Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens, Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree!
Today, Lil Dwarfette and I found FIVE caches! We sure had a fun day out.
The caches we found are:
The Outlaw’s Hideaway by Team Rhino
Name that cache! by Steve & Family
The Kiss That Missed by happyharries
The 7 Dwarfs – Grumpy by Steve & Family
The 7 Dwarfs – Sneezy by Steve & Family
They were all in roughly the same area. The first one we found rather quickly. In fact, Lil Dwarfette pointed out where she thought it might be. I looked but didn’t find it there, then searched around for another 5 or so minutes before looking in the same original spot at a different angle.. There it was! She picked out a small blue and white chequered ribbon (looks like a police one heh). We dropped off a compass thermometer and went to play on the nearby swings and other kid stuff. After that, we jumped into the car and drove off again to the next one.
We stopped near the next one and hopped out of the car and walked down the hill. Another car pulled up and another family (of four) got out and walked down a path past where we were standing near the cache. They wandered off into the bush so we grabbed out the cache and did our swap, this time dropping off a poker chip keyring with builtin LED light. We hid the cache away and the other family came straight back, walked up the hill and drove off. Very strange?! Lil Dwarfette had picked up a half-empty little bottle of kids nail polish with sparkles, so she was very happy with that find.
Back in the car we followed my new Navman S50 to the location of the next cache. We stopped on a narrow road which doesn’t even look like a real road but is because it goes past homes further down. We got out and followed the Garmin eTrex Basic GPSr until I saw we had to go way down a very steep hill. We walked around for a bit to find a less steep trail which we carefully walked down while I held Lil Dwarfette’s hand. We got to the bottom and followed the GPSr until I saw something unusual. I took a photo of it and told her what it was and just as we were about to walk off, I decided to have a look inside it. Lo and behold the darn geocache was hiding inside it! I grabbed it out and it was a large one! Luckily we had a large-ish prize to put inside.. a combination lock and keyring light. We dropped it off and Lil Dwarfette grabbed out a pair of kids scissors which cut in zigzag lines. We wrote our note on the notepad inside and carefully put the cache back. Next we had to find our way back up to the top. We followed the track until the embankment became really steep. It was then I realised we missed a turn as the track had split into two. We walked back and I found the other part of the track which we turned up. Next, we had to find a way up that wasn’t so steep that Lil Dwarfette couldn’t climb. I held her hand and at times pushed her up the hill, but we made it safe and sound.
In the car, we ate some salt and vinegar chips. I had bought a pack of 20 packets of chips so I thought we should have something to munch on while we were hunting. I also had a couple of mini bottles of drink so we polished all that off and drove off following the ever-present Navman and the sweet dulcet tones of the lady’s voice guiding us. We parked near the next cache on the above list. It was a micro cache in a small film canister. We walked along the walkway and quickly discovered the cache. I wrote our note in it and got the clue to a bigger cache. This one and the next are a set of 7 caches which have clues. Each is named after one of the Seven Dwarfs. It sprinkled a little rain on us and LD was worried, but I didn’t think it’d really rain so we hopped in the car one more time and headed off to the last cache on the list I had printed out earlier.
We stopped near a very big parkland and followed the walkway. I had parked 300m away from the cache but figured a nice little stroll would do us the world of good. Unfortunately, it had become rather hot so I didn’t want to be out in that too long, particularly with a little 4yo LD. We took our time and enjoyed our walk. A few times we came across some bearded dragon lizards and got within about 10 feet of them before they scarpered off into the bushes. We passed some birds whom took to the skies.. well one actually just ran away from us. Silly thing, considering he has wings for that very reason. We walked over some bridges in the beautiful park and stopped at one to watch the wildlife. Even though there was a big sign saying “DON’T FEED THE ANIMALS AS THEY WILL GET SICK” the ducks, other birds, turtles etc came up to us obviously expecting some nosh. We didn’t have any so the birds flew off but we looked into the murky water at the turtles therein. One turtle had moss growing on his head, looking much like a green wig of hair on top of his head. Rather amusing! I will upload a photo of him and hopefully you can see him well enough. I lay down on the bridge to photograph him as close as I could get but the murky water didn’t show well in the light. After watching them for a while we got up and followed the GPSr again until we passed a playground and over another bridge. We soon found the other micro cache carefully hidden near a very big spider. Fortunately, the spider was quite dead so I flicked him out of the way with a twig and pulled the stones off the micro cache, intending to free it from it’s cavern. Just then I heard a noise and saw some sightseers coming near. I turned around and talked to Sienna to make it look like we had just stopped on our tour of the local natureland and we waited until they had passed. I turned back and grabbed the canister, quickly wrote a note and got the last clue of the day and carefully placed the cache back and hid it once again. We wandered back to the playground and LD had a quick play but the sun was beating down upon us and it was after 1:15pm and we had not had lunch as yet. I needed to go back to the car, but there was a large number of pathways to take. Fortunately, the GPSr records your every step and turn, so I followed our trail back to the car quite safely. We hopped in and told the Navman “There’s no place like HOME!” and it guided us back again. We stopped off at a bottle shop to get some alcohol for my visitors later in the week and popped into Coles to get some other supplies, then home for lunch and a nap.
A really good and fun day out for the both of us.
Yertle the green-haired turtle.
Curious George the bird.
