Tuesday 30 August: Brandy Flat caching ride – M/M. A late start for a ride along the Brandy Flat Walking Track and fire trail for the Trail of the Damned series of geocaches. Ride to Brandy Flat Hut and return. Around 14km. Map: Michelago. Leader: John Evans, 0417 436 877, john@johnevans.id.au . Transport: ∼$5.
2 of us met.
Further Information
A recent eBay purchase of a bike mount for my Garmin Oregon GPSr came into its own today. A useful bit of kit for ∼$4.50 + postage from China. See http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/221831842044.
Summary
Distance: 14.2km ride and walk | Climb: 490m | Time: 11.10am – 3.20pm (4hrs 10mins), including 15mins of breaks and plenty of caching time | Grading: M/M; M(10)
Photographs
Photographs are available, where you can start a large sized slideshow.
Waypoint and Track Files
Download the .gpx file. (Right click, Save Link As…, Save – if you want to use it.)
To use in Google Earth, do File, Open… and select Gps or All files as the File Type.
Track Notes
A late start as I have 15 days of work on. We popped the bikes on my new bike rack and drove to the Brandy Flat Walking Track car park.
The plan was to do the Trail of the Damned! series, then ride to Brandy Flat Hut for a cache near there. Rather than ride the Brandy Flat Walking Track, we took the Brandy Flat Fire Trail past the Glendale depot, hoping that we might be considered ‘authorised vehicles’! A good option, as it turned out on the return journey.
We began with a quick foray down in the bush from the car to log GC6J6N7 Trail of the DAMNED! #01 Tankengine Trap. This set the wonderful quality of the entire 16 caches in the series. Each one gets a favourite from me. I wish I could show the photos of the cahes, but that would be spoiling the fun of those to come. Suffice to say that goecachers will think them fabulous and many bushwalking friends may have an opposite view!
After a puff to the junction of the fire trail and the walking track we got into it. First came GC6K71R Trail of the DAMNED! #09 Little Green Men, a short multi. As always, the waypoints and track in the .gpx file have been doctored so as to not reveal the final GZs of the multi-s. Then GC6K2VF Trail of the DAMNED! #10 I Heart Geocaching, another short multi.
We walked a lot of the fire trail that climbs steeply to the crest. The next cache was GC6KHM3 Trail of the DAMNED! #11 Haunted Tree, a traditional cache, but still heaps of fun. Further up the hill we found GC6KHN9 Trail of the DAMNED! #12 The Last Yowie, then GC6KJ4H Trail of the DAMNED! #13 Dead aHead.
At last we reached the crest of the ridge. The next cache was GC6KJCK Trail of the DAMNED! #14 The Other Half, where we picked up the details to go on and find the final GZ. Riding from here, we visited GC6KJD3 Trail of the DAMNED! #15 A Podling Puzzle and solved the puzzle.
The next was a multi cache GC6KJD4 Trail of the DAMNED! #16 The Necronomicon. Clues gathered to pick up the final GZ later.
So now it was an uninterrupted ride to Brandy lat Hut. I reckoned it was mainly flat; Roger disagreed and was proved correct. A couple of steep down hills meant puffing and pushing on the way back.
A find of GC1XKYB Brandy Boulders, then back to the nearby Brandy Flat Hut for a late lunch. We were a little weary.
Back on the saddle at 1.40pm for the ride out and to pick up the caches on the Brandy Flat Walking Track and the couple of final GZ-s. I picked up a slow leak puncture on the way back but was able to ride to the junction of the fire trail and walking track before the tube went flat. I had to walk from here on.
GC6J6P5 Trail of the DAMNED! #08 Spider’s Nest was a ripper; then GC6J8KZ Trail of the DAMNED! #07 Ghost of Geocachers Past; next was GC6J8KA Trail of the DAMNED! #06 He returns… up on the high side of the track. Walking further back along the track, we detoured to GC6J6NV Trail of the DAMNED! #05 giANT Geocache (another fabulous creation!).
Next was GC6J6NH Trail of the DAMNED! #04 The Thing; then GC6J6NC Trail of the DAMNED! #03 Lock and Load. Closer to the car we picked up GC6J8QJ Trail of the DAMNED! #02 Burnt Offering.
At some stage during the trip we logged the Final GZ for GC6KJD3 Trail of the DAMNED! #15 A Podling Puzzle and the Final GZ for GC6KJD4 Trail of the DAMNED! #16 The Necronomicon. This last was a very fitting culmination of the very well constructed series!
A well deserved stop at Val’s Tharwa General Store on the way home, then a trip to the bike shop for me.
Thanks Roger for the company and to Dwarf Exploder for the great geocaches!
Maps
Party
2 riders – Roger E (Marmaduke Rothschild), me (JohnnyBoyACT).