up barrenjoey way...

We went up to Barrenjoey to maintain one of Charl's caches. But instead we could not find it. The people before found it, the people after found it. But we could not. When I had looked many years ago, I also could not find it. The mystery this time? Someone had moved it. They were doing tours of the lighthouse, so we were able to go up to the top. Vertigo city up there.







After we did some other caches.

No caches today

Well we spent a fruitless day caching. The first cache was one I had already visited. The second 2108, was unreachable because the tide was so high. Well Charl and Chris made it, but my feet were so cold that I did not want to climb up the bank.

danger, originally uploaded by yewenyi.

purple mushrooms

Well we headed off to Royal National Park and did a few caches. This time we did some walking (yay!). I have never seen these purple mushrooms before. But there had been floods recently and many mushrooms were out.

purple mushrooms, originally uploaded by yewenyi.

Harbor the Entrance

Andrew joined in the caching. This was about the third on the day, and is probably my 100th cache. I had looked in the right spot, but not seen the cache. Then Charl found it. Later we had a snack at the Bottom of the Harbour fish and chip shop. It was always my favorite when I lived in Mosman, but it has been renovated and the food was only worth 2.5 stars. I was disappointed. The chips were made in burnt oil, and while I thought the herb bread was acceptable, Chris did not like it.

Harbor the Entrance, originally uploaded by yewenyi.

Sitck Figure in Peril

Went up to Mona Vale and did two of Charl's new caches and had dinner. The first one was Stick Figure in Peril, the second Sea Air. I have not posted the photos from the second cache, yet. We had dinner at the Hong Kong Chinese restaurant, a Newport establishment, and the food and service was very good. The Hong Kong Chinese restaurant has what I would call modern Australian Chinese food. It is based on the Chinese tradition of food, but it is not Chinese food. It has been modified for Australian tastes. The only variance from this is the deserts which are typical of Australian Chinese deserts from 30 years ago. So I had some yummy lychee and ice cream.

wombat berry and sea air

While doing one of Char's caches (sea air) we had some local food, the strangely named wombat berry. I wonder if they are also eaten by wombats?

wombat berry, originally uploaded by yewenyi.

painted shed

We spent a day caching in the fog. But first we had lunch in Katoomba.

painted shed, originally uploaded by yewenyi.

beer and geocaching

Charl and I went into town. We first tried the beer tasters at the Red Oak pub in the city. These are pricey, but worth it. You get 4 or 5 beer tasters with a associated food item, all of the best quality. After that we did some fairly unsuccessful caching. Generally too many people and caches we could not find.

back yards, originally uploaded by yewenyi.

Borderlands

After staying in Bungendore, we traveled back to Canberra. On the way we stopped at the NSW - ACT border and I laid my hat on the easterly most point in the ACT.

Publish

There is no water in the fountain at Parliament House because of the sage 3 water restrictions.

Here we also visited the National Gallery.

and did some caching by the shores of Lake Burley Griffin

Crommelin's Pearl

In the hills behind Pearl Beach is a cache called Crommelin's Pearl. It is in the Crommelin Native Arboretum, a nice little place. We were to early for the opera performance (by days).

After this we visited another cache on Mt Ettalong, with views over Pearl Beach.

Further down the road in Patonga is another cache with a great view

Geocaching

Well, I spent another day geocaching, this time up in Ku-Ring-Gai NP and on the north shore. I have put the photos in my queue for processing. Here is a graph of my finds to date. Click on the graph to view the latest version.

Geocaching

Well, I have found that a good way to break up the long drive to Melbourne (900 odd km and more than 10 hours) is to stop and so some caching. I ended up visiting the town of Benalla, but unfortunately I was there too soon for the best place for a hamburger (at least 30 years ago) to be open. Maybe next time.

Geocaching

Well it is a little after the event, last week, after I purchased my tin whistle, I did some geocaching. I visited some nice places in the Blue Mountains.

Geocaching

Well we spent the day on the lower north shore. Meeting up, as is becoming usual, at Gordon. Turned left this time onto the Pacific Highway. Started with a cache in Chatswood. Then Artarmon, Crows Nest and ended up in Naremburn. (the last one is famous hey!) We found the following caches: No rest for the wicked, Still the One?, Gilroy's Shout, A Trip down Memory Lane, and Mrs Hartnett's Pleasure.

There was a gap in the rain for the first few but the last ones were done in the rain. We had afternoon tea (courtesy of the Chinese supermarket in Chatswood) in the car while the worst of the rain passed. We even had mr Lotti'es pokky from Korea. The list price on the packet was ₩700. We paid $1.20, so this was not unreasonable given how far it had to travel.

The new GPS performed superbly. Though there does not seem to be a way to unmark a cache if you have accidentally marked it as found.

eTrex Legend

Well I have been considering a new GPS for some time. I have been using charl's Fortrex 101, which has done good service and been all around the world. Including in Seoul where I was a mere 8286 km from home in a direct line of sight.

I have been looking at all the different models, wondering which one I should purchase. I liked the features on Charl's current GPS. In the end, I went for a model some where in between. I purchased a eTrex Legend Cx. C for colour, x for memory expansion slot. It has a micro SD slot, the smallest memory module I have seen. It takes up to a 2 GB card (a very difficulty bit of information to discover), though I have a 512M card. It also has a good geocaching set of functions so you can mark the caches as found as you find them.



Now all I need is a feature that tags the photos in my camera with the GPS coordinates. Apparently there is some software that will use the time stamps to merge the data sets. I will have to go looking.

I also purchased a few travel bugs. I have yet to select what to attach to them, but it will need to be something small. One is to travel the world, visiting every country, the other to wander around Australia and New Zealand.

With the GPS leading me to the right place, I then went to try it out. I went looking for a near by cache (GCXHK6). It is located near Australia's third English settlement. But I could not find it. I was in the right place. I will have to go back. It was probably something obvious I missed as the others seem to have no trouble in finding it.