Or shall I say the ‘Escape from Hobart Show Day Long Weekend’? Snuva and her entourage left Hobart late in the morning of Thursday the 21st with northern caches in their sights.
Thursday 21 October First cache under attack was Spring High, which was an easy drive by that had been placed by the Waterwells since last we drove the midlands highway. Next was another new Waterwells cache, The Dead Centre of Town. These are certainly helping break up the journey between north and south! Next was the fantastic multi by Horus, Flummin’ Hell. Then we rounded the mountain for CraigRat’s She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain. Then off for a walk around Sheffield to examine the Sheffield Murals; the solution to the question for this virtual multi was not immediately apparent, but we got there in the end! We headed towards Duck Filled Fatty Puss, and thought we knew which way to go. However the GPSr showing us that we were extremely close was just too much of an attraction: we decided to take a ‘short cut’. Serenaded by cows, but failing ‘udderly’ (and one of us flailing all over the uneven ground – with a scabby knee to prove it!) we headed round a different way. Approached GZ as CraigRat intended us to, but with the light failing we decided to call it a night, camp, and attack in the morning.
Friday 22 October Fee, fi, fo, fum! Snuva woke up to the smell of an unfound cache! Didn’t last long – we grabbed Duck Filled Fatty Puss before even going into town for coffee; Snuva decided to celebrate by escaping from her entourage and having a celebratory swim! Luckily none of the local residents were in evidence early in the morning. After what was great coffee and fantastic breakfast in town, we headed towards the coast. The next cache to be visited by the Snuster was Braddon. Fantastic view, but I hear the muggles here can be as thick as the mozzies at Coaled Hearted. Snuva yelled at some to go away (bark, bark, bark). Next we attempted UFO, but were only able to confirm that it should be archived. Snuva was a bit traumatised by the UFO Launching Pad!
The next cache to succumb to Snuva was the fantastic Goat Island. Snuva wasn’t allowed to go to the final cache location, but she barked instructions to her slaves from the comfort of her mobile palace.
After that Snuva was off to WET WET WET, but since it was a lovely warm day she was able to stay DRY DRY DRY. Boy, that robtas goes through the pear slices!! Snuva found The Proclaimers to be a wonderfully dog friendly cache. There were special ‘dog swaps’ on the walk to the cache (a tennis ball, a bone, smelly puddles) and she even had time to fit in some oceanographic research.
Feathers McGraw was a different story. Although Snuva was able to get to GZ, SHE was SPECIFICALLY singled out as not being allowed to go to the place of interest close by!!
Snuva forced her entourage to drive off in a huff (after they explored the area). Snuva did a bit of prospecting for a location for a cache of her own and put in a lot of Ks on unsealed road, but wound up at YORKIE before finding the perfect place. After getting bitten by mozzies and logging that find we were off to A Beautiful Point. It certainly was. And surprise, surprise, Malbena – another Hobart cacher – is also up north! As we approached GZ at Bridge Over Troubled Water someone was resting in the clearing. We didn’t see a GPS but wondered ‘Could it be Malbena’? It definitely wasn’t. This guy had obviously been there a while – the remains of a camp fire and a backpack were in evidence. And it also meant we couldn’t have a good look, so unfortunately had to log a DNF. For now! We made for Foghorn Leghorn, but unfortunately gates close at 6pm and we were just too late. No worry – camp for the night and attack first thing in the morning!!
Saturday 23 October Fee, fi, fo, fum! Snuva woke up to the smell of an unfound cache – 2nd day in a row! Fantastic! And the views and surrounds at Foghorn Leghorn were fantastic.
We went to a cafe for breakfast afterwards and a screw holding together the glasses of one of Snuva’s slaves came out; not to worry – we had swapped a jeweller’s screwdriver out of a cache yesterday! Who says swaps are just toys and not useful? Snuva knew of a nice scenic place close by, so she decided to leave a small gift to the northern cachers who were making her trip so good in the form of By George. May your GPSr always be pointing at GZ. Next in the plan was Directional Scenes #1. We almost weren’t able to start this one as the lovely people who maintain and restore this area were having a working bee (for once Snuva wasn’t being sarcastic – they really are lovely people and are doing a fantastic job). But Snuva snuck around and found waypoint 1 then enjoyed the walk to waypoint 2. It was really marvellous – anyone who wasn’t silly enough to do it with a pram would agree – as long as you bring water for the trail!
