Geocaching a way of life

South African Trip 2009, caching and other things

2009-02-22T17:08:00.006Z

February 1st 2009.

We had all our bags packed and was ready for the drive down to Dublin Int Airport for the long haul flight to Johannesburg Int Airport, via Paris, Charles De Gaul for a 5 hour lay over arriving Johannesburg at about 10:30 the next day. Flying into Paris i was delighted to have seen the Eiffel tower from the air, as we had never seen it yet. It was the longest 5 hour's i can remember. Dublin Airport before our trip started
Charles De Gaul Airport

February 2nd 2009

After finding our luggage we made for the rental car section, got us a zoety little car and we left for my brothers place where we were to spend the evening before departing for Durban, caching along the way.

February 3rd 2009
Leaving early this morning for what was to be a long 9 hour drive down to the coastal city of Durban, our old home town. The trip should normally take 6 hours, but that's only when you don't have to find Plastic containers.
GC1HCCM- Heidelberg Konsentrasiekampbegraafplaas
It was great to see the sun again and so hot it was, in N/Ireland the sun is not out that often and its never really hot when it does come out.

I was in the passenger seat while Sam did the driving
Sunflowers on the side of the road

GC17F5D-Makiti
Another great little cache and dash next to the freeway on the way down to Durban, there is a little coffee shop there if you have the time to stop and relax, unlike us we had plastic containers to find so did not have time

sometimes one has to return to the cache to enjoy the view

2009-01-18T11:12:00.004Z

Having been to this cache previously in October when we had heavy snowfall, the visibility was about 50m. Having arrived at the cache site we battled to locate the cache, and after phoning the owner to confirm, it was in fact missing, so we had to leave and wait for the cache to be replaced.

So returning in December to drop off the cats before we left for London i had to return to do this cache. When i arrived at the site it was once again misty with no visibility, but the cache was replaced and it had to be found, plus there was a coin in there i wanted to collect. As i retrieved the container the wind picked up and would you believe blew the mist clear and made for a very clear moment, so i made this video to remember what it looks like at this place, and i must say its really lovely.

Our 600th cache find, it had to be a micro

2009-01-18T10:36:00.004Z

This was our 600th find. We were getting ready for our holiday to London for 2 weeks and had to find our 600th, so after dropping off the cats at the cattery there were a few caches to find in the area. A lovely part of the world to be finding little plastic containers in.

Caching in the snow, a new experience

2009-01-17T21:28:00.003Z

This was really cold, i tried to drive my van up the road to the cache, but could not make it up as my wheels were slipping all the time so decided itd better to leave the car and take a walk up to the cache. The walk was not long maybe about 250m but it was oh so cold. We found the cache and then decided it was time to build a snowman, so this video is mostly about us having fun in the snow.

A week leading up to the Mega Event

2008-07-15T14:58:00.006+01:00

UK'S FIRST MEGA EVENT 3rd AUGUST 2008

12 Days to go before we leave on our week's leave to the Scottish Highlands and then to the UK's first ever MEGA EVENT. I have been doing the preparation for the trip up to the event and on the trip alone there are about 61 caches for us to find, thats not including ones we find while we are staying at various locations, that still has to be done. The Mega Event is to take place in The Cedar Court Hotel in Harrogate N/Yorkshire on the 3rd August, so far there is rumored to be over 900 attending so this could quite possibly be the biggest event in Europe.

We catch the ferry at Larne, N/Ireland for the 1:30min trip to Troon, Scotland in the fast ferry. Arriving at Troon we have a trip of 270km to drive to Invermoriston, right beside Loch Ness, well almost. Spending 3 nights there and doing the tourist thing and of course loads of caching we leave for Richmond, another long drive.

Invermoriston to Richmond via Edinburgh

The first leg of the journey to Edinburgh is about 266km long, when we arrive there it will only be a brief stop and we are hoping to meet up with fellow South African cachers, Discombob and Goofster. From Edinburgh it's another whopping 240km to Richomond, so by far the longest day of the trip, which will take us the whole day as we have plenty caches to do and only so much time to do it in. In Richmond we are staying with a mate of mine for 2 nights before we leave for Harrogate and the Mega Event.

Richmond to Harrogate

From Richmond to Harrogate is a quick 65km, but as usual there are caches to be done and that could take awhile.
http://www.megaevent.org.uk/.

25 July 2008
With 2 more days to go the excitement is mounting. All the caches are loaded onto my 60cs, I just have to still load them onto my Nuvi. My pocket queries are done, just to load onto my pda. So we are all set to go almost. Sam will do the packing while i finish my last day of work.

