A good start to 2008

After hosting a successfu New Year's Eve barbeque, we didn't waste any time in starting geocaching in 2008. This afternoon we set off to find Excelsior (GC186C4), a newly published mystery cache located close to home. It hadn't been found, despite being published a couple of days ago. We set off with much excitement at the prospect of our first find in 2008 being a First To Find (FTF).

The start of the walking track leading to the cache was quickly found, and we set off for a very pleasant walk through Bidjigal Reserve. At GZ, we had an option of two places to look. We started with the easier of the two, but didn't have any luck. After having a look at the second possible location for the cache, Ms S declared that it wasn't safe, and that Mr S should "step away from the edge". Despite this, Mr S stood his ground (literally), and after he pointed out a safe route to the likely hiding spot, Ms S relented and the search proceeded. It was a short search, and the ammo can was quickly found. This isn't the first time that a cache has been found after Ms S changed her mind about the danger that Mr S was in and allowed him to keep searching. It's nice to know that she cares.

Upon opening the logbook, our suspicions were confirmed. On our way to the cache, we had passed a couple who were coming the other way. We discussed amongst ourselves whether they were fellow geocachers, or just bushwalkers out enjoying the warm Sydney weather. It turns out that they were The Wandering Wilkos, and they beat us to the FTF by about 20 minutes. We signed the log, and took the Water travel bug (which The Wandering Wilkos had collected from one of the caches that we own - Sshhhh! (GC16VHK)). What a small world!

As we were walking back to the car, we passed a young lady who was carrying a GPSr. We'll keep checking the logs to see who she was. It looks like Excelsior will have a few visits today.

We'd brought the details of another cache with us just in case we couldn't find Excelsior, so we headed off to Quarry Creek #4 (GC12P5Y). After initially looking on the wrong side of the creek, we found it fairly quickly once we crossed over. When we checked the log, it turned out that the last people to find it were - The Wandering Wilkos!

We'd now found three out of the four caches placed along Quarry Creek by sspack. The one that we were missing was No Trolls Here (GC12NE7), which we'd looked for in July but couldn't find it. Back then we didn't have our GPSr and were using a PDA with built-in GPS. We thought that we would have a better chance of finding the cache with a GPSr. A short drive brought us to GZ and we started looking. The GPSr was pointing us to the same spot that we were looking in before, but we didn't have any luck, despite there being fewer muggles than the last time we looked. Now that we've read the logs again (the most recent of which was by The Wandering Wilkos), we think we might have an idea of where it is, so we'll be trying again soon.

The Water TB that we collected from Excelsior needs to be moved on within 48 hours, so we'll be looking for more caches in the next couple of days. We'll probably try and find the other three element TBs, and then find The Fifth Element.

Because of the time difference between Sydney and Seattle, we haven't been able to log any of these finds yet. The list of years on the "Log your visit" page doesn't include 2008 yet!