Mar Geocaching

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March 30, 1:00 PM Geocaching - Ballina, NSW, Australia

I made a quick grab of a cache on the path near the Byron Bay lighthouse. I didn't need a cache for this day, but I knew the cache was on the way back from our trip to the lighthouse.


March 29, 11:00 am Geocaching - Ballina, NSW, Australia

I needed to find a cache on this date and decided to search for one in Bicentennial Park in Ballina. This turned out to be a quick find.


While signing the logbook I also dropped off a Travel Bug that I had brought with me from Canada. I have now found caches on all the days of March except one (March 6). The Travel Bug is one I retrieved in southern Alberta and then learned that it was involved in a global race. The race involves about 50 TBs and has an elaborate set of rules for the TBs to accumulate points while being moved from one geocache to another. Bringing it to Australia will add quite a few points for that TB. Click on Madhatrace for details on this race. The name of the TB I took to Australia is Whale Tail. The games we play!


March 25, 9:30 am Geocaching - Ballina, NSW, Australia

On our way to the Sunday markets at Bangalow, we stopped off at Lake Ainsworth to try  to find a geocache along the west side of the lake. We were familiar with this area and the trail system along the lakeshore so were able to park only about 60 metres from the cache site. I had no difficulty making the find.


This was my first find for the March 25 date, and my 5th find in Australia.


March 24, 11:00 am Geocaching - Ballina, NSW, Australia

I found the cache I was hoping to find at Australia's easternmost point. It took a little longer than I expected as the hint about what to look for (under small rocks in a crevice in a large rock) should have read (under a rock beside a larger rock).


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This was also a needed find for the date March 24. This cache is now my Furthest East from the Prime Meridian find, nosing out the other Australian finds on this trip.


March 22, 10:00 am Geocaching

We walked about a kilometer to a cache site along the Richmond River. This one gave me some difficulty but I finally found the container hidden under a flat rock.



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This completed my searching for March 22. All three finds that I have logged so far have been set out by the same person.



March 21, 5:00 PM Geocaching - Ballina, NSW, Australia

I then made a quick trip to look for a geocache as I needed a "find" for this date. My first attempt turned out to be a failure. I was unable to find it, and did notice that it was last found on January 31. I will monitor this site while we are here to see if there is any further information on it. 

I then drove a short distance to another cache and this time I was successful. I also retrieved another TB which I will drop off once I return home.


March 20, 10:00 am Geocaching - Ballina, NSW, Australia

I have found my first geocache in Australia! I have also found my first cache for March 20. According to the statistics compiled automatically by the geocache website geocaching.com this find also became the furthest find from home (12,641.408 km), the furthest South (S 28 52.040), and the furthest east from the East from the prime meridian (E 153 35.592). Not bad for a single find.

I think was the also the location where I first saw a whale - it was near the mouth of the Richmond River . I thought it was a dolphin but there was a local environmentalist at the lookout and he explained that it was a whale (we really could only see the spout as it exhaled). That was likely about 25 years ago.

Here are 2 photos of the cache site:

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The dense vegetation makes for interesting searches.


March 12, 11:20 am  Geocaching

I decided to pick up a cache in the Crowsnest Pass area. I needed one for this date, and now I can take a bit of a break as I have caches for March 13 - 19.


March 11, 12:40 PM  Geocaching

A few days ago I had a brief look at a geocache near Grassy Lake but walked away from it as soon as I saw how deep the snow was in the cache area. Then this morning I noticed that someone had found it on March 9, so I decided to try it myself. I was hoping that I would be able to follow the footprints right to the cache. Nope. All of the snow was gone.


This turned out to be a real challenge as there was a large rock pile near the coordinates. After giving that a thorough search I then tried looking at some of the rocks near the pile. This eventually did the trick. This brings my total of dates with at least one find up to 250, only 116 more to go.


March 10, 11:40 am  Geocaching

While looking at the geocaching map this morning I noticed a new cache had appeared in Claresholm. Since I needed a cache for this date I jumped in the truck and headed off.

This turned out to be an FTF (First to Find). I am making good progress with finding caches for dates that have no finds on them. This brings my total of such dates to 249, up from 224 at the start of the year.


March 9, 10:30 am  Geocaching

I returned to the same area that I was at yesterday as there was still one geocache to search. 

This was a relatively easy find, thus filling in another date on the grid for days of the year. This was my 25th find for 2012. There are still 10 days in March without a find, but I am running out of places to search that are within a reasonable driving distance. 


March 8, 11:00 am  Geocaching

There are 3 geocaches SE of Taber that I have yet to try to find. Two of these appear to be straight-forward, but the third is in a group of rocks and may be more challenging.  I drove near the rocky one and noticed that it was still snow covered and impossible to search at the moment. I then drove over to one of the others and made a quick find.

  • GC36ZAK - Mennonite Brethren Cemetery

This was another date that needed a find. The next 4 dates also need a find. I failed to log a find for March 6 as the weather was too bad to venture out. Hopefully I will log a find on that date next year. The real challenge will be most of the dates in December and January. The find today was #1230.


March 3, 11:30 am  Geocaching

I drove to Newell Lake near Brooks this morning to look for a fairly new cache. I was the 4th person to log a find for this cache. The snow added to the difficulty but I finally found it.

This was another date that needed a find. The next open date is now March 6.

I also picked up a Travel Bug that is in a race with about 20 other TBs from the Medicine Hat region. There is a complicated set of rules (see Madhatrace.blogspot.com ). There is more to this geocaching than meets the eye. I will be keeping my eye on Whale Tail this year.


March 2, 10:10 am  Geocaching

I drove to Cardston this morning to look for a cache that had been replaced with a new one (I guess the original one disappeared.).


This was my first find for this date of the year. 

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March 1, 10:20 am Geocaching 

Another cache in the LETHBRIDGE series appeared yesterday. By waiting until this morning I was able to fill in one more date in my yearly calendar grid. There are still 14 empty days for March.

  • GC34260 - T
© Dale Burnett 2012