As these hides are geared to families I have put in obvious hints, so for experienced cachers I suggest avoiding the hints. Also note that there are quite a lot of trees and buildings around so for some of the hides the GPS bounces around a little before it settles
This small trail is along a walk/ride path. Some parts of the path are gravel and others are paved. The terrain is reasonably flat so suitable for all ages. You are looking for a camo'd bison at the coords listed. Please take care removing and replacing the log.
The Donaldson Creek begins west of the corner of Banksia Street and Waterdale Road Bellfield, and for more than 40 years has been piped underground down to Della Torre Crescent Ivanhoe, where it returns to its natural form. Donaldson Creek is the southern most tributary along the Darebin Creek catchment, and now serves as stormwater infrastructure servicing Ivanhoe and Bellfield.
Originally settled in the 1830s, Bellfield is a small suburb. Most people passing through it probably think it to be either a part of Ivanhoe or Heidelberg West. Directly opposite the site of what was for many years of Melbourne’s primary hospital facility for the repatriation of military veterans, Bellfield has seen the deaths and burials of more Australian military personnel (albeit usually retired) than many of the battlefields they fought on. Indeed, despite attempts to trace the naming of the area to Bell Street (which runs along its northern border), or to local settlers named Bell (there were none), the melancholy truth is that Bellfield is named for the all-too-frequent tolling of funeral bells at the large military cemetary once located there.
The cemetary has long since been relocated, after the shift in burial trends following World War Two, when the view from the hospital of the last resting places of their mates was deemed too upsetting for patients. (This, in turn, is a reflection of the slow process of marginalisation endured by Melbourne’s gothic culture that began with the death of Batman in 1839.) The land where the graves of veterans once lay is now parks and residences, and few if any of the current residents of the suburb known anything about this forgotten chapter of Bellfield’s history.
Fewer still are aware of the area’s use as the site of a temporary incarceration of Nazi war criminals after World War Two, the down under equivalents of Von Braun and his ilk. Although the escape of one of these criminals, Dr Heinrich Lantz, in 1952 was a scandal at the time, the incident is today commemorated only by nearby Donaldson’s Creek, which was named for the guard who pursued Lantz along its length, and whom Lantz killed before apparently drowning in the waters of Darebin Creek himself. Today the erstwhile prison is the site of a local council depot, and the murder long forgotten.