27 July 2008, 07:30
Far to early for this. We got up at 03:30 to leave at 04:30, an hours drive to the ferry port of Larne. We are on board now on our way to Troon, relaxing sipping coffee and feeling a little sleepy with the motion of the ship as it makes its way wonder to bonnie Scotland. The weather is cool but thick with fog.

2008-06-18T16:09:00.000+01:00

18:06:2008
Having recently moved to N/Ireland caching has taken on a different meaning for us, as it's now a means of exploring the Island as the locals know best.
We arrived in September 2008, to be greeted with lots of rain and wind, go figure. I had already done a pocket query so that i could have all the caches at hand. It was not for 2 weeks before we got round to finding our first Irish cache, in a forest just like I have always wanted to find a cache. The walk was a lovely a circular route that took us past one of the areas of early civilization here in Coleraine. Finding the container was relatively easy, did the swap thing and we made our way back to home.
It was interesting caching by public transport as you could only get so close and would then have to hoff it to the location, it was useful as we had no alternative. It was not for another two weeks until i found work which came with a company car that we found our next cache. Needless to say the day i got the job and the van i was off to find another cache, this one was called the Irish Pyramids, strange as that sounds here is this pyramid in the middle of a small forest just outside of this small town. Im still not sure of its significance though.

2007-08-02T16:59:00.000+01:00

28 July 2007 Newcastle caching weekend

Squirrel and i left Durban at about 06:20 to try and be at World view GC104CB (Hilton area) at sunrise, we arrived shortly after sunrise and im glad we did as it was rather spectacular, it was freezing im not sure how cold but i guess about 6' deg. It was a fantastic view, we arrived not really knowing how cold it was gonna be but we found out soon enough. This was the location where the Voortrekkers used to move there oxen along down into Petermaritzburg. A lovely drive through some tree's where people walk their dogs and just seem to relax. We took Girry with us as we always do and he seemed to enjoy it. This was a micro cache but one of those vicious small micros but i love them allot of people dont loke micros but i dont mind. We found it without to much hassels pretty easy as we knew what to look for and it could only be on certain areas. We signed the log and i had to try and roll it up and out it back, which proved more difficult that o thought as my hand's were shivering and they were cold which made it rather difficult to roll up again.
Once it was put back we jumped in the car and headed for Newcastle.

Tim and Sam
Girry looking on

Tim trying to roll up the log sheet

Sam signing the log sheet

Arriving Newcastle
We arrived in Newcastle at about 09:30 settled down had breakfast and just chilled with the folks until later on in the afternoon when we decided to go grab a couple of new caches that have sprung up since we were here last, thanks to Wazat. We left at about 15:00 to go place a cache at the M.O.T.H. club in a very cool place for people to find. It has since been published but can only be found on a Saturday btw 12:00- 15:00 so we will see who finds it first probably Wazat.

Monte Stanco Shell Hole GC14VB6

Inside the shell holeInside the shell hole

From here we left for Ngogo where we would find Crash Cache GC13D9H and then a short way away to April fools cache GC11VRF.

Crash cache was a FTF (first to find) for us, i took my dad with and he seemed to enjoy this as it was the first time he accompanied us on a cache hunt. We found it pretty easily as it is basically a road side cache, on the other side of the cache was this old car that was in a accident many years ago and was now just left on the side of the road. It is lovely out here nothing but the road and wide open country side. We dropped off 2 coins for the cachers in this area to enjoy as they dont really get to see coins in their caches. All in all a great little cache.
Sam and dad with the little Lada in the back, our cache mibile

the car in question
the coin making an appearence.

Off we went to April Fools Cache GC11VRF
On the way to April fools cache

We arrived there with little fuss there were 2 guys sitting on some railings but we retreved the cache without hassle signed the log dropped off a coin and i then had to hide it in another place as the other spot was abit to in the open, so in a now more secure spot we left and went home. It was another cool road side cache a quick and easy grab, as stated by another cacher there was a decomposing cow at the cache site but fortunately when we arrived there it was all decomposed up, so no smell.

