The Elephant Graveyard Traditional Cache
fayemous65: This cache has gone missing. Due to the location and distance from home, I will not be replacing it.
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This cache is based on a local legend involving a circus, an elephant and a railway bridge. Now I'm not sure exactly which railway bridge was involved as there are 3 in the immediate area. The cache is on the road to Maffra off the Princes Highway at Stratford.
I've found a couple of different references to this story, all around the early 1950s. One is that an elephant on the back of a circus truck and hit its head on a railway bridge at Stratford and died (one variation has the poor creature being decapitated). Another version has the elephant falling off a circus train as it went over the bridge. It was buried in a nearby paddock. My parents (who have lived in East Gippsland all there lives) remember hearing this story. The most popular version is: It was from a circus which had been in Sale and the elephant was being transported on a truck. He hit his head on the bridge, fell and landed about five feet from the side of the road. The circus owner apparently went to the Stratford pub and asked if anybody wanted to earn 10 quid to bury the elephant. Joe, a regular, put his hand up. The chap paid him the 10 quid and left, so Joe turned around, kept drinking and forgot all about the elephant. The next day, the elephant was still there, so the police went to the circus owner and told him. He wasn't too happy, but he got five or six circus staff and they dug this great hole about 30 feet from the side of the road and presumably they put the elephant in it because it was never seen again. That bridge later was changed from brick and timber to concrete and that elephant is now buried under 30 feet of earth-fill used in the construction of the new bridge. Accessible from either direction, there is space to park clear of the road on either side. Please be careful if you have to cross the road as it can be very busy. Access is via the rail trail. Please be very careful when accessing the cache as there is a step up. Also, this is Australia, be aware of snakes in the warmer months. The cache is now a small Sistema, painted to suit it's surroundings. Room for some small swaps. Congratulations Pullw on FTF.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Npprff sebz gur gbc.