The 2 Dogs
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Posts posted by The 2 Dogs
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WE have been known to purchase the odd Happy Meal at Maccas on occaision. Even though we didn't have kids at the time, its' just so we can place the toy in a cache.
Dogs
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Just playing kangaroos
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Ok you Sydney people why not head to the hills or mountains get out of town and do some sightseeing in a wilderness area that is so close to your back doors. The area is great and you don't need an overnight stay to get this one. Yes you do need a 4X4 but what fun. A bag of goodies to the next finder.
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I have actually spoken to the techinical department at Magellan Australia about this very thing as my unit is marked WAAS capable. Of course there is no WAAS stations in Australia so their advie is....
Keep it turned off. If the unit is looking for the WAAS stations that are not there you not only give your unit an extra and pointless task to do (i.e search and lock on) but you cause it to take longer to settle on a fix as it always factors in all sat info including 'missing' ones and in the end this effects the final position reading.
Hope this helps
Hounddog
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Who ever said that there are no harmful spiders outside of the Sydney area hasn't been around too much. I'll give you some examples.
The Red back Spider: Highly Toxic Venom and Painful Bite.
The Mouse Spider: The female is reputed as having venom more toxic that a Funnel Web. Although she has far less in volume, she could kill a child if bitten.
The White Tail Spider. Has highly Necrotic Venom which causes pregressive tissue decay and can make you seriously ill.
The wolf spider: Very painful bite with symptoms similar to the White tail.
Not to mention the Black Wishbone, the Trapdoor the Bird Eating and the Fiddleback all with very toxic venom.
Unlike the United States. You need to be careful of many poisonous animals including these guys wherever you go in Australia.
Hounddog
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Check this one out...
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=3238
Getting to this cache involves an abseil down a 90 metre air shaft into an abandoned railway tunnel. There is an easier option but this involves a 2 km walk along the dark and cold tunnel. By the time you get the the cache area the light at the end of the tunnel is but a speck. The tunnel floor is badly rutted and washed out so it's a real challenge to keep upright. On the day I did the cache, the outside temperature was around 100 degrees but the temp inside the tunnel stays a constant 45. A great adventure to do.
Hounddog
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If they don't have access to white people I guess they have to eat the locals. Could you just imagine the chief with his wives........"Who's for dinner tonight love"
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There may not be a cache in Papua New Guinea but there is one pretty dadgum close on the northern tip of Cape York. Caching in PNG would be a real adventure, as they have jungle that is reputed as being totally impenetrable. Beyond these barriers of foreboding vegetation live tribes who have never seen a white man and may even still practice cannibalism.
Hounddog
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Perhaps the scariest encounter I have had with creatures during my caching occurred one day when I was returning from placing a cache nearby my home on the outskirts of Sydney Australia.
I was walking between 2 sunny rock shelves when all of a sudden there was a commotion and a Red Belly Black snake fell off the shelf and onto the track just ahead of me. This species of snake is very timid but they are a big imposing snake with potent venom and shiny black scaling. This guy was about 6 or 7 feet in length I guess. This was not unusual in itself, as I am used to seeing snakes all over the place but this time of year I didn't expect to see any so I wasn't wearing gaiters. What happened next was the scary part. Seconds after the Black had fallen onto the track another snake fell on top of it. This was a very different snake however, it was an Eastern Brown. These are much smaller than the Red Belly but their venom is very deadly in fact they rate as one of the most deadly snakes in the world having been responsible for the deaths of many a bushwalker. The two coiled and wriggled eventually parting company and the black wriggled away down the track but the brown headed toward me. I froze, it was all I could do. Thankfully he shot past me without stopping for a bite at my ankle, but needless o say my heart was pumping big time.
The story doesn't end there as after few more steps down the track I encountered another Black. I can only assume that this was their afternoon sunning spot and I had walked right into a major snake pit.
The rest of the way down I walked very slowly, made plenty of noise and bowled a big rock in front of me just in case. Very scary indeed.
Hounddog
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Come down to Australia
Here most of our caches are quite difficult and involve serious adventuring. I have included the links to 3 exmples.
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=21457
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=3140
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=6824
Rock/mountain climbing, long secluded hikes in some of the most remote and rugged bushland in the world, abseiling, swimming, 4x4ing etc etc etc. "Down the River" involves slogging it out along the sandy bed of a creek for about 4 hours before climbing a steep cliff to retreive the cache. Did I mention the constant threat of deadly snakes and spiders along the way?. All this often without access to mobile phones or water or nearby help.
To us this is what geocaching is all about.
Hounddog and Snifter (The 2 Dogs)
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We will be visiting the area during July.
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Of course I was joking with the last message.....Aussie Humour.
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Don't give up!! Don't get mad!!....GET EVEN. Achive the cache, then place a dummy cache for the vandals complete with a nest of bull ants within or maybe a rattle snake waiting to pounce when the box is opened.
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So far this summer (yes we are opposite to you) we have lost around 20 caches to Fire Storms, in the Sydney Australia Region. Fire storms are ferocious bushfires that travel at frightening speeds through Australian bush and destroy every thing in their path including people, wildlife, houses and of course caches.
Our Capital city of Canberra is still reeling from a severe Firestorm last month that wiped out over 400 homes and devestated the local infastructure.
In fact, fire is by far the major destroyer of caches down under. Theft, vandalism and other circumstances are rare. Not much chance of flood...the entire state of New South Wales is currently drought declared, and my area hasn't had significant rain in nearly twelve months. Our lawns and gardens have long died and if we try to wash our cars we get nasty looks from our neighbours.