29 July 2007

09:00 We met Wazat and family for coffee at Geckos they are relatively new cachers here in Newcastle and it was his caches that we did while up in Newcastle, we had a great chat showed him all the coins i have been collecting for Ireland and we left there at about 12:00 to go pick up the old lady and old man to go to the Pines cache which is actually a nursery but since the new owners took over it has apparently become very run down GC13D97 This was a quick cache found the container in a couple of min signed the log took photos and we were off. There were a couple of cute bunnies with little bunnies but i think they were getting cold as the wind was blowing
the swart family
the bunnys

From here we quickly went to my cache Newcastle view to do some maintenance show Girry around and we were off to the house for lunch and then the trip back to Durban
We left for Durban at about 14:30 we stopped halfway to Ladysmith to hide another cache on and old bridge of historical value i have always wanted to drop one here cause it's such a lovely bridge.
Hime Bridge

Having done that took some pictures were arrived back in Durban at about 19:00 after a long drive back in the little cache mobile.

2007-04-18T19:54:00.000+01:00

4 February 2007
Attack 2 on Twin Peaks cache.

Well Brett and i decided to try this one again i had tried the previous month and battled so with my new knowledge we set off to get this one. We got to the first point where we thought we could get access to waypoint 2, but no luck, a few phone calls later and we were on our way.
We drove down a no entry sighn but later found out that the residents had put it up to stop people from just driving down the road. The gate was locked that used to give access to the area for rock climbers so we did not feel bad about jumping over the fence. A lovely short walk of about 180m took us to the spot where the 1st waypoint was. What lovely views over the valley to look at while searching for a waypoint. Needless to say the waypoint was missing so we had to phone a friend to get the waypoint, but still a lovely walk.

Waypoint 1 was a quick walk but also the waypoint was missing so we phoned a friend who then gave us the final co-ords for this sortie. So off we went parked the car and started walking. The gps showed only about 250m but what it does not show was how the path winds so the walk ends up been alot longer.
We got to about 25-30m but the arrow showed us to go to the left and all there was, was bush so we walked a little more until we eventually got to the river below, and as we were walking we noticed the arrow now pointing in the opposite direction right up against a cliff face so we knew we had to go back up, no fun that was. It was hot i was swetting, we did not bring water so it was not fun.

Enjoying the cool water

We started up again untill we got to this rock face with a overhang, and we knew we were now at the right place. As we started looking for the cache container i noticed a little bit of green cloth sticking out about 2.5m up from the floor. A quick scramble up the rock face and we had the cache in hand.

TB Jenosity retrieved from the cache who had been there for over a year.

Another coin going in it's place

I was glad to have done this cache because i do not like doing caches of this nature, especially here in Durban in summer it's just to darn hot. A pleasant cache none the less

2007-02-03T16:08:00.000Z

21-01-2007

A day out caching with Team Wild,Geomerlin,Windpomp and myself Batsgonemad

We left early in the morning myself and Geomerlin after he sorted out his baby to meet up with Team Wild and Windpomp. We finally left in Wild Teams Discovery for our first cache Twin Peaks GCQWB6 not the easiest to takel but it was early and thought we could wax it in about 2 hours,but alas it was not to be. Can you imagin 2 published way point in a nature reserve with no parking co-ords and surrounded by houses, not an easy task. We arrived at the first parking area and started walking one way only to discover we were going the wrong way because we were following the wrong co-ords, having sorted that out we were on our way about 2km along out gps showed ud to we were 1.5km from the cache and had to make a 90deg left turn, hmm easy enough NOT there was a huge gorge between us and way point 2. We had to walk all the way back to the car and try to locate a access point to waypoint 2 that took us about 45min with no luck so we gave it up and chased our 2nd cache

Here above is a picture abit small though of where we went insearch of the the waypoints.
We then dicided to try Nqutu cache GCJM8V. Well here we also first took the wrong path but a blessing in disguise as we met up with a Zebra who was rather tolorant of us and thus we could get rather close to him/her
So off we went in the other direction and before long we were down in the gourge at the river where the container was hidden, the hint said "At co-ord, find large square rock, with angled rock infront with pebble eroded hole. Stand on large square rock, turn 90 deg to the left +- 10m high on valley wall in front of you is a small triangular space in rocks=cache. Happy hunting" We if it had not been for that hint you would not have found it as the reception is very dodgey down there. We found it with little effort and it had some lovely goddies in there which we traded for other items.The cache location and a coin that i dropped in the cache. The photo below is looking in the other direction
We left to do another cache not too far away called The Boneyard GCZEWQ This is a cache location that overlooks a lovely gourge called Krantzkloof nature reserve and and also where rock climbers come to climb the gourge. The view is majestic and the hight to the bottom of the gourge about 80m. To the one side, one can also find a lovely waterfall abit of a walk away.
Thats me looking over the edge
Thats me stuck to the fence by my caribiner
A close up and you can see Girry my giraffe TB
Next we went to the bottom of the gorge to do Knysna Louirie GCZV96. A lovely walk through a rain forest type area, it's lush green foliage and damp atmosphier make for a great walk, we rushed this one alittle as Geomerlin had to get home to help his wife look after their baby, but fun was had non the less, he also picked up his first TB since joining this crazy game.

