Enough To Drive You Batty Traditional Cache
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It has been more than 28 days since the last owner note.
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Enough To Drive You Batty
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Size: 
(micro)
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This is a small cache container. Please be sure to cover well after logging. The area, as most popular parks are, is muggle frequented. You can easily reach the cache from the path and the adjacent street.
There are toilets, covered tables, a play gym area and a service station across the road to top up anything that may need topping up.
Burdekin Park on the New England Highway in Singleton is one of the best-known parks in New South Wales. It is a park of considerable heritage value and community amenity. However, for the past seven years, it has been under siege by a very large colony of grey-headed flying foxes, which have proved to be a very difficult problem. During the night they denude trees which date back in many cases to the 1800s. These trees have heritage value and are listed in the local environment plan. The council has tried to relocate the bats away from Burdekin Park and urban areas to other places.
The menace comes to the fore on days such as Remembrance Day and more so on Anzac Day where the crowd knows in advance to be armed with umbrellas because of the probability of urination and defecation from these bats where some 5,000 people gather for the service. The council has tried many options, in close co-operation with government agencies. The council has used water spray, both with hoses and sprinklers in the trees, as well as with cherry pickers. Noise programs of various types have been undertaken, including modified lawnmowers and speakers located in the trees. Members of the public have played band music at length. Reflective materials, including CDs, have been positioned in the trees themselves. Electronic bat-scaring devices have also been used. One member of the public has used modified chainsaws to create sufficient noise. The council has tried to burn green gum trees to replicate a bushfire, but all these measures have been singularly unsuccessful. The bat colony comprises approximately 2,000 bats; it decreases during winter and increases during summer. Council and the community are protective of the bats; no-one wants to harm them. They merely want to relocate them because if the bats destroy the park, the bats will no longer have their habitat. In the end the bats will be removed, but we will lose the park as well. Some time ago 1,100 bats collapsed on a very hot day. Council called on the local fire brigade to spray the area with mist and most of the collapsed bats were revived.
The current suggested attempt to remove the bats involves using the chemical Dter, but that would cost $100,000 to $140,000 per annum because of the necessity to hire and accommodate a bat carer, hire cherry pickers at $1,200 a day, provide public liability insurance and comply with occupational health and safety provisions. These measures would be too expensive, and at its last meeting council decided to abandon all other measures and to ask the New South Wales Government for assistance.
Burdekin Park’s land, a particularly pleasant, well-maintained and shady spot in the heart of Singleton, was donated to the town by Benjamin Singleton in 1837 for usage as a market place and named in 1878 after a town benefactor. It was named Burdekin Park in 1878.
There is a historical museum, open Tuesdays from 10.00 a.m. - 1.00 p.m., as well as weekends and public holidays from 12.00 - 4.00 p.m. The building was established by Benjamin Singleton as a courthouse and gaol in 1841. It served that function until the new courthouse was erected in 1868. The portico was added in 1899 when the building became the Singleton Municipal Council Chambers (1899-1941).
The park also includes the Munro Fountain – A gift from Alexander Munro, first Mayor of Singleton, made in Glasgow 1887, the Boer War Memorial – Erected in 1903 to the memory of Trooper H.W. Waddell and the War Memorials – Erected 1925 for WW1 to current day war remembrances.
Happy caching :)
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Rnfl nf. Purfg urvtug.
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