Our history with visiting this cache goes back to October 19th when we were still new to the hobby of geocaching. That first attempt was a steep learning curve in cache hunting. We searched high and low, discovered our GPS receivers aren’t always handy in some locations, and was the first time we were bitten by leeches – and gave up after an hour of searching.

In December the quest for Ancient Artifacts took on a new urgency as part of a larger goal to reveal the location of Catch the Cuckoo. TeamWolfie had information which lead us to believe the last of four treasured Cuckoo Eggs was hidden at the Ancient Artifacts cache – the fourth egg being our final key needed to reveal the much sought-after location of the Cuckoo.

Having had a new more caches under our belt and a more developed “geo-sense” we returned with confidence on December 13, only to leave again empty handed and with bloodstained socks from our leech feeding session. It turns out on this occasion Wolfie Guy was almost on top of the cache, but Wolfie Ben was convinced his teammate was barking up the wrong tree, and encouraged him to look elsewhere – thus ruining the team’s chances of finding the cache on this attempt.

On December 14 we returned yet again to follow up on some hunches we’d had overnight while thinking about the cache. Again no luck.

We were contacted by the owner of the cache, a Mr Pesky GeoMonkey, who offered us a little advice via email. The instructions made perfect sense, so we returned to the ruins of Ancient Artifacts again this morning at 8am with some new information at hand, and found the cache almost immediately.

Being so caught up in the moment, and fighting off an imminent leech attack we rushed the process, wrote down the vital Cuckoo clue, quickly signed the log, swapped a Sheep’s head for a sachet of Aloe skin cream (for our leech bites) – but we totally forgot to take our trademark “Wolfie” photograph of the area. 

We were out of there quick – we had a Cuckoo to Catch.

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!

Today was about tranquility, and the first cache of the day was appropriately named Way to Tranquility (GCT5ZJ) – a Micro cache placed by local cacher Shifter Brains. The cache is located near a freeway overpass, which with a little imagination acts as a gateway to tranquility as it separates the forest on one side, with the houses on the other. Not far from here is a beautiful rainforest reserve called the Forest of Tranquility, and hence the name of the cache.

Tranquility under a Freeway Overpass

GZ lead us Wolfie Guy to a fairly obvious place to hide a cache of this type, so it turned out to be a nice quick and easy find, and a very good start to our 10-cache day.

Continuing a few more kilometres along the scenic road we come to our next hunt which is another of Shifter Brains’s geocache hides. It doesn’t have a nice exotic name like the last one – this one being known as Tinitus II (GCT5ZH).

It was time here to get a little muddy and a little dirty. Although right by the road, parking was a bit tricky along this narrow roadway, and as the cache description rightly says – it’s best to park a  bit before or after Ground Zero. 

We had a couple of freaky, weird, mysterious type experiences on this day – and Tinitus II was to bring us our first strange experience. Again – Wolfie Guy was straight onto finding this medium-sized cache hidden under some leaves in a rotted moss-covered log. The box had leeches inching all over it, so we dug it out with a stick. Upon removing it in the silence of the forest a loud and distinct cat’s “MEOW” startled both of us. Looking around we searched for the mystery cat which sounded so close, but no matter how hard we looked about us no feline could be found. Very strange indeed.

Now this alone was strange enough, however, upon opening the cache Wolfie Ben was stunned to find the log bog had a picture of a cat on its cover. We still cannot find an explanation for the “MEOW”, so we called it a ghost cat.

Looking for the Mysterious Ghost Cat

After signing the log we swapped a “Baby Fireman” for a “Green Disco Ball”, and thus adding to our growing collection of coloured Disco Balls. 

We continued our trek further up Ourimbah Creek Road to the last of the planned caches in this area, another of Shifter Brains’s medium-sized hides, this one known as Ourimbah Track Head (GCT5ZG). Forming part of The Great North Walk, the Ourimbah Track makes its way through some beautiful dense forest environments with an array of wildlife.

White blossoms from the tree branches above us floated gently down around us while . Trudging up the steep and muddy trail scattered with broken crumbling leaf litter as we leave the car and road behind us.

A red fox scurried across the path ahead – running close to the ground, it’s white-tipped tail swaying behind it as it melted into the forest. Wow. We had never seen a fox so close in the wild like this, and our presence didn’t seem to concern it too greatly. It had passed right across an intersection that indicated ground zero – the cache was nearby.