This was a terrible day for us as we spent most of our time running around trying to do Twin Peaks, but fun was had. When i arrived back home i uploaded my track log into mapsource and realised we had come with in 26m of waypoint one without even knowing it. It was a very hot day too and doing long walks in a nature reserve is not that pleaseant in the heat.

Team Wildteam without the rest of the team

FUN WAS HAD BY ALL AND WE FOWED TO RETURN TO CONQUER THE TWIN PEAKS.

2006-10-02T16:32:00.000+01:00

2006/09/22 Long weekend away camping at Glengarry

I organised to get off work early under the guise of going to court, so i ducked the office at 10:45 already to drop off the cats and come home to pack.
With everything sorted Sam and i left for Glengarry at about 15:00 the trip about 180km via Howick, Rosetta and our final destination.

On the way to Glengarry we stopped at the Mandela monument where Nelson Mandela was finally arrested after been on the run for several months. Here Sam and i decided to Hide a micro cache for people to find and learn about this historic site. GCYF79 Mandelas last moments of freedom. We wanted to hide a cache here for a long time and fortunatly for us we did as another cacher Noddy was going to do the same and almost did stop but decided against it, and as luck would have it we were going camping with them.

Arriving at the campsite we drove to where we thought the guys were camping but could not find them, unbeknown to us there was another site, we eventually found them and started to set up our tent and settled in for the evening. It was a warm late afternoon and i had forgoten to put ice in the cooler so all we had was warm beer, not good i tell you, fortunatly Rodney had some ice in his cooler. We got the fire going, sat around the fire and drank some wine and beer.

The Saturday morning was spent chasing after sheep, having lunch before going to Highmoor nature reserve for a little walk or so i thought. Having forgotten to pack the right shoes i was so proud of Sam because she had to walk in her sandles, as it is she does not really like walking all that much but she does it partly also because she knows i like hiking, she soon tell's me when she has had enough. On the walk you pass 3 lovely trout fishing dams, so if you like fishing this seems like a good place to come fishing.

We stopped a short while past the 3rd dam and turned around to wait for the others at the 2nd dam.

This is the point where we turned around, note in the back ground you can see Giants castle if you look carefully you can see his head nose and chin leading down to his body on the right.
We walked back to the 3rd dam where we decided to rest awhile ans soak our feet in the water.

It's here that i decided to have a swim, all i can say the water was cold, ice cold, and that with no cloths on. It's a funny thing i love taking my cloths off in the Drakensburg, i suppose it's a sence of freedom out in the open with no one around, well so i thought as i got into the water this elderly couple walked past and the old man stopped to take photos of flowers or something with me stuck in the water and starting to lose feeling in legs, i could only manage to go waist deep, the water was just too cold, but fun non the less.
Having done that which made me feel so much more refreshed we continued out journey back to the 2nd dam to wait for the others taking photos of flowers ourselves. It's lovely walking in the Drakensburg so peacefull, quiet and enjoying the nature around you. It was an extremely hot day and i dont recomend taking beer along as refreshments, water is the only substence you need. Arriving back at the 2nd dam there were a couple of people trout fishing and it seemed like a whole lot of fun, and very relaxing, i like the boat thingy people get into to go onto the dam.

Just one of the many types of wild flowers growing in the burg as the Drakensburg is affecinatly known. When the others finally met up with us we headed back for where the car was parked, just before arriving at the cars Rodney and i placed a cache near a waterfall for people to find.

GCYF8F Rock with a view nice location well hidden no one will find it by accident.

The cache owner sitting by his cache location.
I need to finish this blog so i'm gonna try this now.
We hid the cache in a very secure spot and to date it has still not been found(2006-12-02) it will be awhile before anybody finds it.

After we placed the cache we all headed back to camp for a afternoon of wine,song, 30 sec's and Rodney's folks. All i can say Rodneys dad put up abit of a protest but in the end they enjoyed it, i cant remember who won, wait let me think no one cause we never got to finish the game.
That night we decided to because Rodney , Lee and her hubby are into golf we thought we would play night golf 1 hole only. All i can say it was a whole lot of fun, a golf ball with a glow
stick inside it that glows red, 1 sand wedge btw us, plenty of longer glow sticks and of course alcohol, a very interesting combination.