We had to move a cache recently because all the vegetation around it had died through lack of water. Also we have taken to placing something made of metal in every cache so at least we may have an indictation in the ash of where the cache was. If you ever get a chance, have a listen to Australian Talk Radio, to get an idea of how bad the drought and fires are down here.
2 dogs.
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"Great Southern Land (5) That's the Trig" has proved to be very popular with geocachers. However there are some out there who prefer this type of adventure to the norm and are only attracted to trig hunting. Also you will note that Australians cannot take part in Geocaching.com's Benchmark Programme so I am after your feedback on the following proposal.
I would like to raise the current ceiling on this cache from 5 to 10. This will especially allow the 'Trig Hunters' to persue more adventures.
Also I invite your opinion on whether or not it is proper for ouselves (Hounddog and Snifter) to log finds on this cache. I would love to get out there and find some and feel that just because we created this vitual, It shouldn't mean we can't join in the challenge. Thoughts anyone?
Hounddog
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In the U.S. you have the benchmark logs but down here in Australia that area is not available. A short time before Jeremy introduced benchmarks to the game I had actually created a virtual of the same nature where the cachers can log up to 5 Trig Stations (Survey Markers) in Australia. I haven't actually logged a trig on my own cache yet but I feel that if it's ever ok to do it, it would be for that sort of situation.
Hounddog
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I once did a cache hunt on top of a mountain during a raging hail/lightening/thunderstorm. I was heading up when all hell broke loose, the wind blew up, the temperature dropped 15 degrees Celsius in about 5 minutes and then chunks of ice the size of cricket balls started falling. The wind raged and lightening struck some trees just metres away. Luckily I found a nearby cave to shelter but in the there the leeches, excited by all the moisture, began to lunch out on my legs. When the storm finally passed The track I was on was no longer visible under the mixture of fallen ice and bark debris.
Very scary but an adventure nonetheless.
Hounddog.
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In this day and age of Mobile Telephones (I believe you Yanks call them Cellphones) it may not seem so relevant, but I was wondering if anyone uses 2 way radio while Geocaching.
The mobile telephone coverage in Australian cities is great but once you get way from the civilisation and into the outback it's a very different story. We use CB radio to communicate. I am told that "UHF" CB is unique to our country but the compact size of these handheld units mean they are very convenient and easy to carry. For safety it's a sensible consideration especially if you are going into very remote or snakey territory. In some places I have cached you can travel for days without seeing another soul so it's great piece of mind.
Hounddog
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The 2 Dogs team down under. We have placed around 80 caches in the south eastern region of Australia. However some of these were temps and many have been destroyed by the recent bushfires.
We get around to checking and maitaining many of them but sometimes we just rely on visiting cachers reports on their condition.
Happy caching guys
Hounddog.
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quote:
Originally posted by nincehelser:...we get "Kangaroo Jack".
No...not a good year
George
I saw the David Letterman show which airs down here at around midnight. I must admit to not knowing that Kangaroo Jack was in Cinemas. The rap dancing scene looked a hoot.
Did you know the roos are actually quite a bit of a pest down here. They are everywhere. That is why we need large bull bars on the front of our cars and many people have been killed on country roads because of them. They are a major hazard on country air strips as well. On the caching front we have to be very careful what we put in our stashes as the buggers pick up the scent of everything, and are quite adept at getting into things.
Hounddog
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Thanks to all for the best wishes. We will hope that things improve soon and our hearts go out to all who have lost their homes, obviously this is a whole lot worse than losing just a geocache.
The contrast of seasons is startling and we know that the U.S is no stranger to the fury of the elements. Tornados seem the be the most frightening to me.
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Originally posted by georgeandmary:There's always the urban micro cache. It'll hold you over until you can get back into the bush.
Actually that is what most of us are doing down here this summer. We have been placing mostly urban caches, even some caches underwater.
Hounddog
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This sort of thing has happened to us only once before and was very strange indeed. Just as we were nearing a cache one afternoon the GPS went heywire and put us over 14 KMs from our true location. It was working consistent with our movements but was as I said 14 km off track. It would return to norm for about a mintue then revert back to same error again for about 5 mins. This went on for over and hour and needless to say our caching activities has to cease. We went to the local pub (which by coincidence was very near the place the GPS was showing in error)and had a drink and when we emerged all was well again so we decided to have another go. This is where it got really freaky as we were about to head back over to the cache the error started again and this time showed as almost on top of the cache which again was still 14km away. It was a freaky thing because nothing like it has happened since. Weird.
Hounddog.
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Stashing a cache in the middle of a road...any road... is realy creating a dangerous hazard for other cachers. Sure we can assume all risk when we search for cachers but encouraging responsible stashing is not such a bad idea.
I would suggest that you e-mail the owner and ask him to think it through. That way you might at least get him re thinking the placement.
On a lighter note..perhaps it won't be too long before the cache becomes so 'buried in it' no one can find it anyway.
Hounddog.
Safety while Geocaching...what do you do?
in General geocaching topics
Posted
In Australia many of the caches are in very remote places, so one has to be prepared. In my pack I carry some, all, or more than the following items.....
A Map of the area
A Compass
A 2 way Radio
Cellphone
EPURB
A Mirror
A Whistle
A very comprehensive First Aid Kit
A First Aid Manual.
Eough water/food for the trip
Some energy bars.
Wet weather poncho.
Thermal Blanket
A length of Rope
Spare GPS
Spare Batteries.
Insect Repellant
Matches
Phew! Sounds like a lot, but it isn't really.
I always tell people where I am going and my ETA for return.
Other things we try to do is....
Be aware of Cellphone coverage (if any) in the area.
Take note of weather reports and do go if there is danger of, storms or bushfire.
Of course, most of this is just plain commonsense.
Hounddog