Troglodyte # 3 at Bungonia

April 2008

With a camping trip planned at Bungonia in the school holidays I decided to see if there were any local caches in the area.
Of course, there were.
Heading off in the Festiva earlier than the others in the van, Jye, his friend James and I set off for the Bungonia State Forest in search of a cache called Troglodyte # 3.
Arriving at our destination we paid the $7- entry fee, grabbed a map and signed the register to say we were in the park. With the co-ordinates punched in to the GPS we were off.


Now when Russell gave me his GPS to lend, I vaguely remember something he said about 'as the crow flies'. Pity I didn't remember what he said exactly!!
With the GPS directing us up a track, we walked 'as the crow flies' only to come to a clearing at the bottom of a mountain. This was no hill...this was a MOUNTAIN.
Over we went and down the other side only to come to another clearing at the bottom of another mountain.
By this time the boys weren't very impressed, especially James who must have been wondering why he'd wanted to go bush with us in the first place.
After reassuring the pair that if we just went over this mountain and down the other side, we would be assured the reward of a find.
So over we went and guess what we found? Another clearing and another bloody mountain!


By this time I was starting to think that maybe we should've stuck to a track...that anyone in their right mind wouldn't walk all this way just to place a cache right?
I mean seriously, what were they...mountain goats?


After looking behind me and realising that...yep...we had to go back the way we came..the cache wasn't looking quite so appetising.
We had to admit defeat...once again.
The journey was far from over though. Somehow the mountains on the way back were much steeper than they were on the way there and it was taking me at least 5 minutes to get from tree to tree on the way back. Even the boys were struggling but they still found it funny to watch me struggle even more especially when I lost my footing and was clinging to the side of this mountain like Gollum with my fingernails literally dug into the dirt!!
Finally we arrived back at the car and found quite a few other people just about to head off on their bushwalks, smiling and nodding at us.
If only they knew half an hour before I was seriously considering sending up a flare for helicopter help!!
Oh well...better luck next time.
Just NOT at this cache!!

One for Mimsie

15 April 2008
Seeing as we'd found our first cache the day before, we thought we'd head out in search of a few more in the local area.
We had to drive out to Werombi to pick Jayden up from his mates place so with GPS in hand we set off to find a cache at Menangle on the way there.
With a hint of it being near a water canal and a peek at Google Earth before we left it was a sure thing we'd find it. NOT!!
Unfortunately we were looking in the wrong spot AGAIN!!
No amount of rummaging around would turn up this cache much to the boys disgust at my handling of the GPS and the many comments about 'Dad being able to find it straight away'. Well Dad was at work and didn't they realise by saying things like this would only make me more determined to find the bloody thing??



After picking Jayden up I had 2 more caches that I thought we could have a look for, but not before I found the Menangle one!
So amid bribes of $1- for the Geo kid that found it we made our way back for another scrounge.
This time we were lucky!! Geo Jedd struck gold this time in a very well camouflaged cache. Thanks Homedg...it was worth going back for!



This time the boys swapped the rubber Ninja tutle for a Cadbury badge and a woven key ring.



The log was signed and we were on our way to the next cache at Woodbine called 'Out on a Limb'. It was a place that was populated with a lot of spiky plants and after the 4 of us searching for what seemed like ages we finally gave up. The boys were much more enthusiastic in going to the next cache we had up our sleeve at Minto called 'Paddle Pop Lion' for obvious reasons.

We walked around and around but the co-ordinates were a little jumpy and the GPS just had a mind of its own. Plus the fact that it had started raining and none of us had jackets on left us no option but to return home disgruntled at only finding 1 out of 3 of the caches :(

We''ll be back though...you can mark my words.
Cheers
Sharryn :)

Our first find!!

So...armed with our borrowed GPS, Geo Jye (our 12yr old son) and Geo Mum (me), set off to find our first cache on the 14th of April '08.
I had chosen the cache 'DISNEY CENTRAL' by Tegator as it was apparently a good one for kids and had a Disney theme. We had chosen a Lion King Disney toy to swap once we found the cache.
Not too sure what happened this day but Geo Jye and myself ended up walking miles and miles, up hills and down dales with the cache nowhere to be found. :(
Through golf courses where the only things of value were rakes, under tunnels full of colourful graffiti...back in the car to see if we could get closer to the cache by driving around another route...and back to walking up hills and down dales again...literally...

We did manage to find this frog sat right in the middle of our walking track though and luckily for us it sat still while we hit 'stealth mode' and I grabbed a photo:



One problem...we both felt like complete idiots when we realised this was, in fact, a BROKEN TENNIS BALL!! Der!!

Feeling rather hard done by we came home and I jumped back on the Net and the GeoCaching forum to find why or where we could be possibly going wrong.
At which time Geo Dad (Michael) came home from work, seen what we were doing, had a look at the co-ordinates in Google Earth and said 'Oh I know where that is!!'. Hmmm....Geo Jye and I had spent hours on this already and Geo Dad knew where it was just by looking at Google Earth for 2 minutes?? Unbelievable, but true!!

So we threw the kids in the car..drove the 1.4kms from our house and found the cache in under 10 minutes. Well...Geo Dad did anyway...Geo Mum was still feeling rather rejected after the walk she'd done that day only to realise she was nowhere near the cache in the first place!

So it was smiles all round when the kids realised what this new hobby was going to be all about. Finding treasure!!



Geo Dad had the pleasure of filling in the log book:



And the Geo Kids swapped the Disney Lion King toy for a European water bottle and a rubber Ninja Turtle.



So, our very first find really was a team effort and enjoyed by all involved!
Thanks to Tegator for a great kid friendly cache. :)
Cheers
Sharryn :)

Introducing.....

TEAM THOMSON

A bit about how we came across this wonderful new hobby...
I am a scrapbooker and recently went on a scrapbooking Retreat and met a lovely lady who told me all about this fabulous 'other' hobby of hers that she shared with her husband and family called 'Geo Caching'.
She told me how she'd lived in her area for many years but through this sport she had found many places of local interest she had never before heard of.
Hmmmmm...interesting. Living in South West Sydney in a locality that is quite central to bush, beach and the city and being a family of outdoorsy types it sounded right up my alley.
So from there...the seed was planted.
Upon returning home from the scrapbooking Retreat I explained to my husband and kids about the new hobby I had heard about and how I thought it would be a real interest to us all as a family, I promptly did a Google search and found the websites needed for more information.
To cut a long story short, we borrowed my brother in laws' Garmin GPS a couple of weeks ago to 'have a taste' before outlaying money for yet another gadget we may not use but in those couple of weeks have had more fun exploring our local area than ever before!!
So we are now on the lookout for our very own GPS (Garmin preferred) to embark on an awesome new hobby involving the whole family (and there are 8 of us!!).
Here, I will post about our travels, our finds, share photos and hopefully one day soon, our hides.
Cheers
Sharryn :)