A fox similar to this was at the Cache site

We hastily opened the cache under the threat of another leech attack while also inspecting the minor animal track on which the fox had passed right by the cache, wondering if this was a regular route for the fox. A distant barking dog at a nearby house signaled an alarm – perhaps the dog had sensed the fox, or us. It was no time to delay. We signed the log and made a quick swap – leaving behind a bottle opener for a shower timer.

Wolfie and the Ourimbah Trackhead Cache

Suddenly an angry black dog leapt out of the bush, barking viciously at us. Perhaps it was following the scent of the fox, perhaps it’s target was us. TeamWolfie growled back at the angry dog and told it to go back home, at the same time it’s owner was heard in the distance calling it back too.  It turned and left us in peace to replace the cache.

It was time to back-track and head a few kilometres north now, up into the Ourimbah State Forest, but not without another freeway underpass micro. Our next find’s name very accurately describes the cache – Tiny Shiny (GC19KH1), a micro by GeoMonkeys.

For the casual observer, a freeway underpass is a noisy, baron, lifeless place. But for the geocacher it can be a treasure trove of hiding opportunities where a micro can be stashed – in this case so many possible places, all the same. It took less than five minutes – we found the container, and unraveled the scroll hidden in the tiny shiny bejeweled tin stashed in the concrete crack. Broken glass all around the roadside – an environment in which only a geocaching enthusiast could find a moment of bliss.

Getting the scroll back into it’s small housing proved an achievement in itself. Already breaking up in three parts it was becoming delicate, and it must be wound tight to make it fit. We returned the cache to it’s spot, so discrete to the casual observer, yet now so blatantly obvious to those who know it’s there with the sun reflecting off it like a shiny beacon. Sadly we were so caught up in the moment that we forgot to take a photo.

Now it was time to press in and up into the bushland of the Ourimbah State Forest. Our all-wheel-drive vehicle proved indispensable as we climbed up the steep muddy inclines to the next location – a micro called Jump (GC16QAQ) by gkseal. 

GZ lead us to a rocky outcrop with stunning views and cliff drops. There is evidence of the area being used by 4WD enthusiasts, rock climbers, and campers with some impressive nearby caves.

Wolfie Jumping Around

The thought of looking for a micro in the bush seemed a little daunting at first – but don’t let this aspect put you off this cache. This is a very clever cache, in a very clever location that is ideally suited for a micro of this type. After the important business of signing the log it seemed a shame not to do some exploring of the nearby natural features in this scenic location.

Standing on the rocky mountain top on the edge of a cliff, we stared down into the forest of pale trunked ghostly trees. Ferns on the forest floor swayed gently in the wind, waving back at us. Below the cliff to the right was a huge fallen tree cut down by loggers. Following a safe path further down to my right we found a secret cave half way up the cliff, unreachable without some abseiling gear. There are a couple of accessible nice caves in this location, spoilt only by the trash left behind by other visitors.

We continued our journey north-west through the forest along the bumpy dirty track to another of the Shifter Brains caches, 12 or 12 (GC1GQJA). Appropriately named, on the corner of the road to to Red Hill there is a junction signposted 12km to Wyong this way, and 12km to Wyong that way. The main sign here is guarded by large hairy tarantulas mostly known as Wolf Spiders – beware!

Spiders of the Wolfie Variety guard the signs

The clue for this cache came in very handy – it really says it all and lead us right to it. Just keep your eyes open – no bush walking needed. The log book is just that. Enough said. Wolfie Ben found the cache quickly, signed the book, and exchanged a red gem for a metallic star. “12 of 12″ was our “6th of 6″ finds for the day so far. Time to try now for number seven.

It’s amazing to see the landscape and vegetation change so dramatically over such relatively short distances. From thick bushland we were guided to a drier and more dusty place. Forest Fruits (GC1G5DM) is yet another of the Shifter Brains cache hides – so called because of the orchards in the area, one being directly adjacent to ground zero.

Our first thought – what a shame they are lemons! But on reading the log we discovered that others had referred to them as oranges, so perhaps we’re just here at the wrong time.

This location had both the TeamWolfie members stumped for quite a while. It was to be the most difficult cache of the day – and the only one we came close to almost giving up on. The wind blew fiercely as we squinted against the flying dust. Flies buzzed circles around my head adding to the frustration of not being able to find it. The clue and location seemed obvious, but the hide was just so well disguised and easily overlooked. Maybe we were getting tired, but our persistence paid off in the end with the cache being discovered after a 20 minute search when we noticed some oddly placed logs.

The bag containing the log book was damaged – but thankfully TeamWolfie also shop at Aldi and had some spare bags exactly the same, so we replaced the log bag and disposed of the broken one. It’s just some of the good work we do when we go out caching!

