Our plan was to park near the Mangrove Creek weir, and cross it – if possible, make our way up Simpsons Track to this geocache, and then progress another 3km further up the track to the Simpson’s Cave geocache.

It was a hot stinky Saturday morning. The temperature was hitting 35′c, and our first obstacle was we couldn’t drive all the way to the weir because access was restricted. So we parked near the gate and walked down the steep, sizzling paved roadway – not looking forward to the return hike up the hill.

Before long we were at the shores of Mangrove creek.

Muddy Mangrove Creek

Our next obstacle was how to cross the creek. There is a concrete weir, and unattended pumping station – with warning signs and fences to keep us out. Adjacent to the weir was an alternate rocky crossing, but difficult to get to. Instead we decided to find a way under the fence and cross the safer, and easier, concrete weir.

Mangrove Creek Weir

Looking back from where we came

After a minor southward detour, were soon following Simpson’s Track westward along the southern shores of Mangrove Creek. This old convict track was oozing history – being the original road from Sydney to the Central Coast and used up to as late as 1930. With the history came the ghostly eeriness of being out here, all alone, on this lonely yet legendary track.

Simpsons Track heading toward the Inn

The heat was stifling. The silence broken by the song of the ever-present bellbirds in the trees above. Now and then wildlife was heard and seen to be scuffling away from us as we approached. We saw goannas,  a platypus, snake tracks slithering across the ground, and probably other interesting things we dared not look for.

Simpsons track - an eerie and haunted place

Perhaps the spookiest thing of all wasn’t found until after we were at home later that afternoon, examining the day’s photos and in at least three cases we could find “faces” in amongst the trees and bush. One of the most startling, and clearest, being that of a young boy.

We were closing in on Ground Zero. First a rusty car, then an out-house as the cache description had hinted we should look for, and a flat area, devoid of trees that we could only assume was the site of the Inn that now no longer exists. But we could “feel” it, like it was still there in front of us – and it was rather unsettling.

The rusty car

The Out House

Something told Wolfie Guy the cache is “here”, I mean “right here” – and I’m not talking about our GPSr. He just was somehow “told” – and he looked, and it was there. Right there. Exactly. First go. In a non-obvious place that would have otherwise taken quite a while to find. We told you this is a spooky place.

Wolfie, the Cache, the TB, in front of the Out House

The cache was last signed in 2007. I guess not many visitors make it out this way. We took from it a Unite for Diabetes Travel Bug that had been sitting out here waiting to hitch a ride since 2006. We thought about leaving the geocoin we picked up yesterday, but didn’t think the owner of the coin would appreciate it being left in a cache that gets visited only once or twice a year, if that!

Now it was time to continue along Simpsons Track toward Simpson’s Cave (GCXZFP) – we made it about one-third of the way along the 3km hike when we came to a junction with a stone monument.

Plaque on Stone Monument

The plaque reads:

SIMPSON’S TRACK TEN MILE HOLOW TO MULBRING

This track was established as a major branch from the Great North Road and intended by Lt Percy Simpson as the road north, at least to Newcastle and Maitland (Wallis Plains). He was Assistant-Surveyor at Wiseman’s Ferry from 1828 to 1832 and one of Australia’s earliest scientific road engineers. He supervised the construction of some of the Road’s finest structures.

The line of Simpson’s Track was like so many others, probably a path used by aboriginals. First known sighting by a white man was by McDonald, who was the overseer of a property at Ellalong. It goes from Ten Mile Hollow on to Mangrove Creek, then up Dubbo Valley on to Mangrove Mountain, then down Bumble Hill up through Yarramalong, Dooralong and then on to Cooranbong.

Lt Simpson had selected land near Dora Creek in 1828 and no doubt wanted the Road to go past his property.

The Great North Road, the first made north of the Hawkesbury, was constructed by convict gangs between 1826 and 1836. Some parts of the Rod have carried traffic continuously since that time. Other sections have been abandoned or have become little used.

The GNR was made when settlers were pushing up into the Hunter Valley and when sailing ships found it difficult to get into the harbour at Newcastle.

Today you can walk or ride ‘the convict trail’ from kerbed and guttered suburban streets, to the dry, rocky ridges and spectacular forests around Wiseman’s Ferry and St. Albans, to the pretty Wollombi Valley and onto the open plains of the Hunter Valley. Along the way you will find much that will amaze you. Get a map and EXPLORE.

