Caching in Toowoomba

Easter Monday, April 21, 2014

Remember my story: The other side of geocaching...?  If you don't, go back and read the post first, because this is following up on it.  If you do remember then you will know that I have an 'old' friend in Toowoomba with whom I dearly wanted to catch up after many, many years.  As she is also into geocaching it was going to be a very happy day: catching up with each other's past years and throwing in a few hours of caching later in the day.  How good is that???

I won't bore you with the first part, the catching up, but will dive straight into the caching bit.  Here we go:

Loaded

As usual I always forget to take photos in the beginning, so none of this one.  The cache was hidden in full sight and well-made.  It was a quick find and I also gave it a favourite.

Turntable

On to the turntable...

A railway turntable is a device for turning railroad rolling stock, usually locomotives, so that they can be moved back in the direction from which they came. 

This cache is situated near a railway museum, DownsSteam where friend Patricia works as a volunteer.

It's somewhere on the fence

The real turntable is to be found behind the bushes

Train Spotting

Naturally this cache is also part of the museum series and also placed by Patricia herself.

The museum entry. Closed for the day,
but we had a good look around beforehand.

The cache in situ.  A clever little hide.

We then looked for a cache called: Graveyard Series 1, but even with the help of pictures could not be found, as was the case with Gotta Cache Em All #86.  The latter was known to Patricia, but seemed to have disappeared.  There was only one possible hiding place which was empty.  It's at a children's playground underneath one of the play stations, with which I do not quite agree.

Then we hit a series of caches that we did find.  We were on a roll...

Mel's Graduation

An easy magnetic one.

Up the Garden Path

Another magnetic one, which I particularly favour.
It's one for the more experienced cachers. ;-)

Laurel Bank

Laurel Bank had nothing to do with a bank, but everything with a flight of stairs.  An easy find and soon logged.  This cache was in a delightful park where the bushes were trimmed and had a different function...

Laurel Bank

Can you spot the funny millipede with shoes?

The seats of a train...

...with Thomas the Tank Engine in the front

Lizard at Newington

The name gives it away, but can you spot the little critter?

Not an easy find amongst all those trees...

Confused?

This cache was placed by Patricia's son, Colin, who I have known for a while now. As you remember from above story, I didn't know he was Patricia's son... Back to the cache: this was a puzzle cache that I had already worked out at home, but since I was with Patricia we took a short cut and took it for granted that I had the correct solution (which I had, when I checked it out again at home later!)

Yes, it's somewhere in that tree, guarded by...

...this cute little possum.
Now, who's confused?

Stop and smell the roses

The last find for the day, and it was similar to an earlier bench type of cache hide: magnetic!

Sit down and view the beautiful rose gardens

Not the cache hiding place, but part of the beautiful park

We finished on a rather disappointing note: P Level 1 we couldn't find.  It was at a shopping centre and I attracted the attention of the security guards, who, after my explanation, were quite happy to let me go on with my search.