Geocaching in Rumbalara Reserve

TeamWolfie’s wolf den is situated in a great spot for geocaching. We’re lucky enough to live on the NSW Central Coast, home to an active group of local cachers. There is a diverse environment here giving the best of everything for caching – urban, bushland, country, and coastline.

One of the main bushland reserves is Rumbalara – a sprawling hilly region on the fringe of the Gosford urban belt, adjacent to home base, and home of several caches, so on my day off from work I decided to do some more exploring in Rumbalara, given it’s basically my own backyard.

First point of call was Shifter’s Anniversary Cache (GCXHJ6), a cache placed by local cacher Shifter Brains to celebrate their 1 year geocaching anniversary. The cache is placed near a lookout offering spectactular views across the region. It was a little tricky to find – the hint mentioning a “small cave at knee height”, but if you go there you’ll soon see there are many many places that fit this description. I was caving alone today, and to be honest I was almost at the point of giving up on this. So I gave it a rest for 10 minutes, admiring the view – then it dawned on me, “what about down there..?”

Sure enough, I found the cache. Sometimes it helps to just ignore the GPS and go with your instincts.

It was a small cache with a few small treasures for swapping. Left one of our Red Gems and took a purple Disco Ball – signed the log too of course!

Wolfie wishes Shifter a Happy Anniversary

Great place for a cache, Shifter Brains so thanks very much.

The next two caches to hunt down in my plan of attack were going to involve a 500m walk up a bush track, an a little bush bashing by the sounds of the description.

The track was new to me, and quite a pleasant walk. It was a surprise to find this sculpture of the Australian explorer Edward John Eyre.  Rumbalara seems to be home to a few sculptures of Australian explorers and pioneers – most having no actual affiliation with the region, but interesting anyway. This sculpture is out here, all by himself and far removed from the other sculptures at the main lookout area which supply the required clues to locate a nearby multi-cache called Go Ask Charles (GCG4VK) which we already did a few days earlier.

Wolfie resting with Edward John Eyre in Rumbalara

Continuing down the track we close in on GZ for the next find placed, originally placed by Wyoming Wombats and later adopted by Shifter Brains known as Rumbalara Rocks (GCFDA9). As the description already warns us, there us going to be a little “off tracking” involved here – it said something about there being a hard way, and an easy way. I think I got there the hard way.

It was a relatively easy yet well hidden and rewarding find. On approach to GZ you soon realise the logical place where it has been hidden. The cache was a great Ammo Box type cache, home to a lot of swappable treasure. I always appreciate finding a substantial size cache in locations like this. After swapping a scuba-diving mole (where do they think of these things??) for a bottle opener and signing the log it was time to move on.

Woof Woof! Found it!

Surveying the terrain I still couldn’t see any obvious “easy way” back to the track, I came back a different way, which I think was another “hard way”… losing my footing on my way down a steep part and sliding down on my backside – but I made it out alive.

Next cache just 200m further down the track – part of a series of caches based on the English version of the Monopoly board game in which cacher cphoenix made a hide for every square on the board game – this one based on the light blue property, The Angel, Islington (GCY3KH).

I had a bit of trouble here – GZ kept moving, dancing around in circles and eluding me. The hint gave me two suspected locations. I had been looking for a while at one of them – just not hard enough. Then I’d go back to the other, and back again, and back again.

Eventually it was spotted and – as often happens – I wondered how on earth I had missed it earlier. It was time to open it up, exchange a red gem for an Aussie flag, sign the log, and grab a picture of Wolfie with the Monopoly card.

Got some Monopoly Money for rent ?

Unfortunately cphoenix has discontinued the upkeep on all his Monopoly caches so the opportunity has probably already passed to to seek them all out, but we still look forward to getting around to the remaining ones out there.

There is just one cache left in this Rumbalara cluster, but it’s a tricky Multi cache called Catch the Cuckoo (GCNAMA) by local cacher Grank. The starting coordinates for thia multi are nearby, but it’s a furphy – the clues to it’s whereabouts are hidden within some of the local caches in a radius from this point. I’ve found three of the “clues” to this multi so far. I was expecting another egg in The Angel Islington, but it wasn’t there… so who knows if TeamWolfie will ever catch the elusive cuckoo!

Katandra Reserve Caches

After an abysmal morning of geocaching, we hit the road again (with spare tyre fitted) to seek out the two remaining geocaches in Katandra Reserve. Not far from home base, this is yet another great local place that we didn’t know existed until today – thanks to our new hobby of geocaching.

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.

GCG4VK Go Ask Charles

It was Friday afternoon and I was home a little early from work – so I figured, it’s a good time to go try for a second chance at Go Ask Charles (GCF4VK) which had previously eluded us.

Go Ask Charles is a Multi Cache by GeoMonkeys, located at the lookout of Rumbalara Reserve in the heart of Gosford. It’s a very interesting and clever Multi-Cache, where we had to solve a clue at one location, which lead us to a nearby 2nd location, where we needed to solve another clue to give us the coordinates for the cache.

Wolfie sniffing out the clues

On our first attempt we solved the two parts of the Multi, but we failed on the actual cache find itself. Today was starting to look like a repeat of our first efforts.

Wolfie Guy and Wolfie Ben scavenged through the scrubs trying to piece together the clues, along with hints people had left in their log entries. The clue was a little tricky because it could have referred to a few very similar features in the immediate area.

Armed with our GPSr and iPhone, GZ seemed to dance around. Perhaps it’s the dense tree canopy, or the fact it was a very cloudy day. We had the approximation, but it had us out a little – however, we were determined not to let this one beat us this time – and our determination was to pay off.

After about 20 minutes of searching and foraging, Wolfie Guy gave out an excitable yelp to indicate he had sniffed out something that looked suspiciously like a cache!  Yippee.

This was, to date, the trickiest cache we had gone after (as far as terrain goes). Although it’s rated a 2.5 for terrain, given the cache’s location I would have personally rated it 3 or maybe even 3.5 because the final part of the the search is a little hard… either that or we just went about it the hard way.

Overall this was a fantastic cache – and somewhat of a challenge, which we enjoy. We left the Koala keyring, originally taken from Little Beach, and took the disco ball. Left our mark in the log too of course… so thanks very much for the challenging cache, GeoMonkeys! We’re looking forward to sniffing out a few more of your hides real soon.