After reading the plaque we looked down to see we were standing on some snake skin that looked quite fresh – to be reminded of the potential dangers of being out here.

From this junction, we detoured off the Simpson’s Track a little and headed over toward a nearby cool, refreshing creek, for a bit of a rest in the shade before looking at continuing up the track. As we approached, we startled a crocodile-sized goanna which took off across the water and up a tree – I’m not sure who got the bigger fright – the goanna, or us!

Refreshing cool creek on a stinking hot day

It was a nice cool oasis here – a place for us to dip our hats in the water and get a bit of coolness onto our hot and flustered heads – after which we returned back to Simpson’s Track and made a decision not to proceed today.

This part of the track was becoming very overgrown with knee-height grass, and given the weather and abundance of snakes in the area, we decided to give it a miss this time. The temperature was soaring and we had a fairly long walk back – and besides, it was lunch time and we were getting hungry.

We haven’t forgotten Simpson’s Cave – but next time we’ll approach it from the west, thus giving ourselves opportunity to explore even more of this amazing convict-built historic track. This has definitely been one of our most favourite, and spookiest of places we have been.

Thank you GroovyChook for such an awesome cache hide, and for sharing this piece of history with us.

This was to be our one and only cache attempt for the day after a relaxing morning at the beach. We parked our geo-mobile near the McDonald’s and headed across the vast expanse of the truck parking area, down into the bushland adjacent to the noisy truckstop, where the cache was indicated to be resting.

Being guided by our GPSr, after only a few minutes of prodding around in the scrub we had a fix on the cache, which was placed in a rather obvious spot and covered up in a way that makes it stand out to your average geocacher who has attained a moderate degree of geosense.

Wolfie hanging around the F3 southbound Truckstop

The cache was in great condition, and contained a “Here I Come!!!” coin by the geocoinclub.com – which we took with us and will soon be placing into another cache. We left behind a small coloured “Jack” (some funny-shaped little brightly coloured object that really serves no purpose).

Thanks for another great hide bower birds, I guess that completes both twins for TeamWolfie!

It’s a nice walk along the water’s edge and then across a large open sports field to get to this cache, alternatively there is a shortcut if you park in the obvious place – but I do recommend the longer, more scenic route.

Wolfie owes more Monopoly Rent

With the aid of the hint, we quickly spotted the cache and carried out the TeamWolfie caching rituals.

Thanks for another Monopoly hide – we’re really enjoying these.

Most people probably aren’t even aware there is an aerodrome at Warnervale – and what a perfect location for a cache, that is surprisingly quite out in the open, and yet seems to survive the test of time exceptionally well.

This is well worth a visit. The find it pretty easy, and the nostalgia is great with the old DC-3 laying in a lonely open field nearby.

Wolfie feeling a little out on a wing

Great spot for photo opportunities here. 

Thanks for bringing us to this great spot that we’d probably otherwise never have bothered to check out, and what a cool old airplane!

We’ve managed to pick up quite a few of these now. This one is listed as a “micro” – but I’d personally call it a small cache because, despite the size of the container – there was room for a few small swaps – and of course, the Monopoly card itself.

Wolfie lands on Regent Street. Rent Owed.

This was a nice, handy, and relatively straightforward cache. There’s even a freeway exit for both north and southbound access very close by – so a great “park-and-grab” style geocache for anyone traveling between Sydney and Newcastle.

Thanks for the cache!

Twins North is so-called because it is near one of the two (twin) service centres on the F3 near Wyong – this being the one servicing the northbound traffic. It is a popular place for truck drivers to stop and have a rest – with there being ample parking for trucks.

A little homework was required for us to inconspicuously leave the car vehicle area and plan our way across the vast expanse of the truck parking area to the track that was to lead us down to the cache.

Power Wolf

Before too long we closed in on GZ and walked in circles a few times, sniffing out for the cache until one of us eventually spotted it in fairly plain and easy sight. We must have looked right at it a few times – always seems to be the way!

Diesel Dog

On our way back to the car, Wolfie wanted to get his photo taken sitting on one of the truck trailers parked nearby – so we got this great shot of the little fella.

Time to continue our caching expedition.

Today I made my way over to Electric Harmony (GCZE72) and found this urban micro by Us Mob reasonably quickly. The key to these I guess is timing – early Sunday morning is a great time to go to those usually busy places to pick up cache and avoid the muggles.