2006-08-20T19:43:00.000+01:00

North Coast Caching Trip
2006/08/19

This was a late decision to go caching up the north coast of South Africa, we decided to go on Friday night primarily because we were after a UK coin that had eluded us and of course 2 FTF's. We decided to do 4 locations only as they were not to far away well if you call a 300km round trip not far away then i suppose it's not far.

We left Durban at about 10:00 for Balito and Time for Tea GCXNA6 , we arrived at The Waterberry tea garden and as we walked into the shop our sences were filled with the most delectable aroma, we had a look round and then went to find the cache, which was located outside under a tree trunk, easy find, the cache was filled with tea time goddies and 2 TB's and a coin. We took Patla Patla TB signed the log anddescovered we were not the first people to have found the cache (bummer) went in to have coffee and scones and what lovely scones they were.

From here we left for the Flagfarm Animal Farm E-I-E-I-O GCXNA9, as we arrived at the farm we were greeted by a couple of bunnies not really to friendly but they let you get close enough. We almost payed the entrance fee to get in when i decided to check the location first and found we had parked 190m to far and that the cache was not in the farm but just outside (phew saved a couple of pennies). This cache was abit of a rescue mission as the Rabbid Rooster TB which is taking part in a race needed to come back to Durban as one of the madatory pitstops was there. This cache was another easy find and was filled with goddies so we swapped a cat and placed some scrapbooking cows into the container, the cache was hidden again and off we left for the next cache. It was decided that we would come back to visit the cache location when we had kids of our own to show around.

Next cache location was the the Amatikulu nature reserve. Amatikulu GCX768

We arrived at the gate and reception only to find that it was locked up and we later found out they were on lunch, we drove in anyway and were not sure where to go so we drove around following the gps needle until we found our way. We arrived at the picnic site and discovered we were the only people there, so we quickly looked for the cache and found it, we took the UK coin, the Mosquito TB (dont ask) and removed a knife that does not belong in a cache, we dropped off two decor stamps. Now by this time a local had paddled from acros the river to greet us which we found out worked there and hires out the paddle boats R60 for the day not bad at all. We had another problem though how were we going to replace the cache with him hovering around. I know i said "you get him to stand here and talk to him while i dash to replace the cache"which is what we did, worked like a charm.

picnic areaaint this a lovely coin

This place is really beautiful, the picnic site's are lovely, under trees, close to the ocean. There is also a 6km 4x4 track which we want to come back and do in our LADA. From here we left for the Raphia palm monument

The cache was about 23km further north, we arrived at the RAPHIA PALM GCMJN7 which is a beautiful walkway covered by the raphia palm's and other trees. The palms have long stems with long leaves and are really pretty. This cache was a little confusing as we did not know where the begining or end was, because the co-ords were very out about 150m, we eventually found it but was dissapointed with the contents as this seemed to be a poorly maintained cache. We did rescue sponge bob square pants from certain bordom and will bring him back to Durban.

We left The Raphia Palm's and headed back to Durban stopping of at the BP garage for some Wilkd Bean coffee very good coffee i might add. We arrived home around 17:00 having travelled about 300km. A good day was had by Sam and i and cant wait to go caching again soooon.

2006-08-01T18:31:00.000+01:00

Sunday 2006/07/30

South Coast Meander Caching Day

Sam and i meet Whostops, his 2 kids and Part 2 of QFC In Pinetown shortly after 09:00 after haveing been at church teaching Sunday school. We left straight away for the south coast, fortunately for us Whostops had his Peugot 407 with him which made the trip comfortable, with this huge sunroof that retracts the whole length of the roof.

First stop was Sanlameer a lovely coastal town where many of our up country people come visit whilst they are on holiday. Sanlameer GCKQ78, the cache was nothing special. It was in a little cave about 3x3 m with the cache hidden right at the back behind some rocks. The cache contained the usual cache goddies. As we were arriving at the cache my wife Sam had a small mishap with a rock, she took a step and then there was nothing and hit the dirt bashing her leg, chin,elbow and whatever else made contact with the rocks.

TIM, BRANDON, SAM SANLAMEER CACHE

From here we went to SKI BOAT CLUB GCV95H not a bad one also situated along the beach the co-ords were out by abiut 7m so it made looking for the cache that much more chalenging with all the vegitation, rocks and grass. There were 5 of us looking for it so it did not take long for someone to locate it. A Micro hidden somewhere with a 7m difference not easy.

