Flight
You can fly Buffalo in any wind direction as long as it is fairly light. In summer the wind is generally N-NW in the Ovens Valley and there is usually a light wind blowing up the gorge when the sun is out and the wind is light. This makes it 'on' at takeoff on a large percentage of days, but don't be surprised if you find yourself drifting away from the mountain while thermalling, or landing in a SW wind! On strong days the thermals blast through at 18-25 knots or more, this indicates lift of 1000+/min and comparable sink. The worst winds are probably South Easterlies which roll around from the right and can produce some radical turbulence out from takeoff.
The XC potential is very good. (eg. the 1988 World championships were held here). To the North the ridge peters out at Myrtleford, 18kms away. South, the valley disappears after 16 kms into rugged country with no landing areas. West, you could fly over the plateau into the next valley, but it can be difficult to get there. One direction is east, over Bright and the Tawonga Gap and onto Mt Beauty and Mt Bogong, but this requires a lot of height. Other directions include flying straight up the Kiewa Valley towards Albury, or up the valley past Myrtleford and then out into the flatlands towards Benalla.
Ref: vhpa.org.au/Sites/Mt Buffalo.html
The Cache
This letterbox cache will allow you to see where Randolph went on his cross country glide (and which tree he got stuck in!)
You don't have to go to the starting co-ordinates (unless you want to see if Randolph is there!)
Randolph said to tell you that on average (he was zipping all over the place) he went about 15.3 km in a rough direction of 327.3 on his compass
(but then he did end up in a tree!)
If you find that a bit inaccurate, Randolph mentioned that there is another way to get to his tree.
"Get all these local cachers together so they can watch me land", he said, handing me a list.
"I don't know any of these people, who are they?"
"Oh the names have been scrambled a bit, you will work it out!"
Well, I tried, but only a few could I get. I hope you have better luck working out where to go.
Use marked letters for final co-ordinates. (Note: numbers have been removed from the names)
Don't forget the clue for Randolph's final.
Randolph has produced 10 tokens that go with his caches for any cachers who find the matching caches.
When you find the caches, PM me your address, and Randolph will post the ones you have earned out to you.
This is the only way you can get one of Randolph's tokens.
The caches that presently have tokens are: 01 Treeclimber, 02 Vampire Hunter, 04 Pirate's Treasure, 05 Shred the Trails, 09 Thirsty work, 10 Rat Hoppet, 11 Ready Aim Fire, 13 Hang Glider, 14 Winton Racer, and 15 The Final.