Waterwells

It has been quite some time since we have had a full free day that has actually co-incided, that is, time when we could go geo-hunting together for the day! It was last weekend.

We thought about attempting to catch that damned elusive cache, the one that’s been chased around the Hobart area for the past couple of months. The one that we tried to hunt down when it first hit Northern soil .. (Thankyou Aloysius! ). The same one that the ‘Ferals from the Forth’ found, and subsequently hid along the North West Coast.

We decided instead to head North East, a trip we’d been planning for some time. Our first stop was our own ‘Bonnie’s Lament’ cache, which according to Tassie Devils, needed some TLC. (Thanks Tassie Devils, for letting us know via your log!). We dried out the container, replaced the log book and replaced all the swaps with lots of new goodies! We met an interesting lady with five ‘very huge’ dogs within a stone throw of the cache. We stopped to chat, and it appears that she takes her dogs for a walk along ‘that very same path’ every morning. Apparently she stops for a rest very close to where the cache is hidden, because that’s where her ‘huge’ .. (and as we discovered, ‘very aged, very friendly”) … pooches like to swim!

Little does she know that there is geo-caching treasure, hidden close by!

We then headed to a friends home for a cuppa. Incidentally, their balcony looks out over ‘Bonnie’s Lament’, across the bay. It felt quite strange, sitting out on their balcony and looking across the bay to where we’d been only twenty minutes earlier chatting with our new ‘pooch’ friend, while surrepticiously trying to replace swaps and a log book!

After leaving the good company and the Anzac biscuits, we headed to ‘What’s That Smell?’ Very tricky! (Typical of Michaels Mob). We almost gave up on it .. but eventually persistence won out!

And then it was off to ‘Didn’t We Have A Lovely Time’. And did we have a lovely time?? .. No, not really!! The self appointed cache guard dog residing next door ensured that our visit to the cache was fraught with geo-cringe! But then again, there was a bonus! His/her continual barking ensured that any joe-blakes that may have been waiting to pounce on us, all skiddadled big time!

‘Just Missed It’ .. was next on our agenda. Wow!! Double wow!! .. We can’t for the life of us think why we’ve left it so long to seek this one out! It’s a magnificent walk back in time! It’s another well thought out cache from MichaelsMob, and one that is placed in an area that we would never have thought about wandering off the road to explore!

‘Merth and Merriment’ was our next stop. An idyllic peaceful walk after an interesting history lesson soon had the prize in our hot little hands. But not before we had taken our fill of the water rushing through the base of the valley. We also learn’t that CraigRat isn’t ‘a spelling drop-out’ after all! After finding the cache, we ‘merthed’ and ‘merried’ our way back out along the path to the carpark with much merth and merriment!

Onwards to ‘Rocky Park’. By this time our stomachs were rumbling and hunger was setting in! (”Yessss! We see a take-away shop! Bonus! It’s less than 250 metres from our destination!” ) …. We stopped and placed our order of chicken and chips .. (’the greasies’ of course!!). We were told it would take fifteen to twenty minutes to cook. Hmmm, what to do in the meantime? Go and search for ‘Rocky Park’ while our ‘greasies’ were cooking?? Yesss!!

It only took a few minutes to find the cache .. but ‘we got sprung!’ and then spent a very enjoyable time catching up with Mr and Mrs Tack while swapping caching exploits.

We evenutally parted company with, “See you in Hobart next weekend!” .. and it was back to the take-away shop to pick up our ‘pre-ordered greasies’! From there, we headed towards ‘The East Man, The East’. We found a comfy seat overlooking the water to eat our lunch, turned the GPS back on and … “Hey, GPS is saying that the cache is 17 metres THAT way!”. We looked in THAT direction and lo and behold, this time we had ’sprung/sprang’ Mr Tack!! After another enjoyable chat, Mr Tack went on his way to look for ‘Mermaid’s Lookout’ while we continued eating ‘out greasies’, with a promise that we would soon follow!

Unfortunately, it didn’t happen! After Mr Tack’s departure, we met up with some ex work colleagues enjoying a couple of hours on the beach and we spent an hour or so with them, catching up on all the latest work/family news and gossip.

Eventually, we headed off to ‘Mermaid’s Lookout’, guessing that Mr Tack would have been long gone!

We found the first waypoint and then headed off for a leisurely and thoroughly enjoyable walk along the beach. Approx 50 metres from GZ, we came across two very young ‘beings’, who were more engrossed with one another, than any activity that we might be participating in! After less than a minute of searching, geo-cringe set in big-time!! …. As in … “Hmmmm, maybe they are watching us in between their lustful antics???”

Mission was abandoned …. but we’ll be back!

It was then time to head back home! “Hmmm .. isn’t there a cache somewhere on ‘The Sidling’?” Luckily we nabbed it within seconds of the heavens opening, which turned out to be a five minute fury of hail and rain!!! As a result we didn’t get to experience the view this time but usually it’s a favourite ‘pit stop’ for us when we’re along this way and the view from here never ceases to amaze us!