WHOSTOPS,STEPH,BRANDON,BATS,SQUIRREL

Next stop would be THE WAFFEL HOUSE (GCV8C6) which is a multi cache and you get to eat the best waffels i have ever tasted. On arrival at the cache we sat down at the table and proceeded to order, when all of a sudden Jeremy dropped the vinal blind with a craching abng that had everybody jumping in there seats and probably swearing us, but hey who cares we were having fun. Whostops found the cache and brought it to us and Brandon and i had to find the location and hide it so abit of reverse caching took place.

THE WAFFEL HOUSE.

Next stop ORIBI GORGE (GCV95D) Now this is another one of those fab caches in a sprctacular setting mixed with abit of an adrenilan rushdone with good company. Yes this is gorge swining nothing to hecktic but good clean fun. The cache is set down a rocky path covered in a green canopy of trees, the cache contained some worthwhile goodies but even if it did not the venue more than makes up for it. After finding the cache we stopped off where they do the gorge swinging to enjoy a beer and look and some people swing. I was not to happy with the price and thought one can do alot more exciting thigs with R350 like caching.

Next stop was Sophia,Nadia and Juanita's Food for Thought (GCRRN9) NOW THIS WAS A BUGGER TO FIND. It wasa nowhere near the posted co-ords but 100m away. We looked for over 30min behind every aloe tree and could not find it eventually we gave up and were leaving when Sam said lets just check this last one and low and behold there it was . It turns out somebody had moved it why i dont know but the main thing is we found it.

The cache was really dissapointing and we let the owner know who was not overly concerned as he has not found one cache and only hidden one in about 8 months, dont know why people like this play.

2006-07-24T12:48:00.000+01:00

Caching in the Midlands for the day
2006/07/17

Leaving early on Sunday morning we travelled first to Hillrest to do Sewer View (GCX20F), bit of a odd place to put a cache, but the short drive up to the cache was pleasent, found it rather quickly thanks to Noddy who was there the day before and left tyre and foot prints leading right up to the cache, so the find was quick and easy.
Nothing exciting in the cache and not entirly sure why the cache was placed there.

Then it was off to the Midlands for 3 caches, hopefully 2 FTF's. Turnng of the N3 towards Dargnel and the Lavender Co we came across the place where Nelson Mandela was arrested, which gave me the idea for a neat micro (hmmmm).

For along time now i've been wanting to see this place and it was not a dissapointment.

So off we went to the Lavender Co (GCG7AP).
Lovely place to visit all the different smells confuses the nose. Set in the country side away from the main road makes for a quiet visit.

Once there the owners have to be cosulted who will bring the cache to you. We dropped off a TB sighned the log, bought some Lavender and off we went in search of something to eat.

Sam always wanted to ride a tractor

The pit stop

the Lavender Co

Leaving the lavender Co we joined the R103 and set forth to find food, finding a delightful place, cannot remember what it was called though, we stopped ordered food and i went walk about to take some photos. The food was good, portions small and well the price large.
Leaving with our tummies full we set off to tackel Happy hill (GCX4A2). As we arrived at the location it turned out to be a guest house, after announcing ourselfes to the owner we set off looking for the cache somewhere near a fence.

Walking across a field we got to the spot at zero meters only to find ourselfs in the middle of the field and no cache. We realised that the co-ords were out and set off looking under every tree,log leaves along the fence until we found it, thank goodness, our FTF for the day. The cache itself was nothing special but the location was lovely, which is what it really is all about seeing this lovely country of ours. We dropped off a TB here and left for the next cache, That been Waterbend (GCX4A8).

Happy hill

Placing the TB

90m to go or so we thought

Arriving at Waterbend it's funny to find it on the bend of a road and it's then that you realise where the name comes from. Set off the road which one would not easily see if travelling
from Durban to Nothingham. The cache is located by a smalish waterfall between some rocks and also here the co-ords were out but looking for the most likely spot we found it, Our second FTF for the day. We took some photos and off we went to Karkloof falls to do some investigating.

Waterbend

Arriving at Howick we travelled towards the falls, turned off the main road and drove about 10km down this lovely gravel road set amoungst Sappie's plantations towards the falls. The fall's themselves are nothing short of spectacular, having had no plan to place a cache here it was decided on a inpromptue cache hidding. We hid a Micro cache with the intention of coming back to place a bigger container. After taking some photos we left for the trip home satisfied that we had, had a good day out caching.

Next trip South coast meander on the 30th July 2006