A scar now exists on the side of Mt Tennent caused by the deluge that Canberra experienced in Feb/Mar this year. A mate went and hid a cache in the general area and my first thoughts were to have a crack at that. The first of my good decisions that morning was to wear a long sleeved shirt. There was no defined path but the general idea was to follow the creek up the hill.
Much dense shrubbery of the worst kind, lots of needle sharp thorns that I was still plucking out that night. My cunning plan came to halt when I came to a waterfall that needed scaling. My boots were not coping with the slippery granite so I had a bit of a ponder. I did have the ccords of a puzzle cache plugged into the GPS that said I was some 400 metres from the GZ. 400 metres you scoff, that's nothing, you continue to scoff. Well, 400 metres when there is no path, inpenetrable sharp scrub and on the side of a mountain is a bit tougher than it sounds.
Not sure how long it took to cover the distance but when my GPS said I was 0 metres from my destination, there were no likely hiding spots visible. A text message to the cache owner (Mt Tennent does have good mobile phone reception) revealed there was more to the puzzle that met the eye and I was nowhere near the final location. Oh ! That's a pity! Oh well, decided to keep up my general northerly traverse knowing that I would eventually hook up with the Great Alpine Walking Trail. I came across an open area with tons of heather like plants and a zillion bees doing what bees do best. This was interesting because as I climbed down a rocky ledge, I came face to face with the bee's hive in an old tree. I scurried hurriedly back in the direction I came from and gave it a wide berth.
There were ACTEW workers working on powerlines near the road, all the time I was walking, even in the densest scrub, I could hear them chortling away as they went about their business. The sound really carried as they were a fair way up in the cherry pickers. No caches but an interesting walk.
Much dense shrubbery of the worst kind, lots of needle sharp thorns that I was still plucking out that night. My cunning plan came to halt when I came to a waterfall that needed scaling. My boots were not coping with the slippery granite so I had a bit of a ponder. I did have the ccords of a puzzle cache plugged into the GPS that said I was some 400 metres from the GZ. 400 metres you scoff, that's nothing, you continue to scoff. Well, 400 metres when there is no path, inpenetrable sharp scrub and on the side of a mountain is a bit tougher than it sounds.
Not sure how long it took to cover the distance but when my GPS said I was 0 metres from my destination, there were no likely hiding spots visible. A text message to the cache owner (Mt Tennent does have good mobile phone reception) revealed there was more to the puzzle that met the eye and I was nowhere near the final location. Oh ! That's a pity! Oh well, decided to keep up my general northerly traverse knowing that I would eventually hook up with the Great Alpine Walking Trail. I came across an open area with tons of heather like plants and a zillion bees doing what bees do best. This was interesting because as I climbed down a rocky ledge, I came face to face with the bee's hive in an old tree. I scurried hurriedly back in the direction I came from and gave it a wide berth.
There were ACTEW workers working on powerlines near the road, all the time I was walking, even in the densest scrub, I could hear them chortling away as they went about their business. The sound really carried as they were a fair way up in the cherry pickers. No caches but an interesting walk.
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