Oh My God, they killed Kenny! – Valley of Annelids

Last weekend we found the Ourimbah Trackhead geocache – located on the Great North Walk by making our way southward from Ourimbah Creek Road. On that occasion we sited a Red Fox, so we were very keen to revisit the area and have a go at the other geocache further up the track – best accessible from the southern end.

The geocache further up the track and deeper in the forest is the unusually named Oh My God, they killed Kenny! – Valley of Annelids (GC1D032), by GeoMonkeys. This weekend we were already in the right area to approach this cache from the south side – being an easier approach.

As a South Park fan myself, I am familiar with the saying “Oh My God, they killed Kenny!”, and as we approached this cache from the easier route from the south, we came up a road called Kilkenny Road which lead us to the Great North Walk and Ourimbah Track – so it all makes sense now.

As far as “Valley of the Annelids” part of the name goes… according to Wikipedia -

“The annelids, collectively called Annelida (from Latin anellus ”little ring”), are a large phylum of animals comprising the segmented worms, with about 15,000 modern species including the well-known earthworms and leeches.”

Leeches? Yes, these are creatures we are growing accustomed to after several encounters with them during our geocaching expeditions. So small, so strong, so hungry, and so fast. 

As we walked from the end of Kilkenny Road down the path we wondered – where are all these so-called leeches… not a leech in site. The path started out relatively flat, and dry, and leech free. It was a trick. Very soon we were descending into the depths of the Valley of the Annelids, and found ourselves surrounded by leeches inching around on the ground whereever we stepped, looking for every opportunity to cling themselves onto our footware.

Despite swamping our shoes with Aeroguard, these strong and hungry little suckers still managed to cling onto our shoes and boots. So disgusting. So much time spent flicking them off. Argh! So frustrating.

The leech population seemed to increase exponentially as we ventured deeper into the valley. It was like something from a horror movie – and one could easily imagine more Kenny being devoured by the little blood suckers. We couldn’t even stop for a rest, or stop to contemplate the location of the cache, or even think about looking at our GPS – for stopping, even only for a brief moment, would surely mean more leeches would hitch a ride on our tasty feet and legs.

We were exhausted. It seemed difficult to get a fix. I think we went too far – probably past the cache. After a while we gave up – with GZ showing as being about 100m off the track, nothing was making any sense down here in this diabolical valley.

It beat us. We gave up and begun the long sweaty journey back up the hill. Perhaps we’ll be back again sometime – next time, better prepared for the onslaught of parasites. The attempt to find this geocache is NOT for the feint hearted, or for those with a phobia of blood suckers!

Old Scribbly

Further along in the region of the Somersby plateau is another of the Geomonkeys hides, Old Scribbly (GCH2MY) – located on a serene section of the Great North Walk – a 250km walking track linking the cities of Sydney and Newcastle.

We have already found many geocaches located along the Great North Walk – including Mooney Valley Micro, Ourimbah Trackhead, Dead Horse Creek and Coventry Street. No doubt there are many more. Thankfully you don’t have to walk the 250km in one session!  Usually, as is the case with Old Scribbly, there is a place nearby where the walk intersects with a road where you can park relatively close to the cache – in this case, Old Scribbly is about 300m down the track off Robinson Road at Somersby.

Recent rain had left parts of the track a little muddy – something to be aware of before venturing down to Old Scribbly.

It was a relatively short, flat, easy walk through the quiet and dense forest. Small animal tracks either side of the human track provided evidence of an abundance of wildlife in the area, although none were to be seen today (that we noticed, anyway).

The Old Scribbly cache was a wonderful find in a wonderful grand old scribbly bark tree. Considering the age of the cache, it’s in excellent condition. This medium sized geocache was of the biscuit container variety – of the type I have not seen since I was a young child in the 1970s! We left a Red Gem, took a small Rabbit – and signed the Log Book.

Old Scribbly Scribbles will lead you to the cache

From the picture, you can see why this tree is called a scribbly-bark tree – and this one is particularly old and prominent. Thank you Geomonkeys for bringing us to another exciting location that we would otherwise have never known existed.

Deadwood Forest

After starting our geocaching morning with the intensely fascinating experience of The Lost Pharaoh, it was going to be tough to match the experience – and I don’t think we could have had more of a contrasting experience than by visiting Deadwood Forest (GCTWV2) by Shifter Brains.

Located on a boundary between a construction zone and a dry shrubby forest, and well-hidden in behind a pile of deadwood created by the clearing of the land for the construction zone. You can’t help but think this cache won’t be here in another year or so if growth of this new industrial estate continues.

A wall of deadwood and other debris separated us from GZ – so rather than getting straight to GZ, we sought out an alternate – slightly longer, but much easier route which lead us into GZ from the west – to discover the resting place of the cache was like a little oasis in amongst the harsh dense shrubs and deadwood debris.

Wolfie in the Deadwood

We’d left our swappables in the car, and it was going to be a real ordeal to go back, and then return to the cache – so we decided on this occasion to just sign the log and not make any swaps.