The Village of Tuppal Mystery Cache
Hidden : 10/17/2011
Difficulty:
1.5 out of 5
Terrain:
2 out of 5

Size: Size: small (small)

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Geocache Description:


The Village of Tuppal


Welcome to my 98th cache hide...

This was a location initially found by accident on the internet. I was browsing around Google maps looking for crown land to hide a cache at in the area. A map of roads and lots came up where i knew there should be none.



Headed out to the location thinking I might find some trace of an old town. After getting to GZ, I could find no trace of anything really old. I did find the object in the image below, but I think it is newer, infact i'm pretty sure it is.



Here is another pic of the general area near GZ. No really big old trees, but no sign of a town either.



So I hid a cache and decided to go home and do a bit of research. Below is what I found.





There was indeed a "Village of Tuppal" created / declared in 1867. I have included below the newspaper header and article where the information is. The scan of the article was sourced from an database of digitized and archived newspapers.





The research I did was interesting. There was indeed a town in this location. The town was known as either "Tuppal Village or The Village of Tuppal". The current town of "Tuppal" is about 5 kms further NW towards Deniliquin. There are not many houses there, and the town shares its postcode 2174 with Tocumwal, Pine Lodge.

This is an extract from the Riverina Coaching website showing that there was a coach run from Deniliquin to Tocumwal. The extract talks about a hotel called the "Tuppal Creek Hotel" which was located in "The Village of Tuppal".

Tuppal: Located twenty miles from Deniliquin. This early hotel was a change station on the coach run to Albury. Coaches changed horses four times a week. (twice a week service). In 1894, "Coaches call at the hotel regularly for Deniliquin, Jerilderie, Tocumwal, Corowa, Berrigan, and Mulwala."

The total traveling distance of this route was 41 miles. The towns the coaches stopped at were Tocumwal, Tuppal Creek Hotel, Tuppal Station, Pine Lodge Hotel and the Deniliquin Terminus. Have a read below on the chronology of the service.

Chronology of Coach Run Tocumwal to Deniliquin

The earliest reference to the coach run in 1861 and the last reference is 1912. The Village of Tuppal was also on the Deniliquin to Tocumwal mail run. So why did the Village disappear and not become a bigger town like Tocumwal, Finley, etc. For that, I will have to do some sit down research at the Council Archives in Berrigan or Deniliquin.



So, being a Mystery or Unknown cache, how do you solve the coordinates. Well, you don't, the coordinates take you to the cache location where you can sign the log. Nice and easy, and there are, of course, no additional logging requirements. However, if you want to, Take a walk from the cache location to the additional waypoint, and see if you can find any remnants of the old village. Walk in a bigger radius if you want to. If you do, please, if you want to, post a pic of yourself with the artifacts if you find any. So i guess it is a bit of project cache to try and uncover any evidence of the town / village. Many eyes looking is better than one set.

The cache itself is a 600ml plastic screw top jar. Should be nice and waterproof. Please hide as found. Initial contents are a logbook and some toy swaps for the kids.


As always with caches near water and roads, be careful, especially with the kiddies. As this is a rural cache, BE VERY WARY OF SNAKES. THE GRASS HERE WAS LONG WHEN PLACING, SO I HAVE NOT RECOMMENDED IT FOR KIDS. Importantly, have fun.

Additional Hints (No hints available.)



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