TeamWolfie strikes again in inner Sydney

Thanks for the cache. I quite enjoy the challenge of these urban micros.

Appropriately named, 12 Mile Creek South Bound Rest Area (GC128H7) by outdoorbloke is of course, at the rest area of that name – southbound on the Pacific Highway between Karuah and Raymond Terrace.

As luck would have it, as soon as we pulled up – so did a heap of muggles, so we found ourselves waiting in the car while they lined up and waited to make use of the temporary toilet facilities that had been installed here. It took about 15 minutes for the crowds to pass and we were out of our car and walking down a small discrete track as the GPSr guided us closer to the medium-sized cache at Ground Zero.

We found the container fairly quickly, signed the log – leaving behind a red gem and taking a yellow smiley face.

Wolfie swapping for a smiley face

Thanks outdoorbloke for another sensible cache in a handy location. We’re looking forward to getting further up the highway soon to find some more of your caches.

It all went as planned, being a nice easy find. There were a few muggles around a the rest area but they were too busy worrying about their toilet stop to be too concerned with us trampling through the shrubs on the side of the road. The cache was sited relatively quickly – and I had to explain to our friends that geocaching is rarely this straightforward.

Wolfie with the cache container

The container had a few small swaps inside – we swapped a red gem for a “fuzzy purple creature” (honestly, I don’t know what else to call it), signed the log book, and replaced the cache in it’s little hiding place.

Thanks to outdoorbloke for a nice straightforward find and a great way to introduce my dad to what geocaching is all about.

TeamWolfie

The probability of you getting an FTF depends on a number of factors – such as the geocache density in your area, number of active geocachers, whether you’re regularly checking email alerts from geocaching.com, time of day, or just plain luck. I listen to a few geocaching podcasts where they talk about “First to Find Hounds” (people who put a lot of their geocaching energy into being the first to find a newly listed cache), and “First to Find Parties” (where one may go to seek out a FTF and come across other cachers in there area with the same intention).

So when I noticed an email from geocaching.com about a newly-listed cache only 4km from my home co-ordinates, I did get a little bit excited. The new cache was a medium-sized hide by local cacher Shifter Brains, called Fountains Falls (GC1KPMX). The alert came in very early in the morning as I was getting ready for work.  I figured we’d be out of luck… surely somebody else would beat us to the cache. It was frustrating knowing there was a brand new cache so close to home, yet I couldn’t get a chance to seek it out for another 12 hours. The odds of getting a FTF on this one now seemed slim.

At work I thought about the cache some more. Using my iPhone I checked out the route to the cache on google maps, even looked at the street view so I could be familiar with parking, and location of the track. The day passed slowly, and finally at about 4pm TeamWolfie made their way up to the location for a possible FTF. The online log was still empty, so we were hopeful.

There were two ways to access this cache. We chose the “short” option – about a 600m walk down a fairly well formed fire trail. GZ was close to a beautiful stream running through the bushland. Our iPhones guided us up another track running parallel to the stream as we closed in on GZ. 

Wolfie Enjoying the Creek Nearby

Hoping to get a better fix I punched in the numbers on our Mio DigiWalker – which is designed really as an in-car navigator but we find it quite accurate on the track. The Mio and the iPhones seemed to be matching up and indicating a location just off the track. Time to put the GPSRs away now and rely on the TeamWolfie geosenses… tried one minor trail or animal-track first with no luck, then tried another one and quickly noticed something that didn’t look quite right. Yes – it was the cache. Woo Hoo !

Now the anguish and excitement builds to see if we are indeed the FTF. We carefully remove the cache, and open it. So clean, so new, so very well stocked with nice things. Wow. I’d never seen a cache so new and full of nice new things before. Time to open the log book. YES – It’s Empty!  We are FTF!!

Travel Bug going into new home

We do our caching deeds: signed the log book (and gloated about our first FTF), we took a Bottle Opener and left a Travel Bug, then carefully resealed the cache and placed it back in it’s hiding spot – leaving it exactly how we’d found it.

Wolfie under the Waterfall

After this we did a spot of exploring on the opposite side of the track and found a really nice little waterfall where the stream was running through. Being a hot day, TeamWolfie took the opportunity to cool down and enjoy our moment of satisfaction, knowing we now have a FTF under our belt.

Proud to be the FTF Fountains Falls

Thanks to Shifter Brains for another awesome cache in a great location. You’ve really been giving TeamWolfie a lot of caching to do and we appreciate it.