Forest Fruit for a Hungry Wolfie

After signing the log and doing our caching business it was time for a well-earned break. Some Forest Fruit seemed appropriate at this location, so we pressed on after a brief food break where we munched down a banana or two.

Time to play Monopoly? Our here in the bush?  Of course!  Geocaching Monopoly – our next hunt was another of the Monopoly series of caches by cphoenix – this one based on the yellow square Coventry Street (GCYWN1) – as it is known in the traditional English version of the game. Probably the most difficult thing about getting to this cache (and another nearby) was deciding where to park and from which direction to get to them. We decided to come in around from the west, hence stumbling across this cache first.

Coventry Street was about a 10 minute walk down a relatively flat track from where we had left the car – this track also being part of The Great North Walk. The path here forms the official boundary between the state forest, and some farming properties. It’s a pleasant and relatively flat walk to this cache, with a couple of small creek crossings (there are foot bridges), and an unusual huge hole burrowed into the ground at one location which we presumed was a wombat den. With the aid of the clue and our two GPS units we found the cache only after a brief search in a couple of obvious places.

Wolfie must pay $22 rent for landing here!

This is the 2nd of the Monopoly series we have come across – the other being The Angel, Islington.

We paid the rent and continued to make our way east toward the 2nd cache in this immediate area.

Another cache awaits us just 500m further east along the track. The track now becomes windy and steep as we head down into a valley toward Dead Horse Creek (GCRC56) by Detourism.  Along the forest trail we walked deep into the lush rainforest – with the bush changing again within a few minutes walk from a dry, windy, semi-rural landscape to something from another world. Bush rock was used as stairs which made the walk a lot easier than it otherwise would be. The variety of plant life was tremendous, it was like visiting another land.

The track wove its way through the mystical forest and at one point orange and black butterflies floated majestically before us. A running stream – presumably Dead Horse Creek, was calling us down into the valley. What a great oasis this would be on a hot summer’s day. On this occasion we didn’t need to cross the creek, as the cache was on the western side, and so were we.

While taking in the tranquil surrounds beside the creek for a split second Wolfie Guy thought he saw a black figure quickly speed past without making a sound. He questioned his own eyes when he looked for what it was and found nothing.

Ground Zero for this cache was a little tricky. The dense forest canopy and the steep walled valley playing havoc with our GPS units, but on reading the clues there was only one very obvious place where this cache could be, so we detoured from the track and made our way to what we were certain was the cache location.

We climbed around it, over it, under it, and looked in the middle of it. Oh dear – we were having a perfect day so far, was this one to get the better of us?  Surely not.  We had come so far.  Keep looking.  And by stroke of inspiration, Wolfie Guy lifts something up – it’s the cache!  It was amazing to find such a large and obviously popular cache – so many treasures, so well hidden in such a natural environment – a place where it simply couldn’t possibly be found by even the most curious of muggles.

Dead Horse Creek cache is tricky, but worth it.

There were many treasures inside the well-packed cache. We left a precious stone and took a beautiful “Suncatcher” geocoin to help it on it’s travels, signed the log, and placed this awesome cache carefully back exactly how we had found it.

Although the cache was tricky, I don’t think we would have been disappointed if we hadn’t found it. This is a beautiful oasis and it’s worth visiting just for the scenery. The cache find is a bonus.

What goes down, must come up – as we make our way up out of the Dead Horse Creek valley and head westward back to our car, passing Coventry Street and the big wombat hole along the way.

Nine attempted caches, nine successful finds. What a day – but why stop at nine, when a tenth is just up the road a little bit? Bumble Along (GC1G5DJ) is yet another of the Shifter Brains caches – conveniently located next to a small roadside parking bay that offers majestic views across the surrounding countryside.

Wolfie just Bumbling Along

It was a short, steep climb down to the cache which we found after a short look in a couple of obvious spots. It was to be our tenth find for the day. Signed the log, left a precious stone, and took a travelbug to move it on.

At the start of this ambitious day we had no idea what to expect or how many finds we would achieve – but achieving a hit rate of 10 out of 10 was beyond our wildest expectations – together with being treated to the experience of finding some great new locations in our local region. We saw a friendly red fox up close, we heard a ghost cat “MEOW”, and caught glimpse of a mysterious dark shadowy creature in the Dead Horse Creek gully.

It’s been a great fun day out and TeamWolfie is looking at coming back here soon to finish off the remaining geocaches in this area that we are yet to attempt.

