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Do water birds use canoes? Multi-Cache

Hidden : 4/29/2015
Difficulty:
1.5 out of 5
Terrain:
2 out of 5

Size: Size:   regular (regular)

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Geocache Description:

The Wimmera River brings life to the region. It is unusual in that unlike most rivers it does not drain to the sea. Instead it starts in the Pyrenees near Elmhurst and after passing through Horsham heads north to Lake Hindmarsh and on the rare occasions that there is enough water it flows into Lake Albacutya.


Along the way it provides essential water to plant and animal life. River red gums line the banks, some many hundreds of years old. The water also brings an abundance of birdlife. This cache will give you an opportunity to appreciate both.

GZ is at s 36° 43.ABC  E 142° 10.DEF

The posted coordinates will take you the double canoe tree. Use the information there to solve A, B and C.

A = How many letters are in the surname of the family that gave the tree to the Wimmera River Improvement Committee

B = Take the year that the tree fell over and add all of the digits together and add those digits together again until you end up with a single number.

C = The last digit of the year the tree was moved to its present site.

For DEF continue onto S 36° 43.832  E 142° 10.505 where you can see the range of birdlife that is attracted to the water in the river and the wetlands that were established to collect and filter town run-off.

D = Add together the number of kinds of Lorikeets and the number of kinds of Ibis.

E = There is only one kind of Coot. How many letters are there in the first part of its name.

F = The number of birds with ‘Black’ in their name.

When we got a slightly larger than normal trackable we searched for somewhere local to release it. Alas, all the local caches were too small.  Horsham badly needed a medium sized cache. Well here it is.  The cache is a 1L camouflaged container.

Please be careful of snakes in the summer.

While flooding is rare, do not attempt to access the cache if the boardwalks are flooded. The boardwalk close to the weir and bird sign is more likely to be flooded. Another boardwalk 500m further west is at a slightly higher elevation and may provide access if the water flow is only a couple of inches above the first boardwalk. Major flooding has occurred in 2011, 2016 and 2022.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Onfr bs gerr

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)