After the walk we were in need of some food, so off we went to Launceston to score some lunch. We also had some other errands in mind: one of our goals for the afternoon was to infiltrate the CraigRat Lair, and Snuva being an experienced cacher she wanted to swap in some items! She found the ‘Charlotte’s Room’ door sign – not quite as cute as the one she had spotted in Hobart, but what do you expect in the north? – and asked in shops all over town for some ‘Penguin Caffinated Mints’. The looks she got told her that shopkeepers thought she was a strange, lazy puppy to go into a shop for penguin mince – why not grab your own? Anyway, off we went to CraigRat’s lair – easily found, especially as there was a life-sized CraigRat in the front garden! CraigRat did his best to dehydrate these idiots who had done Directional Scenes on such a warm, sunny day – but Snuva was a bit distracted by Olive who is a CAT. A CAT. Andrea and Charlotte soon arrived back from a new cache swap hunting expedition. Charlotte did well – she was able to show off some new sticky stretchy frogs AND new urban caching shoes! Snuva and here entourage went on a mission with Team CraigRat to Point at the Little Swans. Snuva had to find the cache, and Team CraigRat had some maintenance to do. The slave with the GPS wasn’t doing her duty and was chattering away irresponsibly, so walked right past GZ. When she realised her mistake she darted over the edge of the world to punish herself while Snuva barked instructions from CraigRat’s side. Luckily CraigRat doesn’t speak Snuva; she was barking ‘Don’t reveal our caching secrets – act like a doofus idiot, you idiot!’. We obeyed her commands and only zeroed in on the cache after looking completely incompetent – completely different from our usual technique when we are incredibly professional! After parting company with Team CraigRat – see you in Swansea! – we were off to say AH-HA! Took some looking to find the right place (of course the GPSr had one of the slaves looking up on basically a wooded cliff face!) but we got there in the end! It was getting a bit late to try for Brady’s Other Tree, we’d heard that Lightfoot Bay would out, and Snuva wouldn’t here a waiting for the slaved while they did Return to Shipwreck Island without her, so there are still plenty of caches for Snuva to do on her next trip north! We camped near North Tassie know the next day would be another day of success!
Sunday 24 October Fee, fi, fo, fum! Snuva woke up to the smell of an unfound cache – 3nd day in a row! Fantastic! This is the way to live – not like in Hobart where we did them all months ago! We had North Tassie bagged before Snuva had even brushed the sleep from her eyes and had a new friend to share our journey, the Lucky Lobster.
Reaching Duck was a bit of a stretch but we got there in the end! Off for a well earned breakfast (where we bumped into some Launceston friends! What a small world Tasmania is.). Our last port of call was an important mission to retrieve Kiara from The Animal Sanctuary so we could take her home to Wellington’s Cascade; mission accomplished! I think it should be noted that this cache placed by The Caching Kid has the most number of finds logged for any Tasmanian cache. And what a lovely place The Caching Kid has brought people too (even if it is ‘no dogs allowed’)! Time to head for home, but not without heading for fresh caches on the east coast. Bicheno Rocks!!!! was in a fantastic place but Snuva wound up being frustrated by another DNF. Lagoon Views was an easy drive by (that had also been found by muggles!), but Lafarelle’s Folly proved more challenging. Don’t worry – even after 4 days on the road Snuva was up to the challenge and braved Team CraigRat’s guards to score the find! Unfortunately we had to be back in Hobart by mid afternoon so didn’t have time for Three Thumbs Up! but this isn’t the last you’ll see of the Snuvster!!!! All in all it was a fantastic caching trip – 22 finds and 1/2 of a multi done! Anyone who promised to place one cache for every 2 Snuva found would be packing their bags and grabbing the passport!!