This mountain-top reserve looks like a great spot for picnics, bush walks, there’s a lookout with sweeping views out to the ocean, and of course – plenty of opportunities for geocaching here.

Breathtaking views from St John lookout

The first cache we sought was placed by GeoMonkeys, just a couple of hundred metres from St John lookout – known as Paige’s Picnic #1 (GCJM7Z). This was a great medium size cache that we found quite easily. A bit of a change from this morning’s run of bad luck – the afternoon was looking much better already.

It was packed with a few treasures, although we just signed the log and left a calling card for TeamWolfie’s 18th find.

We were then down the track to sniff out the second cache in this area – Red Gum Rock (GCPQD6), placed by Cache On Demand. Although a small geocache, it was still a nice change from the micros that have plagued us lately with our string of DNFs. It was a little trickier than Paige’s Picnic, but still a nice straightforward find – although the presence of yet more leaches squirming around in the undergrowth really spooked us so we wanted out of there quick.

Red Gum Wolfie looking for Leaches

All up, a nice productive afternoon geocaching, and discovering yet more interesting places that are quite close to home. We’ll be back here to do some more serious bushwalking soon and maybe find a spot for a TeamWolfie cache.

It started about 6:30am, Sunday morning – when we headed down to find the Micro cache at Parsons’ Garage (GCTA4K). We figured at that time the area should be relatively muggle-free. Should be, and we did in fact have about 10 minutes or so to ourselves to scour the area for the micro, with no luck. Returned to car – re-read the clues, the hint, the logs. Returned to GZ to keep poking around. Muggle alert – it was our first full on muggle experience where a lot of awkward questions were asked, and awkwardly avoided – to the point we scuffled back to the car and took off. Hmph. No find.

Next stop Gosford Park (GCTA4J) – another micro located on an artillery gun in a memorial park in Gosford. We’d had luck with a similar gun before, so we thought this may be in the same league, and hopefully our first cache find for the day – but the number of DNFs in the log for this cache gave us an indication this might not be as straightforward as we’d hope it to be. Our fears were realised after 20 mins of prodding in and around every orifice finding nothing except spider webs. Hmph – another DNF. That’s 2 out of 2 (not found) so far… time to move onto the next one.

Boora Boora (GCRCXV) is in a nice location by the water near Kincumber. We had no idea this was such a nice area, and the history lesson on the cache description was great. I’d always wondered why that hill was called Dunlop Hill – now I know a bit of history about the area and the Dunlop family. It’s amazing how educational Geocaching can be.  And also how frustrating when you just can’t get your hands on the cache that you know is someone nearby. It looked like they had recently been clearing the area of vegetation which made us wonder whether the cache had been disturbed. We narrowed GZ down to the area around 2 prominent trees, and foraged around and around for the small size cache – no luck AGAIN. Argh. Three caches down today, and zero finds. Oh, the humanity!  And the day was only set to get worse…

Next was Kincumber Recreation Reserve – the site of the upcoming All Rogues Day, which TeamWolfie won’t be able to attend due to my unusual working hours. Such a great area un there, with a few caches to be found – our first stop, a medium size cache called Crawfords Lookout (GC18VN1). It was a short walk from where we parked the car, and fortunately after a brief look – we found the cache. Yay. About time we found one today!  Yippee. We found a safe path down to retrieve the cache and signed the book.  Noticed a leach heading for our tasty legs while we were playing around with the cache, managed to avoid that one – wondered if any other had latched onto us, it seemed okay at the time… great to find a cache at last.

Back to the car to plan our next seeks. We come up with a plan of attack and start walking away when Wolfie Guy calls Wolfie Ben back to the car to check out a hissing noise coming from one of the tyres. Oh no… a puncture! 

There was still plenty of air in the tyre – so we agreed it was best just to abandon plans for the rest of the day and make our way back to TeamWolfie headquarters for a tyre change, and avoid anymore unnecessary driving until we can get the tyre fixed. Okay – can the day get any worse?  Well… yes, of course it can.

About 2 hours later… sitting here at the computer typing this, right now, I feel an itch near my right ankle. Argh! I HAVE collected a leach along the way. Blood all down my leg and on the floor under the computer. I think we’ll give up on today and move onto something else. Might be time to go downstairs and put the spare on… maybe I’ll drop it on my foot!

It’s been three weekends since we discovered the amazing sport/hobby/game of Geocaching. We’ve now found 14 caches, mostly learning as we go about different cache types, contents and hide locations. It was only a matter of time before we were ready to hide our own cache – and that time had come.

