.
I eventually located a small, sharpened pencil – only 4cm in length, resting quietly on a stone ledge – as if to indicate nearby geocaching activity, but sadly I did not find the actual geocache itself.
This one will need to wait another day.
Mooney Valley Micro was to be our third and final hunt for the day, and another excellent location had been selected for this cache by “SUBYDAZZ”.
Tens of thousands of people in cars, busses and trucks traverse over the top of this valley every day on the F3 Freeway, many not taking the time to appreciate the vast valley below them, or the amazing piece of infrastructure they are crossing.
Getting to this location requires a trip down the Old Pacific Highway – and due to it’s temporary closure at the Gosford end, will also require a little back-tracking (whichever way you come from). Be sure to use the Calga exit.
Not up there, Wolfie!
TeamWolfie had previously visited this location without luck. It was in fact our very first seek after being inducted into the world of geocaching, but we had no luck here on that first day.
Now armed with some more skill and experience, and a sharper nose for clues we revisited this site – keen to catch another cache, and sure enough – with some persistence and knowing what to look for, we came up trumps and left our customary trademarks.
Although the word “micro” is used in the description, be aware this cache is actually in the “small” category, so don’t let that confuse you – though when compared with the bridge above, everything down here (including ourselves) seems to be micro sized.
That’s three-out-of-three this afternoon. Enough caching for today, but rest assured we’ll be back very soon to hunt down some more.
On the way home from Hawkesbury River we literally had to drive over and under two caches which we had previously recorded as DNF (Did Not Find), being Mooney Views, and Mooney Valley Micro.
You see, the F3 Freeway literally goes over the top of Mooney Valley Micro, and underneath Mooney Views. Neither is accessible directly from the freeway, but rather you need to take the Old Pacific Highway to get to these two locations. Furthermore, the Old Highway is presently not a through road due to a landslip near the Gosford end, so some backtracking is required.
We went to the northernmost point first – being Mooney Views.
Rather than being so freaked out by the view we took a more systematic, dare I say, dogmatic approach – and took our time to carefully read the clues and hints. This approach paid off and TeamWolfie was soon rummaging around the contents of this small-but-fun cache. We were quite amazed at the variety and quality of swappable items in this cache.
We liked it so much, this is where we left the Travel Bug, previously retrieved from Creek Shrub.
Bye Bye Travel Bug
This Travel Bug has come a long way from Germany, so we’re really hoping someone will collect it from Mooney Views soon and send it further along to another exotic location.
It was great to finally get this cache knocked over.
Caches Not Found, Equipment | Wolfie Ben | 
October 28, 2008 3:48 pm | 
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