Round and round they go, and have done such in Australia for almost 2 centuries.
Yes I’m talking about the Windmill – an Aussie Icon seen all over Australia.
Windmill – Aussie Icon
This is one of a planned series of great Aussie Icon hunts. Travelling around Australia you undoubtedly see windmills: Dead ones, Rusted ones, High ones, Spinning ones, Coloured ones, Huge ones, all seen along the roadside, adjacent farm houses, along river banks, in gullies, in country town parks, in museums, in fact wherever…
This series of geocaches is designed to help you when travelling around Australia, by breaking up the trip, and to discover a bit of a history lesson as you seek windmills in locations with a written history of the windmill and/or local region adjacent.
It will take you from one State to another. Rather than make routes starting, going & ending nowhere in particular, I’ve decided to make all these windmill hunts start in individual states capital cities and end in the Nation’s capital; it’s my home base so I can maintain the cache. It gives you a good excuse to visit your capital. (And hit the local geocache scene too).
I’ve chosen major or popular highway routes (rather than outback exploration) that go from each state’s Capital cities to the Nation’s capital.
With each of these trips, I’ll be giving the actual coordinates of the relevant windmills along the route – you then have to visit them enroute and determine the vital statistics and any other required info at the location. This will then be put into a formula to determine the final location of the cache in the ACT Region. The final location of the cache will not be difficult or long and tedious to get to, unlike my other caches or many in the ACT. A very short walk is all that is required from a nearby carpark.
No windmills are on private farm land. All are accessible by car (no bush bashing required), they are all just a few metres off the highway, or in the centre of towns you will pass through, eg town parks. If there is limited access (to the base of the windmill) due to the time of day a park closes, I’ll mention that for the relevant windmill. All can be easily seen from road though.
Street view could be useful .........
Use that (& your time machine) and all is revealed, 100%.
In many of the windmills, you will be required to count the number of blades on the fan. This will be difficult to impossible depending on the strength of the wind.
Therefore, a digital camera IS ESSENTIAL.
Now onto this particular geocache:
BRISBANE to CANBERRA.
Windmill # 1
S 27º 33.340 E 153º 01.228
Number of blades = A, The first letter on the tail, position in the alphabet of this letter = B.
Windmill # 2
S 27º 33.923 E 152º 25.426
Number of blades = C, Animal next to windmill = D
Where D =
1 if sheep dog
2 if horse
3 if sheep
4 if cow
5 if emu
6 if kangaroo
Windmill # 3
S 27º 33.210 E 152º 01.400
Number of blades = E, number of legs for the windmill tower = F.
Windmill # 4
S 27º 34.242 E 151º 57.943
Year these windmills were named = 190G. Largest diameter = 3H (ft).
Windmill # 5
S 27º 36.500 E 151º 52.262
Number of blades = I. Number of bolts anchoring the NW leg = J.
Windmill # 6
S 30º 58.825 E 150º 14.110
Colour of blades = ?? (number of letters in word = K).
Number of sides/edges to the BIG tail = ?? (an even number, not 8). L = ?? – 1.
Colour of tower = ?? (number of letters word = M). (single word, ie not dark ..)
eg red has 3 letters – hence for red the number would = 3.
Windmill # 7
S 31º 43.050 E 148º 39.521
Year of kookaburras = 191N. Year of GC3 windmill (50m Sth) = 191P.
Windmill # 8
S 31º 43.353 E 148º 39.336
Number of blades on large windmill = Q. Number of letters in the second word written on the windmill’s tail = R.
The large fella pumped water from a bore ST0 ft deep.
Windmill # 9
S 32º 15.210 E 148º 36.139
Number of blades = U
Windmill # 10
S 32º 23.897 E 148º 49.938
Number of blades = V, Third digit in the number on the tail = W.
Windmill # 11
S 35º 23.082 E 149º 12.013
Number of blades = X, Number on tail = Y.
Note : As you approach the final windmill and the cache location, south of the village of Tharwa, BEWARE – there are a great many KANGAROOS.
Windmill # 12
S 35º 39.857 E 148º 59.321
Number of blades = Z, Number of steps on the ladder + 1 = ZZ.
CACHE LOCATION:
S 35º (B+I-Y)(E-V-J) . (C-L)(Q-C-ZZ)(K-M)
E 148º (S+A-X)(U-V+B+D) . (R-B+W)(Z-Y-K)(F+G+P-Y)
Finally, as with all windmills, a blade may fall off from time to time, and be replaced later, so, when counting the blades, please count how many SHOULD be there.
Please use the updated listing of 9 Sep 2015.