Over the weeks it had been in the back of our minds – “Where will we hide our caches, what’s a good place?”, and we settled on three general locations to start with on the Central Coast of NSW near our home base.

For anyone contemplating hiding their own cache I strongly suggest you read geocaching.com’s Tips for Hiding your first Geocache, and their Geocaching Guidelines so we’re all following a set of common rules.

One of the places under consideration was in the Sommersby / Strickland State Forest area near the F3. I know of an old disused bridge adjacent to Dog Trap Road that used to carry the old two-lane “Expressway” over the top of Dog Trap Road. It was built in the 1960′s and became redundant in the mid 1980′s when that section of F3 was built.

It’s an eerie location, and now densely overgrown with vegetation. I initially thought this would be an ideal location for a cache – even with a name in mind: “A Bridge to Nowhere”. But on arrival and surveying the area a few things put us off this location.

For starters there was a new work-site directly adjacent to the entry of this site, which will make it difficult for cache hunters to get in and out discretely. The works are only temporary (some kind of storm water drainage being worked on), but still enough to be off-putting.

Secondly, there appeared to be no “good” spot to put our small plastic container cache on or near the bridge itself, and recent tyre tracks in the mud made it apparent that construction trucks were passing over the bridge along the old roadway – so we couldn’t risk our cache being destroyed.

Finally we looked under the bridge itself, only to find it to be a haven for derelicts and graffiti vandals – again, probably not a suitable location for a cache. ”Plan B” ??  Yes, fortunately there was a Plan B in this immediate area, in the adjacent Strickland State Forest.

Strickland is a beautiful location and you’ve probably zoomed past it many times before on the F3. It’s the site of some amazing bushwalks, some waterfalls, scenic streams, and rainforest vegetation in its valleys. It’s right next to the busy Sydney to Newcastle freeway corridor, but the entrance to Strickland is somewhat out-of-the-way, and I think that’s a good thing.

When you drive into Strickland be sure to pay attention to the signs. The park gates close at 5pm in the winter, and 8pm in the summer.

There’s an upper car park, and a lower car park. The upper car park is near a picnic area that has views across the Gosford area with tables and toilet facilities – and walking tracks to the Strickland Falls.

Given there’s already a geocache at Strickland Falls we proceeded to the lower carpark. There’s no picnic facilities or toilets down here, and the road down is a little steep and rocky in parts but should be negotiable by any standard 2WD vehicle.

Down in the valley you are rewarded with some amazing walking tracks through some beautiful and tranquil rainforest vegetation. It’s also much quieter down here because most people opt for the upper car park. Having said that, there was one other car present on our arrival, and those muggles had invaded the specific walking track we were intending to investigate, so we opted for a track we’d never walked before known as Stoney Creek Trail.

Proceeding along Stoney Creek Trail we noted some possible hiding locations, only to be deterred when it was apparent that sometimes Stoney Creek rushes with water.  There was evidence of a high water level by the location of some vegetation debris caught up against rocks and other trees in the creek bed. We wanted our cache to be safe.

We also wanted our cache to be dry. The last cache we visited was water logged.

Finally we found a suitable resting place in the woods alongside the trail, about 750m from the car park.

It was starting to rain and we had to rush things a little here. If you’re following us you know we like to get pictures of our trademark dog “Wolfie” in cache locations, but we had no time – we were literally getting drenched in a downpour.

We were totally unprepared for rain, and by this time we were absolutely soaking wet, but it wasn’t unpleasant. It somehow felt nice to be in a rainforest, on a warm day, in the rain. Our main concern was keeping our equipment dry, and to focus on getting an accurate location. We had two devices handy on us to help do that – my Apple iPhone, and a Mio car navigator.

Although sometimes very accurate and useful, on this occasion the iPhone didn’t provide us with any useful location. I suspect I didn’t give it enough time to pick up our location – and I have noticed it is quite fussy and needs a wide view of the sky to get a good lock. We’re in a valley, it’s raining, and there’s a tree canopy above us – not favorable for the iPhone GPS.

So we got out the Mio. Positioning it above the cache we took three coordinate readings and wrote them down and made our way along the sometimes muddy path back to the car.

Fortunately it was a short drive home where we could dry ourselves off, and discovered leeches had made their way into our shoes – but fortunately not through our socks (unlike the last time we were attacked by leeches which turned out to be a bloody experience). 

