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.

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

This small cache is located in a clever spot along Glenrock Parade. It is the stereotypical park-and-grab cache – you find a spot to park, walk a few paces, grab the cache, do the business, return the cache, get back in your car, and off you go. Nice and easy when you’re not in the mood to go hiking through the forest – or you want a quick find to get you motivated for the day, as we did.

Kool View, Kool Cache

We enjoyed finding this cache and taking a drive up a few streets we don’t normally get the chance to visit. Left a red gem, took an Aussie Flag sticker.

Thanks for the cache daznat99 – it is a Kool cache and a Kool view.

This small cache was located directly along a dirt road through the Ourimbah State Forest, and there was a lack of obvious parking opportunities at the cache so we just pulled over to the side of the road and put the hazzard lights on. Although narrow, thankfully it’s normally a quiet road – and we had no passing traffic on this occasion. 

Wolfie in the Woods

This was a nice, quick and easy find. We retrieved it safely after some hesitation with the spider risk, but thankfully there were no angry arachnids waiting for us. Being a small cache we made no swaps, signed the log, and replaced it and moved on.

Another one down. Thanks for the cache!

Our trusty Mio Digiwalker guided us directly to GZ, which turned out to be on a minor subsidiary dirt track, running off a main dirt track through the forest. It was drivable in our AWD vehicle almost all but the last 50m or so which was an easy walk.

The name of this cache is a big clue as to what to look for!  It was, the largest geocache TeamWolfie has discovered so far, and it was pretty easy to find if you have an idea what you are looking for.

Big enough for a Wolfie

It’s a nice change to see a large cache like this, with quality contents. If Wolfie were a travel bug, this is the type of cache he’ would have to sleep in – and as most of us know, there just aren’t enough caches of this size around to accommodate our Wolfie as an official travel bug, so for now he’s stuck traveling around with the rest of the team, going from cache to cache and having his picture taken.

We had no swaps  on us that were worthy of this cache, so we signed the log and moved on after placing the geocache back in it’s resting place.  Thanks for the cache – this being a milestone as our first find for 2009.

There are a few local “residential” ones around the Narara area just near Gosford where I live so I decided to check one out. This one is plainly called Mini Reserve (GC1B604) by BountyHunter1980. Difficulty rating 1, Terrain rating 2, Cache size small.

As the name suggests, the geocache is located in an ordinary grassy reserve in a residential area. Thankfully at 10:30am on New Years Eve on this warm sunny day there were surprisingly few local residents out and about – so it was a very quick park-and-grab.

The cache was about 15m from GZ as per the GPS. I’d already pretty much established its location before getting out of the car just by reading the description and recent logs.

Here’s the google street view of the site:

An ordinary residential reserve.

I made my way across to where I thought it would be, and yes – it was just there. Too easy!

Stealth Wolf

As I bent over to pick up the cachemy leg brushed against something, then shortly, after I felt a sharp stinging sensation. I looked down and realised I’d just brushed up against a small wasp nest, and the wasp in attendance was not happy.

It stung a little – I’d never been stung by a wasp before, but it was nowhere near as bad as I imagined a wasp sting would be.

I carried the cache back to the car where I went about my caching duties. Signed the log book. Left Nothing, Took Nothing (was feeling lazy). The log was a little damp and pages separating – but that seems normal with these caches. Returned cache to its resting place – amazed at the array of bugs, spiders, and wasps that I’d failed to notice when I first retrieved the cache in the excitement of finding it.

Wolfie Watches Wasps

Okay – that’s about as exciting as I can make an ordinary “Mini Reserve” cache sound. Excitement, adventure, stinging insects, and stealthy undercover work… what more could you want?  Thanks BountyHunter1980 for providing us the means to attain our 59th find, and for the pleasure of experiencing a wasp sting for the first time.

Cache details on iPhone

Note: the above image has been modified to protect the location of this cache.

As you can see, we have full access to the cache information – including complete Description, recent Logs – and the all-important Hint. Inventory details are also normally available from this screen – but this cache has no inventory.

Let’s now press the Hint button and take a look at the clue for this cache…

The cryptic clue revealed.

Okay – so now lets go back to the cache screen, and we’ll tap on the Map button to see it’s location in Google maps on the iPhone.

Google Maps Pinpoint to the Location

Note: the above image has been modified to protect the location of this cache.

When I switched to Google Maps view I could see straight away – not only was this close, but it’s also right alongside a road I drive down most mornings (Harris Street) – thus making it a perfect early morning park-and-grab cache at 4am with a guaranteed absence of muggles.

Let’s now tap the little red “Person” icon on the pinpoint and see what Google Streetview shows me.

The location - can you find it?

Hmmm… first of six, last of nine… something about ventilation. Many cachers reading this now have probably picked the right spot already! All that’s left to do now is physically drop by the location – which I did at 4am today.

Except for the fact it was dark, I felt like I had been there in person already and had already “cased out” the area where the cache is, and put the clues together – which was true, but I had done it in a completely virtual environment using only my Apple iPhone, so when I got to the spot I already knew exactly where to park and what to grab, and where to grab it from.  

The only thing left to do now was take a picture – again, with the iPhone - 

Grabbed cache. Signed Log. Returned cache.

It was kind of a eerie feeling being so familiar with the place before I even got there, and shows what a powerful tool the iPhone can be for geocachers.  If I’d needed too I could have also written this blog entry with the iPhone using my WordPress App – but it’s keyboard makes it an impractical tool for typing long documents.

I can then use the iPhone to brag about my find on Twitter, using the Twitterrific application to instantly notify our friends who follow @teamwolfie on twitter, and even share pictures of the find with our followers.

The only thing missing from the Groundspeak iPhone App is the ability to log your find directly from within the application – but there is always the option to use Safari on the iPhone to visit geocaching.com and log the find using that method.

This is one case where the iPhone has proved very useful – being the ONLY tool needed to plan, seek, locate, and photograph this cache. Yes there are times when the GPS could be better – in fact, I didn’t even need to use the GPS function to locate this find, however, this device is primarily an iPod and a Phone – but it’s amazing you can actually do so much with the Apple iPhone and I’ve grown to find it to an indispensable tool for my geocaching, and in 90% of cases is the only tool I need for a successful find.

And when I’m not using my iPhone for geocaching, I’m using it to listen to geocaching podcasts! It is truly my all-in-one device.

Jumping is right. Finding the sign was easy. Seeing the cache was pretty easy too. The hard part was getting it down – so for those of us who are vertically-challenged (like us), a bit of jumping may be required.

Got the right one? "2km" is where it's at. Woof!

Like most micros, there’s a log and not much else – BUT in this case we were very surprised to see the Wyoming Wombats had also been here TODAY… it was a first for us to sign a log that had already been signed the same day. Freaky!  The rain is coming – time to go home and write these blogs.