Cathargo Caught

With 72 cache finds under our belt, TeamWolfie has decided it’s probably time we should give a little back to the geocaching community and make a few more hides of our own. We figured we’d try a sneaky micro in a location fairly close to home.

Cathargo Caught (GC1KR2B) is located just outside one of Gosford’s original apartment unit complexes – nestled in the foothills of Rumbalara Reserve. The name will make a lot more sense to all those who visit this cache location.

A word of advice if you intend to go on the hunt for this cache: there is no need to enter the private property. The property boundary is marked by a white surveyor’s peg on the “letterbox” side of the driveway (near palm tree). If you extend an imaginary line perpendicular across the driveway from that wooden peg, this is the property boundary – and there is no need to cross this line. If you pass the letterboxes, you have gone too far.

Parking is strictly not permitted on the private property.

This is a rather sneaky micro, made more-so difficult by an intermittent stream of resident muggles coming and going. Take care when searching, and beware of spiders.

Mini Reserve

Okay, so it’s the 31st December, and TeamWolfie is sitting at 58 geocache finds. Wouldn’t it be nice to end the year on a nice round number – like 60?  Sadly, I have to work today (or tonight, to be more precise – starting at 7pm). I work as a train driver in Sydney, so it will be interesting to see the usual crowds (mostly drunken idiots) getting around. This late starting time gives me a bit of caching time in the morning.

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.

The Buck Stops Here

A couple more kilometres further up the road from FeO is our next attempted find – a geocache by COD called The Buck Stops Here (GCPM2Q). We’d hoped this would be a quick-and-easy find, and by some accounts in the logs it seemed quick-and-easy for some.

Being mindful of it being in a residential area, the roadway is getting busier, and being parked in a no-parking zone we didn’t want to spend too long here. To make matters worse, during our seeking a taxi pulled up to drop off someone at the house directly at the cache location.

Sadly, we left without a find this time. Given this cache is a 3.5 difficulty-rating, we can take some consolation this was not meant to be an “easy” find! We’ll probably return soon to give the area another going-over.