A few days ago I took a walk down the track on the north-side to survey the terrain to see whether this shorter route is a viable access route, but although a pleasant walk, I discounted this track as an option when it became obvious we’d need to do some serious “bush bashing” to get there. By reading the logs of this cache it was apparent that some avid caches do get to the cache from this direction, but we like to take the easier route wherever possible.

So TeamWolfie returned today to head up the longer-but-easier track that takes us almost to ground zero. Google Maps is almost useful, but don’t be mislead! The “Road” you need to walk down is by no means a road, and is quite well camouflaged – so from the sealed road you really do need to park your car (on the nearby sharp corner is a good option) then look for a track.

Except for the dumped cars and eroding car parts, it was a pleasant and quiet walk. A pretty easy walk too, with just a couple of puddles and minor creeks to negotiate along the way. Our main obstruction seemed to be thin invisible spider webs that had been strung across the the track at face-height every few metres.

As ground zero approached, we examined the hint and established we’d need to head 10m or so off the track, up a fairly steep and slippery embankment. It wasn’t too bad, however, and we were soon rewarded with the discovery of another bucket-sized cache full of some nice treasures.

Wolfie inside the cache, with CD Travel Bug

Given our lack of quality items to trade we made no swaps here, but we took the travel bug attached to what I thought was a DVD, which I hoped contained an interesting message from the owner… Turns out I should have actually read the note inside – it was part of a “race” that ended over six months ago, and it was not a DVD with an exciting message, but a boring old CD which people were supposed to load pictures onto, but nobody had bothered to. So really – little more than a boring useless round piece of plastic!  Oh well…

The cache was a great find, the travel bug not so great. I even went to their website www.harrogatehunters.org out of interest to see who won the race, but the site isn’t even there anymore.

Thanks for the cache Grank. We’ve found a few of yours now, and its obvious you put a lot of thought and effort into your quality hides.

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.

We took Morgans Road out toward a place called Marlow which I’d never heard of before today to begin the hunt for another of GeoMonkeys‘ caches, FX6694 (GCK099).

After parking the car in a small parking bay near GZ we got out in the stifling summers heat to start our search, and took in some of the great views from this location where you can see the mighty Hawkesbury River snake through the valley below.

We managed to get right onto GZ – presuming our Mio Digiwalker was guiding us right, but sadly we could not find the cache today, nor could we find the item mentioned in the cache hint. Sadly our time was limited at this stage of the day so we had to abandon today’s search, although we’ll probably return soon.

It was a lengthy but relatively flat walk out to this very isolated location. Along the way there was a sense of eeriness - being so isolated, quiet, the air heavy and muggy, and the sound of the bird life in this area was deafening at times.

On arrival at the lookout area we took in the scenery and made an effort to get a little closer to Ground Zero – which we found near a rocky area a little to the west of the lookout. The clue mentioning something about a cave had us climbing down the rocky outcrop in search of caves and openings.

We’d searched for about 10 minutes amongst the thick dry undergrowth, the day is hot – and I am always weary of snakes in these environments. 

My vigilance paid off. Just as I was climbing around the rocks to check out possible hiding places for this cache I encountered what I believe to be a juvenile brown snake – only about 30cm in length. According to Wikipedia, “The Eastern Brown Snake is the second most venomous land snake in the world“, so I wasn’t really keen to stick around in case it’s parents were about.

TeamWolfie made an executive decision to leave the area immediately – abandoning the hunt for this cache!