Catch the Cuckoo

This has been the funnest and most challenging multi-cache TeamWolfie has attempted to date – Catch the Cuckoo (GCNAMA) is a very clever concept by Grank. Without giving too much away, in search for the Cuckoo you need to locate four of its “eggs” – hidden in other geocaches, all of which are within a 3km radius of this multi-cache.

One of those particular caches had been giving us some grief, and it wasn’t until our fourth attempt today we were able to get the final egg to reveal the location of the much treasured Cuckoo’s nest – so as soon as this information was at hand we made our way to GZ immediately, arriving there just after 9am this morning.

The location made perfect sense, so we were confident we had the numbers right. Now it was just a case of getting down and dirty and finding it. At one point I was standing almost on top of it saying “GZ is here, but I can’t see where it can possibly be…”, only to find after another 30 minutes of searching that I had been basically right next to it – the whole search taking about 45 minutes.

Cuckoo Cuckoo! Wolfie wants to EAT you.

It was very satisfying to get this one done. We left a white rabbit, took nothing, signed the log. And that Cuckoo – it was all soft and squishy, and feels quite yucky to squeeze… and Wolfie wanted to eat it, but we managed to get the Cuckoo safely back into hiding.

Thanks for the cache Grank, this one was a lot of fun.

Ancient Artefacts

Ancient Artefacts (GCKQ76) by GeoMonkeys has been a geocache which had – until today, irritated and stumped us.

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.

Trafalgar Square

Our third geocache find for the day at Kincumber Recreation Reserve, was also our 52nd find, and our 4th find in the Monopoly series of caches by cphoenix – this one being red game square Trafalgar Square (GCYBTP).

Just another 5 or so minutes flat walk further along from The Road Not Taken, this had us a little stumped at first. Sometimes hints should be interpreted carefully. “Beyond the lookout sign” does not necessarily mean behind the sign – so one should trust one’s GPSr here until one gets closer to GZ and then start looking in the obvious cacheable hidey holes.

Wolfie owes another $20 rent

We took a little paper Aussie Flag and left a swappable travel bug. This guy is called “Clockwork Orange” and he has traveled over 19000km from the UK, and still going strong. Unfortunately the little digital clock on the poor guy no longer works and the battery in it is missing. Hopefully someone will find him a new battery and get him working again.

Bye Bye Clockwork Orange

A great location for our 52nd find, and a perfect spot to drop off this cute little traveler. Good luck in your travels.