This GPS cache was located in the Lane Cove National Park, in
the lower-north suburbs of Sydney, NSW, Australia. It was
Australia's first cache, planted 18th May, 2000. It has now become
a "virtual cache" because of its unfortunate position (please read
below!!!). DO NOT GO TO THE EXACT SPOT. There is nothing to see,
and with the cache removed, and 7-metre accuracy, I can't even
recognize the exact spot myself.
Note that it is illegal to plant caches in national parks.
Something which should be obvious, but the sort of people who would
hang around a newsgroup like sci.geo.satellite-nav are not
necessarily experts at the bleeding obvious, unlike Sybil (ref:
Fawlty Towers).
This spot was chosen because it was believed to be remote and
uninteresting, so that no-one would ever stumble on it by mistake.
Unfortunately, life isn't that simple. Some places in the park have
been designated as remote places suitable for growing rare plants.
I managed to place mine where they were growing Darwinia Biflora.
Secondly, people normally stick to the walking tracks (as they are
supposed to), rather than heading into the scrub. So placing the
cache there provides unexpected attention to some normally
undisturbed scrub. Thirdly, your shoes carry weeds from one place
to another, and with cache hunters arriving from unexected
directions, this causes unexpected problems. Fourthly, during
bushfire season, backburning may be done, and the rangers need to
know of unexpected people before they commit homicide! :-)
However, history can't be changed, and these are the coordinates
of Australia's first geocache, and people still regularly go to it.
Some consider it to be the Mecca of Australian geocaching, and
indeed, it was the site chosen for the Australian gathering of the
10 year anniversary of geocaching.
I think there are a number of entrances to the National Park,
but the one I used was at S33 47.5649 E151 09.3768. As of 2010, it
costs $7 to enter the national park with your car. There are
toilets and BBQ facilities in the park. I do hope that if you visit
the park, you go to some of the nice areas instead of just the
cache. The cache was deliberately hidden in a non-descript area and
I hope this is not your only impression of the park!
The cache's position was averaged for about 30 minutes so has an
estimated accuracy of 7m.
Since this cache is now virtual, please email me with the
answers to the following questions:
1. How close can you get to GZ without leaving the track that
goes around it? [hint - this also doubles-up as an incentive to
stay on the walking track, because that's where the answer is, not
GZ]
2. Nearby (S33 47.225 E151 08.801) is a set of stone steps that
take you from the nearby road to the path that passes GZ. How many
steps are there at this location?
Please do not put the answer to these questions in the log,
otherwise I will encrypt the log. Also, since most people will get
the answer right, if you don't receive a reply from me within 24
hours, you can assume that you are right and log the visit.