After dealing with all that it was time to look at the coordinates obtained and get them into Google Earth for confirmation. Thankfully the three readings were within 5 metres of each other – which I was very happy with, and we settled on an average of these – simply calculated by taking the average of the three decimalized minute components.

To confirm our methodology we put our three hard readings as placemarks in Google Earth, along with our “averaged” location – and on zooming in we have a nice triangle with our “average” point in the middle, which is just what we wanted.

We are hoping the averaged coordinate, and our hint, will be enough to help anyone find this cache. Looking forward to your comments and feedback.

Keep on Cachin’

PS – we left a special gift in there for the First to Find.

After searching everywhere – in the car, in the backpack, in our pockets, we just had to accept the fact that we might have left it somewhere at one of the cache locations – so TeamWolfie returned to do some sniffing around, in the unlikely chance the Mio would still be there.

At this stage we’d pretty much accepted the Mio was lost, and never to be seen again – and already started planning it’s replacement. But not to be deterred we returned to Creek Shrub to try to retrace our exact steps as much as possible…  what were the chances?  Considering it was such a busy Sunday lunchtime, in a popular location full of muggles, we considered the chances of the Mio still being there pretty slim.

Remaining optimistic we approached the Creek Shrub cache site – the last place where we believe we may have left it – and sure enough, there it was, resting peacefully in the wet grass!  How lucky.  Thankfully, this particular cache is a little “removed” from heavy pedestrian traffic which tends to stick to the main pathways, and there had been no rain overnight.

The Mio was a little damp from the dew, but besides that (and a “couple” of ants) it seemed to be in excellent shape. Oh, and the battery was flat – of course.

We returned to the car, eager to plug the Mio in and see if it would power up after it’s night out under the stars – sure enough, it powered up fine. Good as new. Then another ant crawled out of the SD memory card slot.

“Funny,” we thought, “be funny if a heap of ants set up a nest in there…” said TeamWolfie member Guy.

Within a minute another two ants ran out the memory card slot.  It was starting to look like a few ants had indeed set up home in there.

As we headed back to home-based, another ant made it’s escape from the Mio’s memory card slot. This is now getting ridiculous, we thought.  So Guy gives the unit a gentle upside-down tap on the palm of his hand, and out falls about 10 ants, and some tiny white eggs.

It seems the ants had, indeed, set up a nest inside the Mio! The remaining trip home in the car was spent tap tap tapping the Mio and trying to get the ants out.  They just kept coming and coming and coming. I mean, how many more could there be?  It was only there for 24 hours!

We get home – tap tap tap some more over the kitchen sink – ants, and eggs, keep coming out of the Mio. There was definitely something in that GPS device they really loved.  Surely that’s all there is…. right?

Wrong.

So we leave the Mio in a (dry) sink while we watch a DVD…   come back and check – to find no fewer than about 100 ants crawling around in the sink.  My God!   How many ants can you fit into these things?

Tap tap tap – another 10 ants fall out.  Tap tap… MORE ants fall out.  I mean… this is seriously bad – these pesky little ants really had set up a serious full scale nest inside the Mio.

For the next 5 HOURS we intermittently tapped the Mio and sure enough, more and more ants would fall out of it. Fewer and fewer, and eventually we’re now at the point where we think we have most of them.

Mio - still working, but Ant-Ridden

The Mio is now in quarantine (a zip-lock plastic bag). We dare not leave it overnight – who knows what else is waiting to crawl out of it?

It started when we thought we’d seek out the Ancient Artifacts cache in Rumbalara Reserve.  It was all going pretty smoothly – sure it was a long walk down a steep pathway and lots of stairs into a somewhat wet and boggy lush valley.

We found what we considered to be the “artifacts”, but no cache. It was frustrating. We’d just had two successful finds – surely this one would not beat us. Well, after about 45 mins of searching, and turning over stones and rocks – we came up with nothing.

It was a long walk back to the car. Along the way Guy noticed two leaches literally squirming their way through the fabric of his runners – making a quick path to his feet for a feed of blood. We were able to get them out of his shoes in time, but were amazed at their tenacity and strength.

I was wearing sturdy boots, so I figured I was safe – and surely I would notice if I had any leaches drinking my succulent blood.  So… we left, went and got some lunch, came back home – and I kicked off my boots. After about 10 minutes of sitting around in the lounge room I noticed something running down my leg – it was blood!

They got me!  I went to the bathroom to discover both my legs were bleeeding. It was a real mess. We located a leach in the dirty washing – it had crawled out of my sock.  My socks were also blood stained.

So let this be a warning for others seeking to find Gosford’s Ancient Artefacts cache!